This house would legalise polygamy.

I shall now present my closing statement/argument. Right now, all polygamous families, including the healthy, responsible ones, are driven into hiding . In the resulting isolation, crime and abuse can flourish unimpeded. Children in polygamous communities are taught to fear the police and are not likely to report an abusive neighbour if they suspect their own parents might be caught up in a subsequent criminal investigation. In a United States with legalized polygamy, responsible plural families could emerge from the shadows"making it easier for authorities to zero in on the criminals who remain there. Many people argue that there is no such thing as a "healthy, responsible" polygamous family, particularly for the children born into one. "Children are harmed because they are often set in perennial rivalry with other children and mothers for the affection and attention of the family patriarch," argued John Witte Jr. in the Washington Post. "Men with lots of children and wives are spread too thin," agreed Libby Copeland in Slate. The earnestness of these arguments is touching but idealistic. Men in monogamous marriages can"t be spread too thin? Children in monogamous families don"t rival each other for the attentions of their parents? Two-parent families are not the reality for millions of American children. Divorce, remarriage, surrogate parents, extended relatives, and other diverse family arrangements mean families already come in all sizes"why not recognize that legally? It"s also hard to argue with the constitutional freedom of religious expression that legalized polygamy would preserve. Most polygamous families are motivated by religious faith, such as fundamentalist Mormonism or Islam, and as long as all parties involved are adults, legally able to sign marriage contracts, there is no constitutional reason why they shouldn"t be able to express that faith in their marriages. Legalized polygamous marriage would also be good for immigrant families, some of whom have legally polygamous marriages in their home countries that get ripped apart during the immigration process. (It"s impossible to estimate exactly how many polygamous families live here, since they live their religious and sexual identities in secret. Academics suggest there are 50,000 to 100,000 people engaged in Muslim polygamy in the U. S. , and there are thousands of fundamentalist Mormon polygamist families as well. ) Finally, prohibiting polygamy on "feminist" grounds"that these marriages are inherently degrading to the women involved"is misguided. The case for polygamy is, in fact, a feminist one and shows women the respect we deserve. Here"s the thing: As a woman, you really can make your own choices. They just might choose things people don"t like. If a woman wants to marry a man, that"s great. If she wants to marry another woman, that"s great too. If she wants to marry a hipster, well"I suppose that"s the price of freedom. And if she wants to marry a man with three other wives, that"s her damn choice. We have a tendency to dismiss or marginalize people we don"t understand. We see women in polygamous marriages and assume they are victims. "They grew up in an unhealthy environment," we say. "They didn"t really choose polygamy; they were just born into it. " Without question, that is sometimes true. But it"s also true of many (too many) monogamous marriages. Plenty of women, polygamous or otherwise, are born into unhealthy environments that they repeat later in life. There"s no difference. All marriages deserve access to the support and resources they need to build happy, healthy lives, regardless of how many partners are involved. Arguments about whether a woman"s consensual sexual and romantic choices are "healthy" should have no bearing on the legal process. And while polygamy remains illegal, women who choose this lifestyle don"t have access to the protections and benefits that legal marriage provides. As a feminist, it"s easy and intuitive to support women who choose education, independence, and careers. It"s not as intuitive to support women who choose values and lifestyles that seem outdated or even sexist, but those women deserve our respect just as much as any others. It"s condescending, not supportive, to minimize them as mere "victims" without considering the possibility that some of them have simply made a different choice. The definition of marriage is plastic. Just like heterosexual marriage is no better or worse than homosexual marriage, marriage between two consenting adults is not inherently more or less "correct" than marriage among three (or four, or six) consenting adults. Though polygamists are a minority"a tiny minority, in fact"freedom has no value unless it extends to even the smallest and most marginalized groups among us.