Polygamy

I would like to begin by thanking my opponent, Danielle, for instigating what I expect to be an interesting, productive debate. IntroductionI will later discuss polygamy in detail, but first, let me ask a somewhat broad (albeit important) question: Why is "marriage" a legal institution? In other words, why does "marriage" constitute a de jure relationship, as opposed to a de facto relationship, like, say, "friendship"? As a legal institution, a marital relationship is not simply a private bond between parties. Rather, it is a relationship that exists both (1) between the married parties and (2) between the married parties and the State—which, in a democratic republic such as that which can be found in the United States, serves to represent the public interest.The institution of "marriage" is granted exclusive legal status by the United States government, and those who are married are granted exclusive privileges (their tax burdens are reduced, they receive more redistributionary benefits, etc.). Of course, this means that married people are granted benefits at the expense of the rest of the public (i.e., non-married individuals). The reason that marriage is an exclusive legal institution—indeed, the reason that we can justify the government-orchestrated reallocation of wealth from the unmarried to the married—is that it serves the public interest. Marriage, as an institution, serves the interests of both the non-married and the married—and it outweighs the moral cost of the inequality that implicitly comes with its exclusivity. For the rest of the debate, I would like the reader to continually ask himself or herself: While the legalization of polygamy would make the institution of marriage less exclusive and hence more "equal," would its addition serve the public interest? Indeed, would it work against the public interest? My contention is that the legalization of polygamy would work against the public interest. Therefore, its legalization would defeat the purpose of having an exclusive legal institution called "marriage" in the first place. Narrowing Things DownIn the Ethnographic Atlas, out of 1,231 societies studied, 453 had occasional polygyny, 588 had frequent polygyny, 186 were monogamous, and 4 had polyandry [1]. Clearly, polygyny (marriage between a man and multiple women) is significantly more common than polyandry (marriage between a woman and multiple men). Nonfraternal polyandry (mariage between a woman and multiple men who are not related to one another) is virtually nonexistent. Why is this? When multiple men have the same wife, it becomes unknown who the father is of each child. As a result, the children are neglected and have a far less likelihood of surviving. This is why nonfraternal polyandry has been "selected out" as a sociobiological behavior, while polygyny—which does not come with this problem—persists in certain cultures [2]. With the above explanation in mind, I will only be talking about polygyny, since polygyny would be, by far, the most common manifestation of polygamy in the United States if it were legalized therein. Moving Past PolygynyWhy has polygyny been abandoned in modern developed countries? According to a study conducted at the University of British Columbia, polygyny causes crime, poverty, violence, gender inequality, and far-from-optimal reproductive outcomes [3]. According to the above study, the pool of unmarried men that results from widespread polygyny resort to crime in order to gain resources—in a desperate attempt to compete for the few remaining women. The society is overcome by the struggle of lower-class men to overcome the scarcity of unmarried women. This would involve committing rape (in order to forcefully impregnate a woman and thereby attempt to pass on one's genes), committing robbery (in order to gain resources to attract the few available women), and committing homicide (in order to get rid of the powerful, wealthy men who are able to marry multiple women at any given time) [4]. By adopting monogamy, modern societies were able to avoid the strife and poverty that the above system came with. Moreover, modern societies have overcome the hurdles that may necessitate polygyny in more primitive societies: there is no shortage of males (due to disease, famine, etc.), and there is no extreme environmental stress that would make it advantageous for extremely fit males to monopolize reproduction (at the costs described in the prior paragraph). With a monogamous system come smaller households, more parental involvement, and more "blood-relatedness." As a direct result, a monogamous system comes with fewer incidences of child neglect, abuse, accidental death, and intra-household violence [4]. Monogamy has been conducive to social equality, democracy, and order. Our civilization has moved past polygamy, and we ought to have no desire to look back.Polygamy and the Public InterestGiven what we now know about polygamy, how can we possibly accept the preposterous notion that our society would benefit from the legalization of polygamy? In order to avoid the problems that a polygamous system naturally breeds, we ought to discourage the practice of polygamy—not to force the public to subsidize it and thereby financially incentivize its practice. Because of the reasons described in the prior section, legalized polygamy would cause the legal institution of marriage, as a whole, to be less effective at serving the public interest. The purpose of a legal institution is to better serve the public interest. Therefore, we ought to keep polygamy illegal. Thank you. [1] http://eclectic.ss.uci.edu...[2] https://www.psychologytoday.com...[3] http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org...[4] http://news.ubc.ca...