New at Reason

David Weigel | April 3, 2006, 9:20am

Jonathan Rauch proposes some fresh thinking on polygamous marriages.

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Comments to "New at Reason":

Evan | April 3, 2006, 9:45am | #

"Other things being equal (and, to a good first approximation, they are), when one man marries two women, some other man marries no woman. When one man marries three women, two other men don't marry. When one man marries four women, three other men don't marry. Monogamy gives everyone a shot at marriage. Polygyny, by contrast, is a zero-sum game that skews the marriage market so that some men marry at the expense of others."

So, um, I guess The State should make sure that even Nerdly McFruitcake has a chance at marriage. While I'm not a fan of polygamy myself, I just don't buy Jonathan's abstract mathematical summations of the "marriage market".

"A permanent subclass of bare branches [unmarriageable men] from the lowest socioeconomic classes is created. In China and India, for example, by the year 2020 bare branches will make up 12 to 15 percent of the young adult male population." The problem in China and India is sex-selective abortion (and sometimes infanticide), not polygamy; where the marriage market is concerned, however, the two are functional equivalents."

First, if this "permanent subclass" is indeed created, then, would that not weed out, evolution-style, these "lesser" men, given that they could not reproduce because of the women-shortage?

Second, the two are NOT "functional equivalents", because one results in offspring, the other does not necessarily.

"As the public focuses on a subject it has not confronted for generations, the hazards of polygamy are likely to sink in. In time, debating polygamy will remind us why our ancestors were right to abolish it. The question is whether the debate will reach its stride soon enough to prevent polygamy
from winning a lazy acquiescence that it in no way deserves."

Why would it "win" this acquiescence? The assumption that Jonathan seems to be operating on is that, in our relatively advanced society, there are hordes of men chomping at the bit to take multiple women, and at the same time, there are hordes of women chomping at the bit to marry into a polygamous house.

I think it's safe to say that neither of these assumptions are anywhere near true. If polygamy were legalized tomorrow throughout the country, I honestly doubt it would even cause a ripple among the vast, vast majority of society. It seems like Jonathan is making way too big of a deal out of nothing...unlike gay marriage, I just don't see this big "market" for polygamy.

Mr. F. Le Mur | April 3, 2006, 9:46am | #

In particular communities — inner cities, for example — polygamy could take a toll much more quickly. Even a handful of "Solomons" (high-status men taking multiple wives) could create brigades of new recruits for street gangs and drug lords, the last thing those communities need.

It's the last thing those commmutities need because it's what they already have: welcome to the wonderful world of Welfare Queens, strangely unmentioned in the article, wherein women "marry" the State in the form of welfare and "child support."

Murray "Superboy" Babitch | April 3, 2006, 9:50am | #

As Ross Perot used to say, it's not a smart thing to close the barn door while the horse is galloping away.

To wit: About a year ago on CSPAN there was a filmed conference of activist gay marriage lawyers...they stated a goal to one day make marriage similar to corporate partnership law, i.e., one could "marry" certain groups of people for the benefits....one example was a group of downsized workers "marrying" each other for the tax deduction and other benefits.

Rauch makes good points, but Scalia was right a few years ago: it's not so much a slippery slope to completely open, unregulated marriage, it's more like a greasy bobsled run.

Dan T. | April 3, 2006, 9:52am | #

This article, which I enjoyed very much, could be boiled down to this: polygamy used to be common, we decided it wasn't such a good idea and got rid of it. So why consider instituting it again?

Jennifer | April 3, 2006, 9:53am | #

I wonder if Rauch has similar reservation against large property owners? Real estate is a zero-sum game, so no one person should be allowed to own too much land. Every acre I own is an acre you can't have.

That's not to say I'm too thrilled with the idea of polygamy, but neither am I comfortable with the idea that the government must "ration" spouses to make sure there are enough to go around.

Akira MacKenzie | April 3, 2006, 10:04am | #

So why consider instituting it again?

Because many are realizing that monogamy is a lie and we don't want to be stuck fucking the same person for the rest of our lives.

Dan T. | April 3, 2006, 10:04am | #

I wonder if Rauch has similar reservation against large property owners? Real estate is a zero-sum game, so no one person should be allowed to own too much land. Every acre I own is an acre you can't have.

