Meanwhile, two of the more interesting comments over at HuffPo on the “Get Ready for Group Marriage” piece:
Polygamy (less so polyandry) is common around the world – Muslim countries and African countries have a long tradition of this, even if their equality and human rights are not up to Western standards. Why not investigat
e their legal precedents ? Our president (South Africa) has 4 wives or more now, and all receive state benefits. Interestin
gly, in South Africa you can only marry multiple partners if your or your partners’ social group has a tradition of doing so. So, from what I understand , I can only marry one Afrikaans (of Dutch origin) woman but I could marry many Zulu women. Don’t think that has been tested yet. We have a strange mix of an ultraliber al Constituti on and historical tradition, but it appears to work…
And a number of commenters said the main problem with the idea of legalizing some form of group marriage is that it would be impossible for the state and the tax man to sort it all out (at the front door of forming the union, and at the back door of dissolving it). One commenter suggested:
…just incorporat
e! Adding a new partner would be like hiring a new employee. Divorce would be like firing someone, alimony would be a severance package.
Categories: Marriage, The Future of Parenthood
[Interestingly, in South Africa you can only marry multiple partners if your or your partners’ social group has a tradition of doing so.]
This is very misleading.
http://tinyurl.com/7sywqx2
[The rights of South African women within the family depended on the type of marriage contract into which they entered. There are three kinds of marriage: civil marriage, with or without a joint property agreement; customary marriage, under which women are perpetual minors; and religious marriage, which may be Christian, Jewish or Muslim. Only civil and religious marriages are recognized by the state.]
http://tinyurl.com/7hmd56q
[The Recognition of Customary Marriages Act, 120 of 1998, came into operation on 15 November, 2000, and gives full legal recognition to customary marriages for the first time in the history of South Africa.
According to section one of the Act 'customary marriage' is defined as a marriage concluded in accordance with customary law, while 'customary law' is defined as the customs and usages traditionally observed among the indigenous African peoples of South Africa and which form part of the culture of those peoples.]
So polygamy is not legal in South Africa, it is confined to indigenous people who have traditionally practiced it. These customary marriages were widespread, illegal and left the women involved in them with no rights or protections. To remedy this they set up a registration system for these relationships and guaranteed women in these relationships certain rights. This registration can be done by the husband, the wife or any other interested party. This was done strictly to protect the rights of women involved in these relationships
[In terms of section 6 of the Act, a wife in a customary marriage is placed on an equal footing with that of her husband as far as her status and capacity is concerned, subject, however, to the matrimonial property system governing the marriage. This means that she may now acquire assets and dispose of them, enter into contracts and litigate, on a basis of equality with her husband, in addition to any rights and powers that she might have at customary law.]
This is not an efficient system or a fair one. It is basically an acknowledgement of the strength of local traditions and people’s right to live by this system. A right denied them by the Christian people that conquered them. It is not a blueprint that is transferable to North America. It does not solve any of the problems brought up in the thread, nor negate any legal quandaries polygamy might cause in the US.
[…just incorporate! Adding a new partner would be like hiring a new employee. Divorce would be like firing someone, alimony would be a severance package.]
This comment doesn’t do much for your case either. I am pretty sure that Family Law and Corporate Law are different disciplines for a reason. Common and Constitutional Law makes a clear distinction between the two. Eliminating that distinction and adjusting the entire legal system to accommodate that change is exactly the problem the commenters were highlighting, not a solution.
The idea of fighting apartheid for years to eagerly ape South Africa’s marriage laws seems pretty ridiculous to me.
A nitpick: “polygamy” is the practice of having more than one spouse, so “polyandry”–the practice of having more than one husband, would, by definition, be less common than polygamy, since the former includes the latter.
I think this person meant to say that “polygny” is common around the world.
Polygamy would also be unworkable in a country where women and men have equal rights by law. A system that permitted men, but not women, to have multiple spouses would be unconstitutional in the United States.
As for polyamory, Elizabeth’s article is rather cherry-picking its evidence. I’ve yet to hear a solid, workable proposal on polyamorous marriage (beyond very small units, like a triad).
Workable? The rise of divorce and of nonmarital cohabitation has government, and thus society/culture, trying to make workable some pretty complex tangles of families consisting of more than two (nonconcurrent) “spouses”.
Sure, we don’t have a systematic approach, yet, for multiples concurrent spouses, but the system has been stretched and distorted so much that it could accomodate multi-marriage. Especially in light of the drum banging of the SSM argumentation which hacks at the marriage idea and pushes a specious substitution for marriage. In that light, a systemmatic approach would be rather pointless.
