No, Polygamy is Not the Next Step

Now that gay marriage is the law of the land, people keep bringing up that red herring: polygamy.

Conservatives kept telling us that if we allowed gay marriage, next there would be polygamy, then people would start marrying horses and blowup dolls.

When the gay marriage debate started conservatives trotted out the idea that the only purpose of marriage was to have children. Children are necessary for the good of society. Since couples of the same sex can't procreate, the logic went, they shouldn't be allowed to marry.

Yet there are millions of opposite-sex couples who cannot have children, due to infertility. Those husbands and wives adopted children, or used sperm or egg donors, or engaged surrogate mothers. Gay couples can do these same things. In this technological age, biology is not destiny. And we've never stopped heterosexual couples past their childbearing years from marrying, so it makes no sense to deny gays and lesbians the same basic right.

The basic moral argument for gay marriage is that every person should have the same right to marry the person they love. Singular.

When conservatives tried to dredge up reasons for why gay marriage was bad, the only reason they could deduce, other than they didn't like it, was that it was harmful for the children. Why? Because conservatives would mistreat the children of gay couples.

Yes, their actual rationale for denying gay marriage was, "You can't get married because our children will harass your children."

Unlike gay marriage, polygamy has several detrimental social and biological effects.

The primary problem is that of hoarding of women. If a small number of men have a large number of wives, that means a large number of men have no wives. The consequences of this imbalance would be severe: it would force straight men into gay or polyandrous marriages. (Or be made into eunuchs so that they could manage the harems of the wealthy?)

Every extra wife a polygamous man hoards steals another straight man's right to happiness by denying him a family. (Gay marriage doesn't have this problem, as the ratio of gay men to lesbians appears to be close to one.)

If you believe -- as many conservatives do -- that being gay is a choice, polygamy could potentially force some men into gay relationships and marriage because they cannot find wives.

If you look at polygamous societies (Islam and Mormon cults like Warren Jeffs'), you find other social harms. Polygamy demeans the role of women: rich men would arrange to be married to younger women and girls. This would encourage the treatment of women as broodmares; some husbands would force them to selectively bear daughters after they get their first-born son to sell wives to other polygamous men. As the men age they go after younger and younger girls, marrying twelve- and thirteen-year-olds.

Wealthy men would pay large "dowries" to parents of attractive young girls to stock their large harems. These would create what amounts to a sex slave market for underage girls. There would be an Uber-like app for parents looking to sell their daughters.

That leaves a large number of men without any outlet for sexual tension. In the United States men would never stand for having no access to heterosexual sex, so polygamy would force the legalization of prostitution.

There are historical antecedents that show a large population of men who cannot marry causes major social upheaval.

This has occurred more than once in China. During the Qing dynasty in the 19th century a famine caused widespread female infanticide. The Chinese considered daughters less valuable than sons because girls wouldn't carry on the family name, or support their aged parents. Over time that resulted in more than a quarter of young men being unable to find wives.

This was particularly short-sighted. They failed to realize that when large numbers of parents killed girl babies, there would be no women for their sons to marry. And the result was the same: their sons could not carry on the family name.

But that wasn't the only problem. These wifeless men (called "bare branches") formed militias and raised havoc, ultimately bringing down the Qing dynasty.

China is making the same mistake again today, with many parents having aborted female fetuses or abandoning girl babies in the cold to die due to the strict one-child policy. By 2020 it's estimated that there will be almost 4% more men than women in China. That's 30 million men who won't be able to marry. (Some of them are seeking wives from other countries, like Korea, but that just spreads the problem across the world.)

Already, in the areas of China where the male-to-female ratio is the most lopsided there is considerably greater violence, alcoholism, drug addiction, gambling, as well as kidnapping and trafficking of women.

We had the same sort of problems in the United States in the Wild West, when there were far more men than women in the new territories.

So, too many men is obviously bad. What about polyandry?

The idea that women with multiple husbands would somehow make up for men with multiple wives is ludicrous: the simple facts of biology make that impossible. One woman just cannot bear children for several husbands; it's just too hard on women (the sheer creepiness of the Duggar baby factory should dispel any notion that this is desirable). And I seriously doubt any significant percentage of American men would ever voluntarily submit to being one of several husbands. The male ego is too fragile -- they would go without rather than submit to such an embarrassment.

There are also practical, biological and economic arguments against polygamy. It would increase inbreeding: more and more children would have the same fathers. This would reduce the gene pool in general and the Y chromosome in particular. Society would be more prone to genetic diseases and in general less genetically diverse, which leads to greater susceptibility to disease.

Political and economic power would become even more unequal as polygamous dynasties passed power from father to son.

Then there are legal ramifications for divorce and inheritance. Wherever polygamy reigns women are treated as chattel. Clearly that won't stand in America. But what happens in a modern society like ours when a wealthy man marries 20 women and the wives disagree with the husband on how to manage their affairs? He can't just have his way because he's the man, not in this day and age. Majority vote? The wives will win every argument. What man would put up with that?

Oh, you say, a prenuptial agreement would solve these problems. No. Typically polygamous marriages are arranged by parents. Parents aiming to make money off their daughters will sign the girls to unfair prenups and sell them off at age 16 or 18 to some rich guy. These things will wind up in court 10 years later when the wife wants a divorce and take "her" children with her. But in a polygamous family where all the children are raised by half a dozen wives as if they were their own, which children are hers? Two-way custody battles are already a nightmare. Imagine what a six-way custody battle would be like.

Biology makes polygamy inherently asymmetric, and therefore inherently unfair. (Some would argue that it also makes heterosexual marriage unfair, but sometimes you have to yield to biology.)

Marriage between two spouses has demonstrable societal goods: married people -- whether gay or straight -- are more economically stable and responsible. Married people live longer and are in better health. Married people provide a better environment in which to raise children. Unmarried couples living together have many of the same benefits, but these unions tend to be less stable.

Having extra wives around to care for children in a polygamous marriage is touted as a benefit. But is that really true? Two-spouse marriages are frequently stressed by jealousies, inequitable distribution of labor, disputes over sex, expenses and child-rearing techniques. Imagine what a mess it becomes if you have four or five wives bickering with themselves and their husband over these same things. How will the older wives feel when the husband wants to get another young new wife, who they know will get all the attention and have all the fun while they are stuck taking care of the kids and cleaning the house.

The only women women who would submit to such conditions would have been up in polygamous households and brainwashed from birth into thinking that they have to defer to the husband in all things and that his word is law. But if polygamy went mainstream, that wouldn't fly in this country.

The attraction of polygamy is the idea of a man having all these women at his beck and call. Practical American polygamy wouldn't work that way. It would be more businesslike and practical, and that defeats the entire purpose, which is to stroke the ego of the polygamist male. Most women wouldn't stand for it, and the men who wanted polygamy wouldn't stand for a fairer version of it that America would allow.

Because total subjugation of women to the will of a man is the entire point of polygamy. It is sexual slavery. And we just don't cotton to that anymore.

If people want to live together in their own freaky version of polyamory, they can do that. But they don't need the blessing of the government to do it.