I took the point to be that Rauch doesn't think women should become a free-market commodity.

Dan T. | April 3, 2006, 10:06am | #

So why consider instituting it again?

Because many are realizing that monogamy is a lie and we don't want to be stuck fucking the same person for the rest of our lives.

So when you get married now, you are stuck with the same person for the rest of your life? What country do you live in?

Jennifer | April 3, 2006, 10:11am | #

I took the point to be that Rauch doesn't think women should become a free-market commodity.

But such rationing arguments make more sense for land or natural resources than they do for spouses. Land, oil wells, gold mines--they have no minds, and can't possibly give a damn who owns them. But if three different women all want to marry the same guy, why should the government step in and say "No, only one of you can do so?"

Yes, I understand that such behavior can have a negative effect on society. But I am surprised to see a libertarian expressing the opinion "We must regulate behavior that will not hurt any single individuals, but will hurt society as a whole."

So men who know they will never marry are more likely to become criminals? Huh--the same holds true for men who know they will always be poor. Yet I would be extremely surprised to see Rauch support any plan whereby the government stepped in to make sure everybody can own some property, even those who can't get any through open competition. A man who spends his whole life knowing he'll never have a house of his own might become a bandit, so what shall the government do to help him get a house?

KipEsquire | April 3, 2006, 10:12am | #

I see nothing new or useful here.

The purpose of modern marriage is to elevate, with force of law, one person's rights to you, and claims against you, above all others. By definition it is impossible to elevate more than one person "above all others."

That's all it takes to defuse the "gay marriage requires polygamy" non-argument, and it's not at all a complicated analysis -- unless people (i.e., anti-gay bigots) deliberately seek to make it complicated.

Akira MacKenzie | April 3, 2006, 10:13am | #

So when you get married now, you are stuck with the same person for the rest of your life?

When last I checked, divorces were messy and expensive.

What country do you live in?

One populated by up-tight, sexual repressed, and hypocritical Christards.

Zubon | April 3, 2006, 10:14am | #

Am I reading this wrong, or is Rauch opposing polygamy on the grounds that it denies men their FSM-given right to a woman?

Any other measures we should take to ensure brides for men?

The United States as a whole would reach that ratio if, for example, 5 percent of men took two wives, 3 percent took three wives, and 2 percent took four wives � numbers that are quite imaginable, if polygamy were legal for a while.
So 27% of women would want to be in polygynous marriages? That suggestion seems unlikely to me. I just do not hear more than 1-in-4 women demanding the right to share husbands. Or do I have the math wrong there?

NCCU3L | April 3, 2006, 10:14am | #

Evan:

What you're forgetting in your second point is that as long as polygamy persists, the subclass is being continually refreshed as the next generation is born and the same marriage pattern occurs where a few select males get to marry a greater number of females and the rest of the males are left without mates. Also, why don't you think that sex-selective abortion/birth and polygamy are functional equivalents? If you assume (and based on historical data, it's a good assumption) that men with multiple wives is the most likely result, you end up with the same result in both cases. In a society that's monogamous but where parents kill most of the female babies, you end up with a large actual numerical imbalance in the number of men and women, and hence many men can't marry. In the polygamous society, although the sex ratios may be balanced, because each man accounts for more than one woman (on average), you end up with a large number of men who aren't able to marry.

Jennifer:

Sounds like apples and oranges. I don't think property rights in real estate are really comparable to marriage. I'm willing to listen to why they might, but offhand they seem to involve very different questions on policy. Would you support some form of marital "adverse possession" by which an aggressor male could, by carrying on an affair with one of another male's wives for a number of years, cause her to divorce her first husband and marry him instead?

Evan | April 3, 2006, 10:16am | #

Dan,

"I took the point to be that Rauch doesn't think women should become a free-market commodity."

But, according to his mathematical abstractions, a commodity nonetheless.

"So why consider instituting it again?"

