Polygamy is morally permissible.

I will close RD 3 in the same order he did. Space colonization/alternative solutions: First of all, we aren't talking about "banning polygyny. " We are talking about whether it is morally permissible. Most societies have banned polygyny. And, just because space travel is "getting better," doesn't mean that it can combat the empirics in my round 1 post. You, as the voter, need to decide something: can things like space travel solve the problems of a 5 billion-person population increase in the last century? Also keep in mind that 4 billion people in the world right now are considered underfed or in extreme poverty. Should we hang out hopes on space travel? Please extend the fact that my opponent provides no warrants that conclusively tell you that this is even close to a viable solution to the overpopulation problem. My opponent needs to realize that compromise exists in the world, and that includes with our rights. Most rights theorists, the good ones anyway, maintain that a balance of freedom and restraint is what leads to a healthy society. While entirely cutting off the right to reproduce may not be morally viable, limiting it by a certain percentage will save society from all the harms I've outlined. Hence, declaring polygyny to be immoral would be one way of restraining a harmful freedom without entirely wiping out our ability to reproduce. It's simple population reduction. Animals do it all the time. We simply have to rationalize our way to those same restraints. Major Religions & Biology: If my opponent actually believes in evolutionary-based morality, then he will readily concede that religious dogma is born directly from our biology. Whether they "care" about it or not, our instincts act subconsciously upon us. Hence, though a given Church may declare something right or wrong dogmatically, they do it either directly or indirectly because of the influence of biology on its members. Motivation is a mute point: the motivation is inherent in our genes. My opponent cannot disagree, since he is the one who limited to the debate to this theory in the first place. Also, polygamy was condemned by the Christian church during the Roman Empire's reign. This makes quite a bit of sense, considering that the Roman Empire was the most densely populated empire to exist in the world ever…While the Church said nothing about biology or genetics at the time, that certainly doesn't mean that the overcrowding of Rome had nothing to do with the policy. Polygyny being illegal: First of all, I know what appeal to law is, and clearly not all laws are morally justified. I'm not arguing that at all. This is merely a single statement in an entire chain of evidence that links the legal status of polygyny around the world to its evolutionary unfavorability. I didn't only argue that polygyny is wrong because the law says so. This attack is taken out of context. Aff's Claim That He Doesn't Increase Population Dramatically: If polygyny doesn't produce more offspring, the aff is not affirming his own case: My opponent missed the point of these two responses entirely. Here's a quick re-cap: he said, in RD 2, in response to my overpopulation argument, that polygyny wouldn't *really* lead to a huge increase in population because most unmarried women want to stay unmarried. However, he did say that it would allow more women who wanted to to get married, and somehow drew a conclusion, based on this statement, that the population would not increase. Well, that's a huge problem for his entire case, since all of his benefits in case stem from population increase and population diversity. If polygyny doesn't produce quantitatively larger numbers of offspring, there will be no noticeable increase in diversity (as the idea here is to spread diversity through diverse partners having more children) and there will be no chance of further domination for the human species. They really are not mutually exclusive, because to achieve more diversity, you have to have more offspring. Bottom line. Species spread is my opponent's first contention. It's the ability to rapidly reproduce, and hence increase the prosperity of the species. He can't claim any of the impacts in his first contention if he isn't rapidly increasing reproduction. Nor can he claim the impacts of diversity, because you still have to have more kids with diverse partners to promote diversity. One would assume that, instead of 1 wife having kids, 3 wives will have kids, which is how you get that diversity. That means 2 more women are having kids. Hence, more kids… Religious marriage always yields more offspring: This doesn't answer my argument. A vast majority of the world subscribes to some form of organized religion. Almost every single religion, especially the major ones, tell their followers to have lots and lots of children. Procreation is the reason for unions in scripture and dogma. Therefore, the more wives you have, the more children you will have. Competition response: No clue how the response to competition impacts the round because it isn't well explained. I reiterate that societies who spread exponentially will come into contact with one another in the search for resources to feed ever-growing families and communities, and will fight each other for said resources. Basic evolutionary theory at work. Polyandry and Polygyny have similar results: My opponent doesn't understand the mechanics of reproduction if he doesn't understand why polyandry will yield far less children than polygyny. Let me explain briefly: If a man marries 5 women, he can impregnate all 5. Diversity will actually be a little better served, but to the detriment of the society itself because of overpopulation. If each woman has 3 children, that's 15 offspring. If a woman marries 5 men, she can only get pregnant so many times. She'll have to wait at least 9 months (but let's be realistic, here) between offspring, unlike the man who married 5 women, who can fertilize an egg in any of the women on a regular basis. The woman in this polyandrous relationship may have 15 children, but the process will be much slower than with a polygynous relationship. Not only that, but having that high a yield for one woman is highly unlikely. Polyandry naturally results in far less offspring. This is why nomadic herdspeople in high altitude mountain regions use it—to conserve resources! Polygyny and polyandry are diametrically opposed. Polygyny yields communal family bonding: Besides the anecdotes I could give you regarding the complete lack of love by a step parent, note that step parent bonds are not logically different than a mentor or close adult friend. The same bond can be achieved by a guidance counselor to a child as a step parent to a child. This "love" is a product of evolutionary conditioning to nurture offspring of one's species, and my opponent has yet to prove that this relationship is exclusive to polygynous families. We only have his assertion that what he says is true. Please apply my above arguments and extend those made in RD 2. While my opponent asserts that step parents can love a child as much as the biological parents, I argue that this is merely genetic conditioning, and that any adult and child has the same ability to form such a relationship. Hence, the relationship can be replicated without the dangers of polygyny. Diversity is achieve by polygyny: First of all, we can choose a partner from anywhere in the world if we so choose. This isn't a reason to reject the argument I've made. If polygyny is merely a matter of convenience, and not a moral imperative, then you should vote con. Also, extend all of my harms from RD 1. Based on the above arguments, I strongly encourage a CON vote. The pro cannot achieve any more diversity than exists right now, and cannot stop the drastic harms outlined in my RD 1 post.