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elfsOh, good. Jonathan Rauch has finally written a response to Stanley Kurtz's argument that if we extend marriage rights to homosexuals, we have no social-policy grounds under which to deny them to polyamorists. Rauch's argument is compelling and echoes my own: indeed, he uses the same material I did last year, adding to it more recent examples from the current Chinese experience.
The argument is a simple one: if you grant legal recognition to polyamorous households, then the ones to take the most advantange of the system will not be liberal SF-con-going women with two husbands but rabidly Christian and Mormon harem-collectors. Households with a surfeit of wives will easily outnumber households with multiple husbands. We don't live in a perfect world, and there's not much we can do to change human nature such as it is. In our world, the one where policy writers have to live, if you grant legal recognition and the transfer of marriage rights to polyamorous households, you will soon arrive at a state where you have a large underclass of men who have no chance to marry.
History records no state that was not monagamous that succeeded as a liberal democracy. Rauch misses making an important point: polygamy is a powerful tool for conservative *women*; with more than one woman in the household, they can exert more influence over the man (provided, of course, that the women all have a common agenda), and women will have the power to "marry up" into high-status households. I think that's a point worth holding onto: in a society where polyamory in the norm, you'll have a group of women who are monogamous precisely because they can't marry up. Polygamy leads to a stratification based upon criteria liberal democracies don't want to face.
But the point inevitably comes back to the real world argument that legalized polyamory would benefit households with many wives, and those with many husbands would be rare. In such a world, there would be a class of subalterns, subordinate men with no hope of ever enjoying the stabilizing effects of marriage. Rauch concludes:
The argument is a simple one: if you grant legal recognition to polyamorous households, then the ones to take the most advantange of the system will not be liberal SF-con-going women with two husbands but rabidly Christian and Mormon harem-collectors. Households with a surfeit of wives will easily outnumber households with multiple husbands. We don't live in a perfect world, and there's not much we can do to change human nature such as it is. In our world, the one where policy writers have to live, if you grant legal recognition and the transfer of marriage rights to polyamorous households, you will soon arrive at a state where you have a large underclass of men who have no chance to marry.
History records no state that was not monagamous that succeeded as a liberal democracy. Rauch misses making an important point: polygamy is a powerful tool for conservative *women*; with more than one woman in the household, they can exert more influence over the man (provided, of course, that the women all have a common agenda), and women will have the power to "marry up" into high-status households. I think that's a point worth holding onto: in a society where polyamory in the norm, you'll have a group of women who are monogamous precisely because they can't marry up. Polygamy leads to a stratification based upon criteria liberal democracies don't want to face.
But the point inevitably comes back to the real world argument that legalized polyamory would benefit households with many wives, and those with many husbands would be rare. In such a world, there would be a class of subalterns, subordinate men with no hope of ever enjoying the stabilizing effects of marriage. Rauch concludes:
Polygamy is, structurally and socially, the opposite of same-sex marriage, not its equivalent. Same-sex marriage stabilizes individuals, couples, communities, and society by extending marriage to many who now lack it. Polygamy destabilizes individuals, couples, communities, and society by withdrawing marriage from many who now have it.
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no subject
Date: 2006-04-17 08:48 pm (UTC)What I objected to was the statement "If gay marriage is legal *and* polygamy is legal, then it's quite likely that a fair number of men will be bi"... as if the people's sexual orientation was based upon the law, instead of their expression of their sexuality being based on the law. I see no reason to believe (and very significant reason not to believe) that if the law changes, a bunch of guys will suddenly become bi. In fact, I find such a suggestion to be very derogatory to those of us who are bi, along the lines of saying "oh, he's bi... he must not have been able to find what he was really looking for, and so took anything he could get".
no subject
Date: 2006-04-17 08:51 pm (UTC)Given these changes, I suspect more men would realize and act on their inhernet bisexuality. How about that? I get your point - just think this group is mostly the choir.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-17 09:28 pm (UTC)I'll grant that more men might act on their inherent bisexuality (or homosexuality) if there were legal recognition for long-term commitment... but I cannot respect such men, and devoutly hope that I don't know many. If someone is unwilling to express perfectly legal (in this state, at least) interest or affection simply because someday later, there might be a bit of hassle when some financial (or POA-related) problem came up, then I'm not really interested in knowing this incredibly repressed person.
As for realization... anyone who doesn't see the implications of finding people of either gender sexually attractive (regardless of activity or law) is again too self-deluded for me to be interested in knowing.
Of the population that I could respect, I don't think a change in the law will create a significant change in what relationships exist... and I'm not so pessimistic as to assert that a large fraction of the actual population is unworthy of my respect on this single issue.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-17 09:37 pm (UTC)You're missing my basic point. *I* am bisexual. I have been seriously involved with both men and women and lean, if anything, towards women.
However, my only serious current relationship is with a man because various social and political forces make it a lot easier to meet a man who meshes with my life. I expect eventually I'll meet such a gal, but it seems to be *harder* as many of the women I meet either already have primary males in their life, or are queer and uninterested in a bi/poly grrl.
In other words, even when we are actualized as bisexual, who we actually wind up forming our networks with is largely a matter of opportunity with some luck thrown in.
As for realization... anyone who doesn't see the implications of finding people of either gender sexually attractive (regardless of activity or law) is again too self-deluded for me to be interested in knowing.
Ah - well then. I take it you started dating both genders early? I was less enlightened - wasn't until my twenties that I figured out I was bi, and another half decade before I had my second chance to do something about it. Some folks take even longer simply because society makes it harder to connect with other queers until you know you're queer. (And even after, unless you're somewhat isolationist.)
no subject
Date: 2006-04-17 11:44 pm (UTC)The fact that most didn't consider themselves gay or bi is *their* problem, as will as social "conditioning".
My point was that postulatinmg the legality of *both* gay marriage and polygamous marriage, the shortage of women would result in some (porobably large) number of men who would ordinarily have married women marrying other men.
Whether you respect such people opr not is irrelevant and immaterial.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-18 12:11 am (UTC)However, who said there wouldn't be women around? We're not talking about segregating society; the barflies and whores will still be present.
Further, the unlawfulness of the homosexual encounters that you cite (sodomy was against the law in many of those navies) doesn't seem to have kept the encounters from occurring... which makes me question even more why some people suspect that the marriage laws (which, we should note, do not preclude people from spending their lives together) are having a huge inhibitive effect.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-18 01:32 am (UTC)China is about to learn this lesson the hard way, since they have a sex ration of 117 men for every 100 women. Right now that means that out of a billion people, they have 60 million men who right now have absolutely zero chance of gaining a wife, in a culture that values marriage more than ours. These men aren't in total institutions: they're walking the streets where women are within reach and, forgive me for saying so, but human nature being what it is the future for those women looks about as bleak as it does for those 60 million men.