Because that's what a free society is based on: freedom. Rauch asserts that polygamy should remain illegal because the pragmatic results of legalizing it would supposedly be negative. However, could we apply this simplistic rationale to other forms of marriage? What if a series of studies were performed, and come to the conclusion that interracial marriages cause pragmatic harm? Would it then also be okay to criminalize interracial marriages again? This whole "you're free to do what you want just so long as the results are good" brand of "freedom" is scary.

Dan T. | April 3, 2006, 10:17am | #

Yes, I understand that such behavior can have a negative effect on society. But I am surprised to see a libertarian expressing the opinion "We must regulate behavior that will not hurt any single individuals, but will hurt society as a whole."

I agree that it was surprising to see an piece about "social costs" in Reason.

Jennifer | April 3, 2006, 10:18am | #

Sounds like apples and oranges. I don't think property rights in real estate are really comparable to marriage. I'm willing to listen to why they might, but offhand they seem to involve very different questions on policy. Would you support some form of marital "adverse possession" by which an aggressor male could, by carrying on an affair with one of another male's wives for a number of years, cause her to divorce her first husband and marry him instead?

Maybe you posted this before you saw my comment at 10:11, but using Rauch's argument that a substance must be rationed to ensure everybody gets the same chance of having it, rationing land makes even MORE sense than rationing spouses because there's no possible way land can say "Hey, I hate being the exclusive possession of one other person." But if five different women are content to share one guy, how can Rauch support having the government tell them they cannot?

Dan T. | April 3, 2006, 10:22am | #

This whole "you're free to do what you want just so long as the results are good" brand of "freedom" is scary.

No scarier than "freedom without regards to the consequences of any action".

Ruthless | April 3, 2006, 10:23am | #

I'm with Jennifer on this.
What's missing in Rauch's article is what "we" are supposed to do.
The beauty of anarchy is that I don't worry my pretty head about such things.

Dan T. | April 3, 2006, 10:24am | #

Pig Mannix | April 3, 2006, 10:30am | #

The purpose of modern marriage is to elevate, with force of law, one person's rights to you, and claims against you, above all others. By definition it is impossible to elevate more than one person "above all others."

That's a dubious argument at best. Obviously, your children have claims against you above all others, arguably even your spouse. Last I checked, it's possible to have more than one child.

NCCU3L | April 3, 2006, 10:31am | #

Maybe you posted this before you saw my comment at 10:11, but using Rauch's argument that a substance must be rationed to ensure everybody gets the same chance of having it, rationing land makes even MORE sense than rationing spouses because there's no possible way land can say "Hey, I hate being the exclusive possession of one other person." But if five different women are content to share one guy, how can Rauch support having the government tell them they cannot?

Guilty as charged. ;-)

I think this would be an effective argument against criminalizing having sex with more than one person, or living with more than one person. I think there's a difference between behavior that society cannot criminalize and behavior that society has to sanction. If individual people want to be in polyamorous, I have no problem with it. However, unless you ignore history, there are some nasty negative externalities (Rauch mentions several in the article) associated with actual state-sanctioned polygamy. I think Rauch (and I) are working under the assumption that those externalities are more likely to have a negative effect on our various freedoms in the long run.

Yes, not allowing state-sanctioned polygamy denies freedom to some. However, it appears from history that sanctioning it would lead to less freedom for all. Does that make sense?

metalgrid | April 3, 2006, 10:32am | #

But if five different women are content to share one guy, how can Rauch support having the government tell them they cannot?

The government doesn't do that, and nobody's saying group love affairs should be outlawed.

Comment by: Dan T. at April 3, 2006 10:24 AM

That right there disproves the argument that it will be any different than how it is now. Right now there are polyspousal groups who are just not married in name only.

Even with the existence of those groups, we currently have:
- not too many issues finding mates
- no tyrranical govenment (ok that part is debateable) neccessitated to control the unmarried masses
- no skewed male to female ratio

i.e. none of the chicken little arguments Mr. Rauch puts forth have struck is despite the existence of polyspousal groups who are married but for the lack of a license from government.

Akira MacKenzie | April 3, 2006, 10:38am | #

The government doesn't do that, and nobody's saying group love affairs should be outlawed.

Give the Christian Right some time, they're getting to it.

Steven Crane | April 3, 2006, 10:39am | #

I don't know why this is such a big deal.

