Resolved: Polygamy in the United States should be legal.

My opponent argues throughout that magically for some reason Polygamy in the United States should be legal because in the United States we'd make everything right. We'd do it properly. And sure, polygamy will lead to a plethora of social ills, but we already have social ills. As if there's nothing that can make social ills worse? Social problems aren't pass/fail, there are matters of degree. Causing massive social problems is a perfectly acceptable, yea desirable reason to keep something, illegal. Despite my opponents repeated assertions, he gave us no reason to suppose that the US is somehow magically able to make polygamy work. His pipedreams about forward thinking women and men rising the occasion, perhaps we might be able to have his society become as fair as a monogamous society? If enough men properly compete and nobody will *really* be left out. Pfft. Pipedreams are no reasons to legalize evils. -- One of the largest sticking points in the debate has been whether polygamy from all the previous societies which tried polygamy would work out the same as my opponents doe-eyed idea of what polygamy would be like. Sadly however, we can't analyze the veracity of this claim because he never once bothered to explain why and how his version of polygamy would be different. His argument on this point seems to boil down to, sure other polygamy has been bad and should be kept illegal, but in the US we'd do something amazing and make it work out blissfully. My opponent never actually made a positive argument for polygamy. He made some good efforts to combat my noted evils though, with an undue amount of arm waving to say "We'd do it better!" -- That doesn't seem to satisfy the burden of proof. What's more he makes clearly contradictory claims. Our laws won't go away and you will still be protected with the full force of the American government, but we need to legalize polygamy so that we can police polygamy. Why not simply police polygamy? It's already against the law. "Polygamy happens unlawfully in the status quo. At the very least, by legalizing it, we see a chance for these people to be protected by the law." -- By that same logic we should simply get rid of age of consent laws that my opponent supposes will still protect individuals. Because if somethings harmful and illegal we really need to legalize it. I'm not sure if my opponent's argument is actually that pipedream of forward thinking women and men rising to the occasions but if it is, he hasn't spent ten minutes talking to real people. Ten minute chats with real people are some of the greatest arguments against pipedream thinking. Men will rise to the occasion be more confident while the women all marry millionaires and these men never get remotely less confident even though they have no reasonable prospects of ever getting married. In many countries in the Middle East these left over men are the fuel for suicide bombers and they aren't completely uneducated most of them are pretty average income. Again, there are plenty empirical examples of polygamy. We can reasonably ask if my opponent's arguments hold weight. Do the women become forward thinking? Do the men rise to the occasion? No and No. The women become significantly more oppressed and most men have little to no prospect of marriage. The underlying social and economic problems will be made worse by introducing polygamy. The fact that things are bad doesn't mean that things can't become worse. For example, women already compete for resources within marriage, but with more women and less resources there is a much more scarce supply and thus a much more scarce resource needing competition. The current system right now is not worse. They get divorced and walk away with half and legal and social protections for themselves and their children. 1/nth of the property in the divorce isn't acceptable. What if the wife was the first wife and legally could have gotten divorced earlier in the marriage before the addition of several more wives? Doesn't that system encourage a first wife to promptly divorce if he is going to marry another? Your legal share is going to drop from 1/2 to 1/3 unless you divorce right now. This is why most polygamous societies either don't allow divorce or don't allow the woman anything in a divorce. The technical issues are fixable with a significant amount more work prior to marriage, but it's certainly something to look out for. I feel it's a minor point. Just because social ills are happening now, doesn't mean that social ills can't be made worse. Sure, men at the bottom are fighting, but making the bottom considerably larger isn't going to make that worse. Women fighting for their husband's time is going to be worse when there's less time and more women. And certainly, polygamy already happens illegally, but you don't make it right by legalizing. It's illegal but some people are already doing it, so let's make it legal and these problems will increase tenfold. Because, that solves the problem. People already objectify women, so contributing to a system which will cause further problems in that regard is okay. Divorce doesn't make women not a commodity, it simply means that she's now a freed commodity rather than a previously tied down commodity. The idea that it might take a while for the US to shift the dynamics and become a more unjust and unfair society doesn't mean it won't happen. Certainly it wouldn't happen overnight. It would take a couple generations. We couldn't undo everything monogamy has helped to build in the modern world. Just as you could legalize slavery or child prostitution and it would still take a while for our society to become significantly worse. Simply saying that none of the arguments are the United States. Is a red herring. I am talking about systemic problems and then the United States is only the United States because it was built as a wealth accumulating society without large families. Sure, Taiwan might not be able to do child prostitution correctly, but the United States could do it right! We'd have them scholarships to college before they are fifteen! Pipedreams and arm waving about how we're different so we should do this, is exactly backwards. It isn't that the United States is different and therefore polygamy would work, rather the United States is different because we don't allow polygamy!