Observations and inanities by a second-shift assistant supervisor in the Puppy-Grinding division of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy® (our motto: "Sure it's cruel, but think of the jobs!"), your host, Brent Rasmussen.
Polyamorous Marriage
While debunking the standard slippery slope argument against gay marriage, Lindsay eventually brings up polyamorous marriages in the comment section. She argues that as of now there are going to be legal difficulties if polyamorous marriages become legally recognized, even after monogamous single-sex marriages do:
If polyamory is going to follow from gay marriage, we're going to have to deal with a system in which A can be married to B who is married to C who may or may not be married to A...
Suppose A gets married to D, who's partnered with A and nobody else. Then D divorces A. What percentage of A's property does D get in the divorce settlement? A's divorce settlement will affect B who also has some claim on A's property, and if B loses money, C loses out because B and C presumably have assets in common.
I'm not saying that these problems are insurmountable. We've already figured out how to handle divorce and remarriage, custody, surrogacy, and lots of other complicated family scenarios.
In a limited sense, it's possible to get over all these problems in one swoop. Monogamous marriage is the union of two people, so we can say that polyamorous marriage is the union of N people, where N > 2 (and we might bound it to distinguish unions from communes, so we might say that N <= 6). Hence if A is married to B and to C, then B and C must necessarily be married. Divorce occurs when one or more partners withdraw from the union, in which case the withdrawing partners can form their own union or become single. The simplest way to divide property is then in proportion to the number of people in each new, smaller union; custody is more complicated, but it's already complicated now when only monogamous marriages are recognized.
Of course, this is a restricted situation: it only applies to polyfidelitous groups. But if my reading of the polyamory primers I've looked at is accurate, then in the main situation, primary/secondary relationships, there isn't enough economic interdependence to justify wholesale marriage. It makes sense in that situation to allow certain economic unions, but I don't think anything like the current situation of marriage is required for secondary relationships. Unfortunately, this leaves open multiple-primary situations, in which case Lindsay's caveat still holds.
By the way, I should note that this is completely different from polygamy, in which A is married to B, C, and D, without B, C, and D being married to one another. That is even more of a hassle to legalize than polyamory, and as of now I don't know of any way it could work.
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All I know about polygamy
All I know about polygamy is that I <3 Ginnifer Goodwin.
--
"By my rationale the penis is obviously an antenna for communication with god." -- me
"Mawwiage"
The best way to go about it would be to have the government step out of the marriage business altogether, except in a legal regulatory role. Marriage should be on two levels: the personal relationship level between consenting adults, backed up by a legal, contractual level. Issues of divorce, dividing of property, care of children after divorce, etc., should be handled beforehand and signed into a legally binding contract between the adults entering into the marriage contract.
The government's job would be to oversee and enforce the legal contract, much like it does right now with standard business contracts.
This would enable adults wishing to enter into a marriage of any kind to determine what is best for them, and them alone. It would not be anyone else's business how their marriage was structured - monogamous, polyamorous, line marriage, threesome, same-sex, polygamy, polygyny, harem, etc., ad infinitum. A marriage would become a business, a corporation, created for the express benefit of the adults contracted into it, and the children produced by it.
It'll never happen here in America, of course, at least, not for a long, long time. But it is much preferable to a government telling adult citizens who they can and cannot marry, or who they can and cannot legally be intimate with.
The details of the different marriage configurations are all really very secondary. Each couple, or group of adults will have different ideas about what marriage is. It's not our job, or the government's job to tell them what marriage is.
As soon as we can rationally approach this underlying issue and solve it first, the whole "gay marriage" and the attendant slippery slope arguments will always be around.
The problem is NOT "gay marraige" or "polyamorous marriage" - the problem is that the government is overstepping it's bounds with regard to the whole issue of marriage.
Yep. That's me. Libertarian Brent. Heh.
All-in-One
Marriage contracts are fairly easy to do - marriage confers a thousand federal rights, but you can make a substitute for it, say "civil union," that confers similar rights. In that case, the various configurations aren't a problem, as long as there's some mechanism in place for a group of 6 people to enter a union without having to sign 15 different contracts.
That's not what Lindsay or I am getting at. The problem is what to do in the event of divorce. Property owned jointly can be divided 50-50, or 25-75 in the case of a foursome, or whatever. When one man has three wives, who he owns one house with jointly, and one of the three divorces him, dividing property becomes much more difficult. It can't even be specified in a contract, because there are too many future possibilities to take into question. Now I'm not saying it's unsolvable, but there needs to be a clear-cut way of doing it, because if there isn't, the situation will deterioriate to the current state of custody battles.