It seems to me that the only two subsets of people who would get on the polygamy-train are the following;

1. The more weirdo-varieties of Mormons, who are more or less already doing it, and;

2. Oddball pagan/Wiccan types, who are, yet again, already doing the polyamory thing (which seems to often end in spectacular failure and massive drama for them).

Seriously, does anyone actually believe that if polygamy is allowed, that it will be overwhelmingly patriarchal in nature, and that it would make any significant dent in the pool of potential mates?

Jennifer | April 3, 2006, 10:40am | #

unless you ignore history, there are some nasty negative externalities (Rauch mentions several in the article) associated with actual state-sanctioned polygamy. I think Rauch (and I) are working under the assumption that those externalities are more likely to have a negative effect on our various freedoms in the long run.

Agreed, but history also shows there are many nasty side-effects in allowing any one person or one small group of people to own too much property, or have too many financial advantages over another. Yet Rauch (or rather, Reason magazine as a whole) would oppose having the government limit how much money or property any one person can have, even though free-market oligarchies can have a negative effect on various freedoms in the long run.

So why are they making an exception in the case of spouses? As I've said before, all those problems that you see in men who have little to no chance of marrying are also extant in cases of men who know they little to no chance of crawling out of poverty. Yet if someone suggested special government laws to increase the chances that poor people will rise above their impovershed status, this magazine would be the first to publish indignant articles explaining why this is a stupid statist idea completely antithetical to freedom.

Akira MacKenzie | April 3, 2006, 10:44am | #

General warning to all:

I'm in a foul mood, and what little paticence I have has been spent for today. So don't expect to be civil.

Garth | April 3, 2006, 10:45am | #

Way back when polygamy was more common, wars tended to take out quite a large number of young men, and the hazzards of being male (when harder labor/hunting meant an even shorter life, or even early death) meant that there was always a surplus of women to men.

While this is no longer the case, more males than females tend to be gay (and actually living as a gay male and not marrying a female is significantly more common than once was) and given that probably no more than a small percent of people would even consider polygamy, I suspect even if everyone who wanted to did enter into such a relationship there would be no noticeable problem.

In fact, given all the women who are deciding to have children without a father, polygamous marriage would provide a more supportive network (heather has 3 mommies and a daddy too!) without the burden of the monogamous marriage that these women wish to avoid (see "Looking for Mr. Good Sperm" NYT Sunday Magazine a couple of weeks back)

In any event I remain surprised that this particular article and its statist bias was even published here. I would have expected a more sensible: "polygamy between consenting adults is fine and one more reason the State should be out of the marriage business altogether/treat marriage as any contract" type message.

Dan T. | April 3, 2006, 10:48am | #

I guess any discussion of marriage on a Libertarian site is pointless, isn't it, since in a Libertarian utopia the government wouldn't have the power to recognize marriage anyway.

mk | April 3, 2006, 10:52am | #

the hazzards of being male

There were many, of course, but the dangers of childbirth trounced them most of the time. If anything, wars may have been fought to get rid of the surplus males that were around due to the number of women who had died in childbirth.

NCCU3L | April 3, 2006, 10:54am | #

So why are they making an exception in the case of spouses? As I've said before, all those problems that you see in men who have little to no chance of marrying are also extant in cases of men who know they little to no chance of crawling out of poverty. Yet if someone suggested special government laws to increase the chances that poor people will rise above their impovershed status, this magazine would be the first to publish indignant articles explaining why this is a stupid statist idea completely antithetical to freedom.

Fair point. I'm more of a practical libertarian, so some amount of regulation doesn't necessarily bother me. And i'd still differentiate laws/programs that give the opportunity to rise above poverty from those that simply handed out money to anyone who asked for it. I suppose I see it as a "not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good" kind of thing.

Your land example made me think of the Russian revolution, but I see that you're not arguing that such things can never be bad, just that it's unusual to see an argument for them here at Reason. With which I can wholeheartedly agree, but i'm not sure that's a bad thing.

emme | April 3, 2006, 10:56am | #

" Yet Rauch (or rather, Reason magazine as a whole) would oppose having the government limit how much money or property any one person can have, even though free-market oligarchies can have a negative effect on various freedoms in the long run. "

There's a difference here though isn't there? Underpinning this whole talk about men competing for women is the assumption held by evolutionary psychologists that's desire in general to pair-bond is stronger than the desire to pursue property.