Chairm: “Especially in light of the drum banging of the SSM argumentation which hacks at the marriage idea and pushes a specious substitution for marriage.”
SSM does no such thing.
You have yet to explain what legal aspect of marriage must be “hacked away” in order to accommodate same-sex couples. You claim a “core concept” of marriage which has nothing to do with the law, and everything to do with your own personal ideal of what marriage is.
Chris, the SSM idea is a specious substitution for the marriage idea.
The marriage idea is not my personal idea, Chris, for it has existed across the anthropological and historical records. Marriage is a social institution, has societal significance, and a core meaning.
Meanwhile, SSM argumentation has cited no essential of the SSM idea (in law or whatever) that must be accorded same-sex twosomes but must be denied ‘same-sex’ moresomes.
SSMers are fearful of being anything but indiscriminate. Society may justly discriminate between the marital relationship type and other types of relationships or other types of arrangements. The lack of a core for SSM just means that for SSMers to prevail their argumentation needs to hack away at the stronger and more substantive marriage idea.
That is seen in how marriage is routinely disparaged as meaning so little today, as having no core meaning, as being whatever suites a private and personal sentiment. It means everything and so it means nothing. That’s the gest of SSM argumentation.
But it is also the description that SSMers are left holding of their own SSM idea. Hollow. Without justification for special status on par with marital status. Something that fits the twosome or the moresome — if the same rules of argumentation are used to examine SSM as are used to hack at the marriage idea. But SSMers drop those rules when examinging the SSM idea; and are content to just hack at marriage instead.
The rise in divorce and cohabitation has prepped the way for SSM argumentation, as SSMers (i.e. SSM supporters) are very fond of reminding society each and every day they enter the public square with their demand to substitute the marriage idea with the SSM idea.
Chairm:
We are talking about whether or not we should change the LAW, Chairm, therefore you need to explain how this alleged “core meaning” is reflected in the law. And no, citing recent laws that say marriage can only be between a man and a woman is not enough; you need to show why these laws are legally justified. If the “core meaning” of marriage involves the “integration of the sexes” (and I should point out you’re using the term “integration” in a far different manner than it is commonly used), as well as “responsible procreation,” then there should be a LOT of evidence in marriage law pointing to this core meaning. If all you have is a) the law barring same-sex couples from marrying and b) the presumption of paternity, then that shows that your “core meaning” might not actually be a core meaning at all. Especially in regards to procreation; the marriage contract says next to nothing about that subject.
You need to show why the legal arrangement which we refer to as marriage in this country is only applicable to opposite-sexed couples and not to same-sex couples. Otherwise, you are advocating for the law to discriminate arbitrarily and unjustly.
Sure it has. Proponents of SSM have explained our position on this blog too many times to count. Basically, our argument is that marriage, as a legal institution, is set up to allow two unrelated adults to become each other’s closest legal kin. It is not set up in such a way that it can only accomodate opposite-sex couples; same-sex couples fit this legal arrangement just as well. Polygamous groups do not.
Now, maybe you can find flaws in that argument; but don’t just ignore it and pretend that we haven’t made an argument at all.
Chris your comments do not reflect reality very well.
You said: “Now, maybe you can find flaws in that argument; but don’t just ignore it and pretend that we haven’t made an argument at all.”
When I have referred to SSM argumentation and to SSM rhetoric and to the SSM idea, I clearly have acknowledge what has been on offer by SSMers here and elsewhere.
You like to build strawmen to knock but this does not disguise the plain truth that you hack at the marriage idea rather than set forth the case for elevating a subset of the nonmarriage category. SSM idea is a specious substitution for the marriage idea. Hence the acronymn, S.S.M.
* * *
The law certainly entails the core meaning. You’d abolish the man-woman criterion, which stands for integration of the sexes. You have declared, in your own personal view, the irrelevancy of the marital presumption of paternity, which stands for the provision of responsible procreation. The sexual basis for marriage is two-sexed, not one-sexed nor sex-neutral, as per the marriage law’s various legal expressions of the core meaning, incuding the sexual basis for consummation, annulment, adultery/divorce, and, against your personal view of the law and of the institution (both), the marital presumption that is vigorously enforced in the legal system.
This is hardly a matter of “recent laws” but comes down to what the law recognizes rather than owns or creates. The legal aspects of marriage — such as the ways in which the core meaning of the social institution is articulated, regulated, and presented as justification for the special status that society accords it — these amount to a mere shadow of the foundational social institution itself. The law does not own it but merely reflects it as per the societal regard for what makes marriage, marriage, and distinguishes it from nonmarriage.
