Monogamy is generally bad.

"For one, being in a monogamous relationship does not keep us isolated from others." Yes it does, it institutes a whole range of new rules and restrictions imposed on every facet of social life. It becomes like being on a Disney show, suddenly you have to make sure everything you say is ok. For example. Let's say you want to have a conversation about men and women. If you talk to a single man or woman you are much more free in terms of what you can acceptably say. But if you talk to a married couple each is going to consider what the other wants to hear, and the typical result is lies or exaggeration. This is so obvious to me I'm having trouble coming up with defenses. Married couples are totally different than singles. They are absolutely more distant and restricted. Hell they even require different seating when you entertain. You claim that nothing changes is absurd to me in the extreme and I'm at a loss. "The government does not restrict polygamy in any sense except for marriage, but marriage is truly more of a religious aspect than governmental." Except that polygamy is a crime. And monogamy is a tax break. Power over subsistence is power over the will. You may not have poor friends but I do, and I know at least one couple personally that got married primarily for the tax break. "And while religion--especially Judeo-Christianity--is opposed to polygamy, this is for moral reasons, as opposed to controlling." Heh. Moral reasoning *is* control. Morality is a list of rules, how is a list of rules not control? Especially considering that these rules arbitrarily change depending on political climate. "Creating an ideal polygamist society would require a significant exclusion of most people." Explain to me how merely lifting a prohibition forcibly excludes people. "Personally, I don't think people will be able to be educated into supporting polygamy, especially not the stubborn religious folk." I agree 100%, I'm not fool enough to think conversion occurs because of reason, or is even practically possible. I'm not debating for the existing people. I'm establishing argument for the next generation. I simply want to give them the option. Human nature will take care of the rest, as I explained before. Don't straw man me, be sure you know what my position is before you attack it. Assumption is not a good thing to do with regard to my views. "Lastly, I would just ask that you expound a bit on your claims of the evils monogamy leads to." I have a 2 blogs and a book on the subject. What would you like em to do, go down my initial list and explain them all? I assume yes, so here we go, this will be the extremely short version. • Child abuse: Monogamy contributes to child abuse from many different directions. 1. Low number of parent means low number of watchers, this opens the door to both intimidation and stealth supported abuse. The first step in abuse is isolation. The more people in the child's life that are intimately connected (intimacy does not mean sexuality, get that clear please) the more potential defenders a child has. It also makes some people feel as though they are trapped and have no choices, many women allow men to abuse their children because they feel they are worthless without a man, or they are afraid of the one man they can find. • Corporate greed: Monogamy allows you to sell products dozens of times, and discourages sharing. The sexual tension caused by monogamy's monopoly, allows corporate interest to use sex to sell everything. You show me a single advertising campaign and I can find for you some reliance on monogamy to sell the product. • Cruelty: Monogamy gets women used to the idea that they are withholding something free to them that could make other people happy for the express purpose of self interest, and it gets men used to destroying other men for the same reason, "All's fair in love and war." • Degrades men and women: Men are reduced to income and definition, women are reduced to cup size and "vital statistics" which really aren't vital. • Forces needless sometimes lethal competition: how many men and women have died as a result of murder over domestic issues, how many people have died as a result of greed that is ultimately inspired by competition for mates? If you can't see the link between girls and money and greed, I don't know where to begin. • Domestic violence: As explained before, in limiting the family unit to its smallest possible number you encourage the isolation that breeds abuse. • Encourages pettiness and vindictiveness: In demanding that one person embody everything you'll ever want out of a mate, tiny worthless matters become over inflated. Like say the position of the toilet seat. Sometimes these matters get so blown out of proportion they trigger domestic violence. • Environmental abuse: In being totally distracted by the quest for money/sex attention towards things of vital importance like the health of our life support systems is totally over looked. • Formation of enemies, Termination of friendships: Self explanatory. • Increases net global suffering: Via the points above. • Neuroses: Again, isolation breeds problems. • Pedophilia: In the quest to appear ever more sexy to lure an ever more powerful handsome and affluent mate, emphasis on youth has steadily increased. This coupled with the greed inspired by monogamy encourages men to seek younger and younger mates. If I'm gunna be stuck with one and only one my whole life for reason of sex since I can't just go buy sex when I need it I'm forced to play this BS game I might as well make sure I get one as hot as I can find that will be hot for as long as I can manage. This is why we have the highest teen pregnancy rate in the world. Not so in Japan where you can go buy sex with your lunch. This I have volumes on. • Political Apathy: again, total focus on the mate race, and concern for what your girlfriend thinks makes one totally ignore the outside world. Maslow has shown clearly that one cannot be concerned with higher issues until base animal needs are met, sex being so controlled keeps people from looking beyond their own doorstep. • Racism: Again the social isolation implicit causes one to rank and stratify everything as either a potential tool, or a potential competitor. Just look at the stereotypes and their obvious sexual nature. • Reduces innovation: By keeping us isolated and focused on our genitals we fail to exchange ideas as efficiently as we could. Also we go for the money/sex, instead of the knowledge. I have several chapters devoted to this in my book. • Religious corruption: The pope usta sell sexual indulgences, and de sade very bluntly pointed out the real purpose of convents. • School shootings: Rank wars over who gets the girl are what cause 99% of bullying, which in turn causes school shootings. I've had 4 broken bones, 3 occurred at school, I know all about this one. • Social apathy: via the conditions above. • Subpar education: Via the rampant sexual distraction. • War: Via the macroscopic consequences of these small scale problems. Each of these is a potential debate. And I'm happy to have them in due course. Please do not try to pick one, or answer them. I will simply not have room to reply. P.S. I agree with your comment. The addition of the option of Polygamy being good is equal to monogamy being bad for purposes of debate. I should have added the word enforced, or monopoly to my original argument. P.P.S. Monogamy is basically based on surrender to the edicts of jealousy. Why choose to surrender? P.P.P.S. I had to trim each one to come in under the limit. Please don't attack them as if they were my definitive arguments, that would be cheating.