And one reason to oppose a policy that predetermines how much money or property one person can have is that the absence of such a policy is better at spreading wealth.

Warren | April 3, 2006, 11:00am | #

Rauch had me at the begging, but then totally lost me. While I should be susceptible to arguments that make more women available to geeky males, the zero-sum argument for government regulation of personal relationships doesn't wash with me. Besides, didn't Jonathon concede his whole case as spurious when he said "Group love (sometimes called polyamory) is already legal, and some people freely practice it."

If people now practice polyamory, then we should already be experiencing the horrors of hoards of unmated males. What we're talking about is what legal rights, privileges, and responsibilities should be recognized. From a libertarian view the assertion that "Because a marriage license is a state grant, polygamy is a matter of public policy" is begging the question. Social engineering is not one of the purposes the people ordain government to do.

Polygamy is indeed unlike gay marriage. Gay marriage can (and should) be instituted immediately, granting to gay couples the same legal rights, privileges, and responsibilities afforded to hetero couples. However, since many of those rights etc. apply to a single individual (power of attorney, child custody, e.g.) the legal definition of marriage can not simply be applied to polygamy.

I think we should be engaging in a public discussion/debate over polygamy. But Rauch diverts us from the topics of relevance. Freedom of association is a fundamental right of a free people. People whom whish to enter polyamorous relationships must be free to do so. The questions that need to be settled, are what legal status is afforded to the members of such relationships. Questions of social consequence we leave to academia.

Ruthless | April 3, 2006, 11:02am | #

"There were many, of course, but the dangers of childbirth trounced them most of the time. If anything, wars may have been fought to get rid of the surplus males that were around due to the number of women who had died in childbirth."

See how "problems" sow the seed of their own resolution?
Ain't anarchy grand?

Jennifer | April 3, 2006, 11:05am | #

Underpinning this whole talk about men competing for women is the assumption held by evolutionary psychologists that's desire in general to pair-bond is stronger than the desire to pursue property. And one reason to oppose a policy that predetermines how much money or property one person can have is that the absence of such a policy is better at spreading wealth.

Is the desire for safety and security any weaker? Yet Reason would oppose laws restricting the behavior of consenting adults just to make others feel safer or more secure. But restriciting the behavior of consenting adults to help men get laid is okay?

As for the idea that such policies increase the chances of spreading wealth--a similar argument could be said about mates. If men had to face more competition for a dwindling pool of women, maybe we'd see less 300-pound bald guys with visible body odor convinced that they were the current avatar of Rudolph Valentino. If the government makes laws for the express purpose of making it easier for men to find mates, why wouldn't that be just as damaging as laws making it easier for poor people to own property currently held by the rich?

Ruthless | April 3, 2006, 11:09am | #

Jennifer,
You don't find visible body odor an aphrodysiac?

emme | April 3, 2006, 11:13am | #

"As for the idea that such policies increase the chances of spreading wealth--a similar argument could be said about mates. If men had to face more competition for a dwindling pool of women, maybe we'd see less 300-pound bald guys with visible body odor convinced that they were the current avatar of Rudolph Valentino. If the government makes laws for the express purpose of making it easier for men to find mates, why wouldn't that be just as damaging as laws making it easier for poor people to own property currently held by the rich?"

The same arguments against polygamy also apply to serial monogamy but to a lesser degree.

If men faced a dwindling pool of women all that would mean is that there would be more single men. The bald guy wouldn't go away. Maybe he'll try harder to compete for his resources but the imbalance will still be there. So I don't think the same argument could be mqade for spreading mates.

"Is the desire for safety and security any weaker? Yet Reason would oppose laws restricting the behavior of consenting adults just to make others feel safer or more secure. But restriciting the behavior of consenting adults to help men get laid is okay?"

There lies the difference. Safety and security in general are spread out and provided for pretty adequately in a capitalist society. Apportioning property and resources has been tried and the results have been rather disastrous.

Jennifer | April 3, 2006, 11:15am | #

You don't find visible body odor an aphrodysiac?