Well, Not Really...
You misunderstand. A potential member of a line marriage, say, would not be signing a contract with each and every member of the line. They would instead be signing a contract with the family corporation. It would be much like buying shares in a business corporation.
Let's say you agree to and sign a legally-binding contract that not only specifies your shares and benefits being received from the family corporation, as well as what value you are promising to add to the line, but also specifies what you may take away from the family corporation should you choose to dissolve your contract. Where's the problem? Heck, prenuptial agreements do essentially the same thing in monagamous marriages right now - admittedly without the "family corporation" element.
The whole "mystery of marriage" thing is just plain stupid. The alternative marriage structure thing aside, why go into anything - especially something as mind-blowingly important and life-changing as marriage - with your eyes tightly shut, hoping and wishing for things to work out ten years, twenty years down the road? Why not get an expert in contract law to help you form a family corporation, and draft up contracts that will cover as many contingencies as possible? It happens all the time in the business world. It's not like it's something that has never been done before.
Well, I guess you could do that
But, there are still two problems you need to account for. The first is that most people don't sign prenups. Obviously it'd be better for them to sign prenups, but this is far from the only social policy that would've been a lot simpler had it not had to account for human irrationality. The second is what to do with child custody. Actually child custody is easiest when there's a monogamous primary relationship and several secondary ones, because secondary partners tend not to have children together; in the case of polyfidelity, it becomes harder, and in the case of open multiple-primary systems, it becomes nigh impossible.
Walk The Line
I see your point. Damn. It would indeed be a tangled nightmare if not properly anticipated. What if one of the biological parents chooses to stay in the line, but one disolves their contract? With the backdrop of our current society, with it's notion that a child may only be raised properly by a biological parent, it would quickly become a mess, custody-wise.
I suppose that one way to avoid this sort of thing would be to spell out even custody issues in the contract that must be signed before joining a line. Also, by making each member of the line fully legal gaurdians, or legally adopted parents, of each child produced by the line, with the contract signed by the divorcing member spelling out exact custody arrangements beforehand ("I get the child on weekends, the line gets him during the school week.", or whatever), it would help a judge decide what is in the best interest of the child. Yes, in the case of child custody a judge could overide a contract, certainly, but it should be taken heavily into account -- especially if the rest of the line, not just the biological parents, are legally parents of the child(ren) as well.
The difference, I think, is that when a person is strong enough and mature enough to want to join a line marriage, first of all they are going to be intelligent enough to see the benefits of this type of marriage structure (stability and longevity for the children's sake), and will not harbor any silly illusions about it. Jealousy will not be an issue. I mean, let's face it, anyone willing to sign a legal contract with the family corporation and join a line marriage is completely aware of the fact that there will be multiple sexual partners in a line marriage. Money should NOT be an issue, even if the line is only financially managed in a half-ass way. With multiple breadwinners all contributing to the kitty, and only one, or maybe two residences, all members should live very comfortably, if not richly, with very little effort.
So, with this marriage model, you have removed two of the biggest reasons why folks divorce each other - sex and money. Surely divorce would be a rare thing in a line marriage, but even when it happens, it should be simple to handle because it's all spelled out in the contract beforehand.
So, again, my point is that marriage should be a private contract between consenting adults, not a government-licensed and sanctioned function.
But what about those folks who will NOT be in lines, or other forms of large group marriages, but instead will be in monogamous, two-person marriages, or triads, etc.? Must they sign a contract too? Well, I would, if I were them. But a lot of folks won't, and a lot of them will produce children. What to do in this case?
No huge revelation here - the case law is already in place. Determine who the parents are through testing, then setup child support and custody per existing laws, just like they do now with unmarried parents who split up.
As for the larger group marriages, lines, serial marriages, or 4-person polyamorous quads, whatever, I don't think the problems will be with them. The problems will be squarely where they have always been - with the idiots who go out half-cocked (heh) and get themselves or someone else pregnant, then split up without the benefit of a contract, marriage or otherwise. That is where the court's most difficult custody cases will come from - just like they do today. They will not come from sane adults who understand the risks involved and have taken the time and effort and thought to produce, sign, and agree with a legal contract before getting married.
Fun, thoughtful topic, Alon.