SSM lacks this basic necessity. The best that you, Chris, and other SSMers have offered is an emphasis on gay identity politics. Yet same-sex sexual attraction, same-sex sexual behavior, and not even gay identity are compulsory for those who’d SSM anyplace where SSM has been imposed. The best offered, thus, does not make it into the law. And the law is what you are trying to manipulate, Chris.
Lacking justification for a special status on par with marital status, SSM, when imposed or enacted, stands as an abitrary act that directly contradicts the whining of SSMers that the law must be justified. Discriminating in favor of the gay identity group is inusufficient. But that is all you are left holding. A hollow and empty idea into which the SSM campaign and its proponents have poured an unhealthy reliance on identity politics.
SSM argumentation may assert the limit of two but it does not present the justification for that limitation. What is offered, again, directly contradicts the pro-SSM complaint against the man-woman criterion and directly contradicts the pro-SSM solution. Two is not a limitation that can be justified by the SSM idea. You are presenting circular thinking even thought that, too, is a no-no according to SSMers.
Likewise with the limitation based on relatedness. None of your pro-SSM argumentation survives your own rules for attacking the marriage idea. So you cling to your personal beliefs rather than the law, rather than a principled basis for special status (and thus limitations), rather than sticking to your own stated standards on what society may and may not do regarding the institution of marriage.
What’s the word for this kind of argumentation? It’s seems like a straw man argument, but it’s weirder than that, and it pops up a lot in online discussions.
The claim being made here is that “SSM argumentation has cited no essential of the SSM idea (sic) that must be accorded same-sex twosomes but must be denied ‘same-sex’ moresomes.”
Now, it sounds like that claim, in plain English, means that SSM advocates have never, ever, cited an essential feature of same-sex marriage that applies to couples but cannot be applied to groups of three or more.
Under that interpretation, the claim is hogwash. All it takes to disprove such a claim is to cite one example, anywhere in the history of the world, where an SSM advocate has made an argument in favor of same-sex marriage that is not an argument that works for same-sex group marriage.
It should surprise no one (not even Chairm) that such arguments have been made. They’ve been made all over the Interwebs, and they’ve been made on this very blog.
In formal logic, when Chairm makes a claim that begins “SSM argumentation has cited no…” all it takes is one example where SSM argumentation has cited the thing in question to prove the claim wrong.
In theory, when you cite one example, or two, or five, Chairm should respond by apologizing. “Oh, God, I am so sorry. I was acting like such an idiot. I made a claim that is totally false and I pretended it was true! I am really, really sorry for doing that. I will support SSM in the future, because I was basing my opposition on horsesh!t.”
In reality, that’s not what happens; Chairm will continue to rephrase the same argument and repeat it as if it is true, and when called on it, will continue to make claims about the things that SSM arguments aren’t saying. A straw man is when you respond to an argument that your opponent didn’t actually make; what is it called when you claim your opponent didn’t make an argument that they actually did? And what is the logical fallacy called when you, after being presented with an example of something you claim was never argued, you simply ignore and keep making the same claim?
Consider the following quotation:
Realize that the category of “Chris and other SSMers” includes everyone in the history of the world who has ever argued in favor of SSM. All it takes to refute this claim is one example of an argument that did not rely on gay identity politics. It goes without saying that, while you can surely find an argument that rests on gay identity politics, you can easily find examples of arguments that are not contingent on what any reasonable person would classify as “gay identity politics.”
What I suspect is happening here is this: for Chairm, as it is for Robert George, marriage is simply synecdoche for penis-in-vagina. All of the terms they use with regard to marriage are coded language for penis-in-vagina, so that no matter what you say in response to them, they redefine the language that you have used and find it lacking in the necessary penis-in-vagina quality, and therefore respond, “Oh *condescending chuckle*, your arguments are illogical!”
Chairm:
Well, now you are simply lying. Nowhere in my argument have I emphasized “gay identity politics.” I didn’t even mention sexual orientation in my argument for why SSM should be legal.
Since you cannot debate me without building strawmen, and are now blatantly lying about what I have and have not said, I don’t see how any future discussion between us can be fruitful.
Phil:
And what’s really funny is that in order to find an argument that did not rely on gay identity politics, he only had to go so far as to read the comments of mine which he was responding to. But I guess that’s too much to expect sometimes.