Nope. And yet, here Rauch is promoting laws that erode men's work ethic in regards to finding mates.

Jennifer | April 3, 2006, 11:18am | #

If men faced a dwindling pool of women all that would mean is that there would be more single men. The bald guy wouldn't go away. Maybe he'll try harder to compete for his resources but the imbalance will still be there.

And the same holds true for resources in a capitalist society. If men face a dwindling pool of real estate all that would mean is that there would be more landless men. The poor guy won't go away. Maybe he'll try harder to compete for resources but the imbalance will still be there.

There lies the difference. Safety and security in general are spread out and provided for pretty adequately in a capitalist society.

Tell that to homeless people. Tell that to folks one paycheck away from having their homes foreclosed. Tell that to folks facing bankruptcy after a medical disaster.

The whole idea in a capitalist society is that there will be winners and losers. Why should the same not hold true for the dating pool?

Time Wounds All Heels | April 3, 2006, 11:20am | #

I agree that it was surprising to see an piece about "social costs" in Reason.

The whole reason tat Reason is free to move leftward, now that the conservatarian star is dimming is because the writers are nobody's shills. They have freedom of choice and they excercise that freedom wisely in view of the changing political landscape. Next up: David Weigel on trimming the pork from the military budget. "Trolls" up. Registered Republicans down. Democrats side-to-side arrow.

emme | April 3, 2006, 11:22am | #

"And the same holds true for resources in a capitalist society. If men face a dwindling pool of real estate all that would mean is that there would be more landless men. The poor guy won't go away. Maybe he'll try harder to compete for resources but the imbalance will still be there."

Key difference. When it comes to pair bonding it's all or nothing. You either have a mate or you don't.

When it comes to land if you can't own you rent etc. You might be living paycheck to paycheck but you DO have a paycheck.

That's why the same does not hold true for the dating pool.

I'm not saying serial monogamy should be outlawed. I'm saying it's a different animal completely from the spreading of land or wealth etc.

Hakluyt | April 3, 2006, 11:25am | #

As societies move away from hierarchy and toward equal opportunity, they leave polygamy behind. They monogamize as they modernize. That may be a coincidence, but it seems more likely to be a logical outgrowth of the arithmetic of polygamy.

The West was largely monogomous long before anything was "liberal" (in the modern sense) about the West. By a couple thousand years I might add.

Warren | April 3, 2006, 11:27am | #

When it comes to pair bonding it's all or nothing. You either have a mate or you don't.

If that were true, we wouldn't even be having this discussion

Jennifer | April 3, 2006, 11:28am | #

Key difference. When it comes to pair bonding it's all or nothing. You either have a mate or you don't.

Or you can be part of a polyamorous relationship. Maybe some women, especially the gold-diggers of the world, would find that being the tenth Mrs. Bill Gates preferable to being the only Mrs. Joe Blow.

When it comes to land if you can't own you rent etc. You might be living paycheck to paycheck but you DO have a paycheck.

And if you can't afford to rent you go to the street. If you lose your job you no longer have any paycheck at all. There are losers in this capitalist society of ours--people who work hard but find themselves on the bottom through sheer bad luck. If you don't favor government laws to help these people stay housed and fed, why favor laws helping them get wedded and bedded?

Hakluyt | April 3, 2006, 11:36am | #

BTW, anyone remotely familiar with Roman marraige must also acknowledge that there are some nasty negative externalities associated with state sanctioned monogamous marraige. The same is true regarding the Anglo-American system well into the 20th century.

Rauch basically creates a false dichotomy here by comparing modern American marraige with some of the nastier types of polygamous marraige in the past, and thus puts a more saintly image on monogamous marraige, when in fact he should be comparing monogamous marraige over time to polygamous marraige over time. They're pretty much a wash.

Mark | April 3, 2006, 11:40am | #

Hhhmm -

Does anyone else think that Polygamy is just a really, really silly idea?

I'm mean, I'm not too fussed about the idea of competition, because with my blue eyes and peachy buns I DOMINATE in the dating pool, but I just don't think it would be fair for me to steal another man's hershey bar.

You know, on a sort of moral level?

