Text 11940, 98 rader
Skriven 2007-02-09 21:12:44 av Josh Hill (15381.babylon5)
     Kommentar till en text av rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated
Ärende: Re: My Presidential Pick for 2006
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On 9 Feb 2007 03:20:38 -0800, "Matthew Vincent"
<mbvincent@paradise.net.nz> wrote:

>On Feb 2, 4:17 pm, Josh Hill <userepl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> That being said, a careful reading will note that I did not assert
>> that polygamy is socially harmful, but rather that it /appears/ to be
>> socially harmful. I based that on a number of news accounts I've read
>> of the unfortunate social and economic consequences of present-day
>> Mormon polygamy (and, IIRC, at least one Usenet post). Apparently,
>> many of the brides end up living in poverty, off the state.
>
>This may be at least partly a reflection of conservative organised
>religions typically discouraging women from pursuing professional
>careers to the same degree as men. I've heard some women who are in
>plural marriages/relationships argue that having more than one person
>to look after their children when they're doing other things makes it
>easier to pursue a career and balance this with raising a family.
>
>I don't dispute that there are some plural marriage arrangements that
>are mutually beneficial to the parties involved, and where consenting
>adults are making a rational choice with no coercion to something
>which they believe is consistent with their own interests and doesn't
>harm them. However, I still think that plural marriage has some
>difficulties of a logistic nature. Firstly, in cases where there is a
>gender imbalance (particularly one person of one sex and more than one
>of the other sex), an unequal number of women and men are being
>removed from being single and available. If the practice were
>generalised, and there was a pattern of wealthy heterosexual men
>marrying multiple wives more than any other arrangement, then there'd
>be all sorts of social consequences relating to an inflated number of
>underprivileged single men.
>
>Now, limiting plural marriage to the same number of persons of each
>sex would help somewhat, but there'd need to be a system to cover the
>logistic difficulties involved when one or more persons wanted to
>terminate the relationship contract. For example, if two women and two
>men were married, and one of the four wanted to leave, if the result
>was one person going back into the single population and three
>remaining in an unequal two-to-one marriage, this would still
>potentially risk the problems outlined in the above paragraph.
>
>On a related note, I can't say I have much time for hypocrites who
>aren't really poly but are quite happy to have multiple partners for
>themselves as long as the arrangement is one-sided. IMO the main
>defining characteristic (though not a sufficient condition, as there
>are people who meet this but who themselves want to only have one
>partner) of being poly is that one is emotionally capable of a close
>relationship with a primary partner who is intimate with others as
>well. If you want to have multiple partners yourself but yet you'd
>spit chips if your spouse or primary partner did the same thing, then
>you're not poly, just a hypocrite. And that goes doubly for anyone who
>promotes sexist double standards as a way to indulge their own
>personal preferences and insecurities.
>
>So my concern is that, whilst some genuine and well-meaning poly folks
>would benefit from the 1-to-1 requirement on marriage being lifted, it
>could also be exploited by opportunists (particularly some wealthy
>heterosexual men) who want an unequal arrangement. Osama bin Laden is
>a prime example of such -- on the one hand having multiple wives for
>himself, and on the other hand supporting a government that executed
>women who had premarital sex or left their homes without wearing a
>veil or being accompanied by a man.

A bit chauvinist, that! :-)

It's been pointed out by some that we aren't by nature a monogamous
species, but something in-between -- we form relatively stable pair
bonds, but we also cheat to a certain degree, and that seems to be our
species baseline -- though of course it doesn't apply to everyone.
Perhaps the cheating has a role in increasing or preserving genetic
diversity?

Either way, unlike walruses or chimps, humans and human societies can
and do depart from the instinctual baseline. I read an interview with
a naturalist in which she said that if you described a species'
ecological niche to her, she could tell you what sort of pair bonds it
formed -- monogamous, polyandrous, what have you. I suspect that just
as with animals, human societies tailor their standards for marriage
to local circumstances. Thus a sustenance-level agricultural society
in which great wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few might find
it beneficial to assign a disproportionate share of procreation and
child support costs to the wealthy few. In such societies -- and much
of the Middle East may still fit that model -- polygamy might be a
more efficient system than our messy monogamy. Conversely, an
aristocratic late agricultural society in which land is transmitted by
inheritance -- such as the medieval society from which our own
developed -- might be expected to emphasize monogamous pair bonds.

-- 
Josh

[Truly] I say to you, [...] angel [...] power will be able to see that [...]
these to whom [...] holy generations [...]. After Jesus said this, he departed.

- The Gospel of Judas
--- SBBSecho 2.12-Win32
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