Multiple Marriage?

"There is no place for the State in the bedrooms of the nation...What's done in private between adults does not concern the Criminal Code"--Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, December 21, 1967

Unless there are more than two of them?

Trudeau here was referring to the decriminalization of homosexuality, but his words also, to my mind, defend some--perhaps many--polygamists.

I love to watch sacred cows being tipped. Tabitha Southey does it with aplomb here, utterly demolishing the case against multiple marriage.

Full disclosure: I flirted with polyamory in my younger years and held it as an ideal for many more. I've since come to the realization that I am not capable of existing in a polyamorous relationship--as loving as I am, I don't seem to be able to balance multiple loves in my life. But just because I'm happily committed to monogamy doesn't mean I have lost sight of those who aren't.

I once corresponded at some length with a woman from Michigan who was "married" to two men at the same time. She had her name legally changed such that one partner's surname became her middle name and the other's her surname. The three lived a life that was indistinguishable from a typical couple's life but for the extra adult member of the family. I lost touch with her almost twenty years ago, but Google informs me that relationship was still going strong in 2004 when one partner passed away.
Not that longevity should have much to do with it: after all, Hollywood is replete with marriages that are no less legally valid for the days, weeks or months that they last.

The question about polygamy, as the B.C. Supreme Court notes, boils down to "harm; more specifically, Parliament's reasoned apprehension of harm arising out of the practice of polygamy. This includes harm to women, to children, to society and to the institution of monogamous marriage."

There is little doubt that some polygamous relationships are harmful towards women and children, though I would argue--as Wente does--that they pose no harm whatsoever to monogamous marriage. (I made and continue to make the same argument as regards same-sex marriage: if Adam and Steve next door get married and that affects your marriage in any way, you've got problems no marriage counsellor can solve.)  The polygamous relationships I'm thinking of--the harmful ones--tend to have a religious element to them, in which the husband considers it his divine right to take some number of wives that is greater than one. It should be noted that some of the heroes of the Old Testament racked up astonishing numbers of wives and nobody batted an eyelash. Moses himself had two wives. That's if he existed: most Bible scholars I have read believe him to be a concatenation of several individuals. Regardless, Aaron and Miriam criticized their brother Moses for taking a second wife and the Lord punished Miriam with a skin disease for the criticism (Numbers 12: 1-15). David had eight named wives and countless unnamed ones as well. Moving forward, polygamy was prevalent in New Testament times as well and, contrary to popular belief, Jesus never said a thing about it one way or the other. Paul, in one place--1 Corinthians 7:27-28d--explicitly states that polygamy is not a sin.

Okay, so that's morality two thousand and more years ago. I'd like to think we've evolved somewhat since then...women aren't property anymore, for one thing. What does my morality meter register, considering polygamy?

"What's done in private between adults does not concern the Criminal Code." Trudeau was right, as fr as I'm concerned, but that "between adults" is critical. It implies consent--moreover, consent freely given. Where it exists, there is no harm and thus no issue. Where it doesn't, we have a problem.

The B.C. Supreme Court has attempted to skate around this by decreeing that a formal multiple marriage, be it civil or religious in nature, will remain illegal, even as informal co-habitation arrangements between like minded groups are acceptable. On the surface, it's a fair compromise, since the cultists who practise polygamy usually seem to require some sort of ceremony to "legitimize" it, while many polyamorous types aren't that into the whole institution of marriage.

But many is not all. The same could be said for gay people, many of whom have no desire whatsoever to be married. For those in both communities who do, however, it's a slap in the face.

Not all polygamous relationships consist of of bunch of women kneeling to one man. My net-friend with the two husbands entered into her relationships freely and lived happily that way for many years. She specifically mentions that her name anagrams to "I live a darn nice life".

And there are more people out there like her. I'm not suggesting your street is full of them, but there are likely more than you'd suspect. Again, just like gays.

Consent freely given can, of course, be a bugger of a thing to prove in a court of law. Where it can be established, I see no reason why group marriage should be illegal. Do you?