Resolved: Polygamy in the United States should be legal.

Thanks for the debate Tatarize. May it be good. Modern Polygamy (Paragraph One) =============================== 1. This point in response to my opponents first paragraph. My opponent makes two interesting claims: a. While it is certainly true that as an institution there is nobody harmed when the process is conducted by consenting adults. b. However, often the institution of plural marriage is taken as polygyny with men marrying multiple women often the little girls in the town are divvied up by the older men. For myself, I dead agree with point a. There wouldn't be anybody harmed. I disagree with point b. My position is that polygamy should be legal. This doesn't mean that consent laws vanish, the right to divorce goes away, or that pedophilia is suddenly legal. Thus the entirety of point b is completely non-responsive to the topic. The fact that polygamy is suddenly legal does not necessitate any of those things. The Harm to Men and Objectification (Paragraph Two) =============================== 1. My opponent argues first that the men are the ones to lose in a society such as this but I'll argue that this simply isn't true. a. My first argument is that this actually encourages men to better themselves which benefits the society as a whole. Not only does it raise the man's confidence through bettering himself, which detracts from suicide rates/terrorism, but additionally it betters the society as a whole. b. Secondly I'd argue that even if everything my opponent says about the harm to men is true then there would still be no impact. Such logic would just lead to an increase in prostitution not an increase in suicide rates. c. Third. The impacts for legalizing polygamy just flat outweigh. There would, indeed, be less suicides/terrorism in a polygamous society as opposed to our current society; but I'll expand on this point more later. 2. Next my opponent argues this type of society objectifies women. Two responses. a. First. Polygamous society doesn't objectify women or men any more than our current society. My opponent argues that somehow having multiple wives/husbands lead to further objectification. But my argument is that: if such a line of reasoning were true then we would already objectify women/men in our current society. The fact that we can now marry more people doesn't lead to heightened objectification. If one objectifies now then they'd objectify in a polygamous society. If one doesn't objectify now then they wouldn't objectify in a polygamous society. b. Secondarily. Even if the objectification argument was true my response will be DIVORCE. Thus no impact. The 20 year old secretaries (Paragraph Three) ====================================== 1. My argument is that the impacts flat outweigh. a. As my opponent indicates people get divorced in modern American society because in many cases they've found someone better. I'll argue that this really problematic. The benefit to marriage in many cases is that each person can focus on a separate part of maintaining the families livelihood. For instance one partner can focus on monetary income whilst the other can focus on taking care of the children. Problematic. When a divorce happens this can often leave one person without an income and perhaps without the abilities to attain an income (sacrificed higher education for the family). My argument is that people in such a position are uniquely worse off than a person who can't find someone to marry in the first place. Not only does the divorcee no longer have someone but also that person has little ability to provide for themselves and may be emotionally hurt. b. If there is any potential for things such as terrorism and suicide to happen that potential comes most through a monogamous society. A polygamous society would solve for such problems by decreasing divorce rates. A man or women would be able to have both partners they desired instead of divorcing the lesser of the two. Never worked before (Paragraph 4) ======================================== 1. Not on a large scale in U.S. 2. The fact that it was tried by religious societies makes a non-secular society uniqually different. 3. Additionally I'd argue that the current laws in the U.S. check back any horrible things from happening. 4. As does divorce. 5. Additionally my opponent argues, "It may help if you want an army of men to go to war". Response: We're in two wars. ^.^