Religious Debate Tournament: Islamic polygamist practices are flawed, ...

Thank you for your argument. It’s interesting that you would say that one of the advantages to marriage is the health benefit in avoiding random sexual relationships. It implies that men, and women, left without marriage would tend to be promiscuous. This would actually be a good justification for Homosexual marriage. Even if they couldn’t have children of their own they would be able to avoid the pitfalls of promiscuity. Clearly, using the reduced risk of sexually transmitted diseases shows that procreation is not the sole reason for marriage. After all, not all heterosexual couples are capable of having children. As for bisexual women in an Islamic Polygamist marriage. There are plenty of men who wouldn’t complain if they had two bisexual wives, and would be reluctant to turn them in. Not impossible, but unlikely. It is far easier to find, and kill a homosexual male in Islamic society because they have no real place to hide. I found the study you cited about polygamy amongst birds to be very interesting. Even though it did state that the smaller harem sizes were more optimized there is a problem with your interpretation. What is the smallest harem a man can have? It depends on how you define harem, but it is either a harem of one, or two. That would be smaller than what Islamic polygamy allows, and make Islamic polygamy look quite large. What the study said was that the advantage of a large harem was proportional to the life span of species. A bird with a lifespan of a few years favored monogamy, and with longevity harem size could increase to gain even more of an advantage. One of these birds, the Penduline tit, only has a lifespan of 6.7 years[1][2]. It would be safe to say that a human lifespan of 75 years could support much larger harems then you’d see in birds. Assuming your source is correct in their study. However, the issue with practicing polygamy is that it will always leave a significant portion of males unable to find a wife. This is irrelevant to their capacity to support a wife. I have no doubt Islamic countries are capable of supporting a healthy middle class. I see no reason 99% of Islamic men wouldn’t be able to support at least one wife. Only if you objectify women to the point where they are bought and sold like cattle would a man not be able to afford a wife. One consequence of practicing polygamy, in this way, is that social evolution has to address the excess population of men. Society can only support so much of the social drama caused by unmarried men in their pursuit for a wife they can never find. Eventually these men would commit far more serious crimes. For example, in India the male to female ratio is tilted because of infanticide, but the result is the same, men unable to function in society. The ratio there is nearly 120 to 100, men to women, and is cited as one of the primary factors for the high levels rate of rape[3]. That’s clearly because the heterosexual population is imbalanced. I have no doubt if the imbalance persists that over time more of their male population would be homosexual. As much as Islam might want to be merciful it is making some people miserable with its practices. [1] http://eol.org...[2] http://www.bath.ac.uk...[3] http://rupeenews.com...