I agree. Marriage is a word that means "union" and it's a commitment.
I have never heard that children raised by more than two people are "worse" off. Besides, Lawful Marriage is mainly about credit, dept and property. Very little of the legal language in Lawful Marriage deals with child custody. So, I disagree with your disagreement.
This is one of the main arguments advanced by the crowd who would prefer to ban gay marriage. It's been disputed by many on this board.
I am a strong advocate of polygamy, but I believe the traditional form of bigamy should be retained as a criminal offense-- marital fraud. Legal polygamy should require the written consent of all spouses.
Marriage forms natural political and financial alliances between families and provides the most stable social environment for the rearing of children. The State has a vested interest in promoting it.
In a largely aristocratic society where you have prominent families running most of your society, then yes that is certainly true. However we have far more social mobility and we have a middle class that dwarfs the aristocracy, as such marriage for resources (social or fiscal) is far less important.
I am curious what makes you advocate polygamy. It most societies where it exists, rich old men tend to have multiple wives, leading to a bunch of pissed off sexually frustrated young men. Angry young men trend to vent their frustrations in ways that de-stabilize society.
Are you sure you aren't missing other influences on that society?
Spoken like a man without in-laws. Extended family is important in any society, including one as alienated as ours-- perhaps especially in an atomized society.
They can. Statistically, they are considerably less likely to. One married couple with all of their own children is the parenting environment most conducive to success. The addition of a strong support network in the form of the extended family improves the odds.
That anger can be channeled into productive ends and forcing men to compete for mating privileges helps improve the species.
it also appears to be the opinion of the vast majority of Americans in this representative society.
What useful ends can you channel the anger towards behind war? Relying on war as an outlet would be extremely risky, as you cannot count on the geopolitical circumstances that make war a good idea to coincide with the moment that you need to deal with your angry populace.
What makes you think I dont have in-laws? It's more than extended family, we see where children are raised by large families and groups that include close friends or neighbors they tend to be much more socially adjusted because they have such interaction with so many other people from such a young age.
Is that because of the surroundings or because of the relationship itself?
I would say that this is an incorrect conclusion. Almost all of the examples we have so far or recently come out of certain societies that devalue women whether those women are in a monogamous marriage or a polygamous marriage. To then extend that culture to a a life style is wrong. There is nothing intrinsic about polyandry or polygamy when it comes to valuing partners. If we were to legalize it, there is no reason to think that poly marriages wouldn't fall in line with normal gender norms of our society (whatever those norms are now).
Yeah, this.
Why do they have to be "better off" than children growing up in "traditional" homes for society to stay the heck out of the private business of the individual (beyond giving them treatment equal to the "traditional" home)?
TED,
Any particular reason?
