Polygamy in Bountiful, British Columbia

The libertarian in me doesn't understand pologamy laws. If a man can support multiple females and he finds multiple females that want to enter in to such an arrangement with him, then good for him. I don't understand why the government has any business getting involved. If you take out the concept of marriage isn't it legal for a single man to date multiple women at the same time (of course they may not know about each other). I can only guess that these laws were championed by women, to try to protect their exclusivity with a man.

The married man in me, can't figure out why any rational man would want multiple wives

 

Morally I have no real objections to polygamy except that the way it is usually practised is inherently discriminative of women. The problems I see with it would be legal as that is and have more or less always been the main purpose of marriage, a legal contract between two people in many ways turning them into one person. Inheritance issues must be a pain.

 

Bountiful is one of many communities in Canada settled by Mormons in the 1800's. It's not surprising polygamist off-shoots occur in those settlements just as they do in the US and Mexico.

 

I guess that, and all the marriage-related legal issues, would be the main problem from a simply legalistic viewpoint. Of course, the state (like Soylent Green, or was it Soylent Red) is made out of people, and most people find polygamy to be upsetting, because they've been brought to regard a marriage as between two people - many would add, a man and a woman.

 

How come when polygamy comes up what they really mean is polygyny?

Most marriage laws were initially introduced as a direct result of inheritence laws changing. It would mean quite a big shakeup or deferring rights from secondary, tertiary etc spouses to the primary 'unit' unless a will was specifically written up.

I know in england bigamy is illegal (though that always implies two marriages to me, a serial bigamist just sounds wrong ) but if a second marriage occurs in a country where it is legal to have multiple married partners then it is only considered a valid marriage in terms of benefit claims (Much to public outcry)

IIRC doesn't California allow two legal marriages? One state and one religious ceremony can be performed for a person and be valid. How do other states handle that little chestnut?

 

No state allows multiple marriages. However, the whole thing of 50 states and 50 different laws for marriages, is a whole can of worms. It usually doesn't involve bigamy - it's typically more about same sex marriages, age of consent and the like. But same sex marriages are the big one, as in some states allow them, and some states don't. The Federal government doesn't recognize same sex marriages either, so if you live in a state that does recognize them and you turn in your tax returns at the end of the year, you check the "married" box for your state taxes, and the "single" box for the federal taxes. It's a mess.

 

Yeah, having a nosy online can't actually find anything to support the california thing, one of my friends studying law at Southampton had it in one of her textbooks, going to have to try and get the name of it and check it up in the library, it's probably a stupid and old loophole a particular author used to make a point.

I honestly think polygamous relationships aren't too bad an idea, I can see them being a legal mess, but marriage already is in most of the modern world.

Apparently the Nazis planned for legalizing polygyny as they estimated around four million unmarried or widowed women would lack for a partner due to the losses of the second world war. But I'm guessing that's more going to be used as an argument *against* polygamy because of those who tried to formulate it as a good idea

 

In principle polygamy is not really that big a deal -- it assumes that a man can have more than one wife and can look after both the wives and the offspring that come from it. It can be just the thing a society needs in the event of a shortage of men.

What these Bountiful douchebags are doing is a whole other kettle of fish. It's systematic rape, coercion, kidnapping, and abuse. There is no societal need at this time for polygamy, and there is NEVER a need for little girls to be treated as cattle. These filthy perverts are nothing more than a blight on the landscape, and they need to be smashed, hard, to the ground.

It's despicable and I am pissed right off that the government has not taken strong action against them.

 

That's not usually the motivation -- in fact, I've never heard of a credible instance where such concerns led to polygamy.