Hakluyt | April 3, 2006, 11:40am | #

Indeed, I have to ask, if indeed monogamous marraige was the predominant source of all this Western progress, why the hell did it take so long and why was the general position of women in both types of societies similar for so many thousands of years?

Captain Holly | April 3, 2006, 11:44am | #

After a few days off I come back to H&R to find someone like Jonathan Rauch using the same arguments against polygamy that Jerry Falwell uses against gay marriage.

Hypocrisy, anyone?

emme | April 3, 2006, 11:46am | #

"Or you can be part of a polyamorous relationship. Maybe some women, especially the gold-diggers of the world, would find that being the tenth Mrs. Bill Gates preferable to being the only Mrs. Joe Blow."

That's all fine and dandy. Problem is you're hypothetical polyamorous relationship is backwards if it is to shed light on anything. How likely is it that men would be willing to share their mate with other men. Not bloody likely and it's not because of no social construct. Paternity certainty becomes a serious issue.

"And if you can't afford to rent you go to the street. If you lose your job you no longer have any paycheck at all. There are losers in this capitalist society of ours--people who work hard but find themselves on the bottom through sheer bad luck."

I don't think anyone is arguing that there are no losers in a capitalist society. Just that it is better at limiting the number of losers compared to other systems. That's why the analogy isn't adequate.

Hakluyt | April 3, 2006, 11:48am | #

Captain Holly,

At the base of much of Rauch's argument seems to be the concept that everyone has to get married or have a chance to marry.

Hakluyt | April 3, 2006, 11:56am | #

NEWSFLASH!

Rauch demands state sanctioned social control! Details forthcoming.

Hakluyt | April 3, 2006, 11:57am | #

Mark,

First they came for the polygamists...

joshua corning | April 3, 2006, 11:58am | #

Why would it "win" this acquiescence? The assumption that Jonathan seems to be operating on is that, in our relatively advanced society, there are hordes of men chomping at the bit to take multiple women, and at the same time, there are hordes of women chomping at the bit to marry into a polygamous house.

poligamy is very commen in the US it is just not normally recoganized as such...it is called getting a divorce and getting a second wife...then repeat.

women who have children do not get remarried after a divorce at the same rate men do.

The only difference between the poligamy practiced say on the show "big love" and the poligamy practiced and accepted in the divorce remarage senario is the "big love" paligamy is less damaging to the children.

Think of the children. :)

Mark | April 3, 2006, 12:04pm | #

poligamy is very commen in the US it is just not normally recoganized as such...it is called getting a divorce and getting a second wife...then repeat.

women who have children do not get remarried after a divorce at the same rate men do.

That's not Polygamy. That's having one monogamous relationship and then having another one.

Polygamy is rooting ten ladies at the same time and only taking a breather to go and high-5 your mates in between. It's the WORST IDEA ever!

Jennifer | April 3, 2006, 12:06pm | #

Polygamy is rooting ten ladies at the same time and only taking a breather to go and high-5 your mates in between. It's the WORST IDEA ever!

Mark, there may be very good reasons why polygamy should be outlawed. But there are no good libertarian reasons why polygamy should be outlawed.

Mr. F. Le Mur | April 3, 2006, 12:07pm | #

If anything, wars may have been fought to get rid of the surplus males that were around due to the number of women who had died in childbirth."
See how "problems" sow the seed of their own resolution?

False premise: historical/primitive deaths from childbirth were/are actually pretty trivial compared to deaths from diseases and accidents, both of which affected men (boys) more than women (girls).

See
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11624971&dopt=Abstract
"Sex-differential mortality and causes of death in a Swedish city 1750-1850" for a quickly-found example.

Ruthless | April 3, 2006, 12:09pm | #

Mark,
You are failing to make the connection.
Jennifer is willing to stipulate that polygamy is bad. The question you won't answer is what are "we" supposed to do about it?

Small Ell Libertarian | April 3, 2006, 12:11pm | #

I consider this marriage issue to be like the endangered servitude issue:

Even if you want to give people maximum choice, there are a couple really choices that people tend to make for whatever reason.

One bad choice is when a poor person sells himself into slavery.

Another is when a woman marries primarily for financial incentives.

Another is to buy and take medicine that hasn't been tested for safety.

Don't get me wrong, I think the Fyodorian notions of consent and coercion are very powerful, and are the best touchstones or tools for making the law in most areas. However, there are limits to my ideologicalness here.

With medicines, I think consent should be "informed," which is still softly libertarian.

On the other hand, with indentured servitude, I am glad the gov't prohibits it. I don't like the gov't to prohibit many things, but this is one of them.

On the marrying for money problem, I like the compromise solution we have come up with: rich men can only buy one wife at a time. You can marry for money, but it is not nearly as easy as it would be in a truly free society because of the whole monogamy thing.

Small Ell correction | April 3, 2006, 12:15pm | #

endangered should be "indentured" whoops

Hakluyt | April 3, 2006, 12:17pm | #

Group love (sometimes called polyamory) is already legal...

In many U.S. states that is a highly dubious claim.

Because a marriage license is a state grant, polygamy is a matter of public policy, not just of personal preference.

Which merely begs the question. Why should it be a state grant at all? Until you can tackle that question you have an unjustified premise or presupposition to deal with which deflates the rest of your argument.

...any responsible planner...

Why do we need a "planner" again? You need to re-read Hayek and Bastiat.

As far as I've been able to determine, no polygamous society has ever been a true liberal democracy, in anything like the modern sense.

Does anyone else notice the fallacy hiding the logic of this statement?

For the individuals affected, losing the opportunity to marry is a grave, even devastating, deprivation. (Just ask a gay American.)

(A) Not all gay Americans think that is the case.

(B) In our world where being single is becoming an incresingly pleasing option you make too much hay about marraige as a goal everyone seeks or desires.

As to the issue of "bare branches," you are comparing a world where there were few oppurtunities outside of agriculture or warfare or apprenticeship in a trade to today's world where oppurtunities are far greater.

...but there is no way to know how large such an offset might be.

Again, re-read Hayek and Bastiat. Your ignorance, in other words, cautions against your one size fits all attempt at social control.

Mark | April 3, 2006, 12:19pm | #

You are failing to make the connection.
Jennifer is willing to stipulate that polygamy is bad. The question you won't answer is what are "we" supposed to do about it?

Pass laws. And lots of them. NO POLYGAMY!

James | April 3, 2006, 12:23pm | #

Mark: I'm 38, single, and whatever damaged candy-eating trailer-park woman I would have ended up with is up for grabs. Go for it, dude!

Serial monogamy is far worse than polygamy. The first wife gets essentially used up and cast aside, pensioned off, perhaps with money (although studies have shown the more women see their standard of living decline after a divorce than improved) but with her social status and contacts brutally severed. Now picture a man who's done this several times, casting platoons of women and children out into the world on their own, presumably for someone else to look after. Some men trail behind him, picking up the pieces, but most women are left on their own.

A man that at least agrees keep the first wife is a step up, in my opinion. Arguing by historical comparison ignores historical changes. Nobody gets a woman these days by paying a brideprice to her parents. You gotta talk that girl into joining the team and, in a divorce-on-demand society, you gotta talk the team into accepting her. I doubt multi-marriages will be springing up all over.

Probably the best argument I would make to two women who were dubious about the project was the reminder that when you got several women in the family, you can always find a babysitter. I can easily see the advantages from a career woman's standpoint. Another historical difference, really: more women in the workforce. It's not a matter of one rich guy piling up wives. The wives add income to the household.

Jennifer | April 3, 2006, 12:46pm | #

This may be a double post--the server's taking its regular lunch break.

I'm just saying that unlike clothing real estate and material wealth in general when it comes to serial monogamy and polygamy the answer to the question of what to do is not as easy.

If anything, laws restricting property ownership might be even more necessary than laws concerning marriage. If there are no marriageable women in this area, one can import women from elsewhere, or wait for today's little girls to grow old enough to marry. The number of women in the population is never static.

But if one guy owns all the radio stations in an area, you can't just create or import more space on the electromagnetic spectrum. If one guy owns all the arable land, or all the coastline, you can't make more or import it from elsewhere. For every argument a supposed libertarian might make about why the supply of marriageable women must be controlled by the government, those arguments hold even more water for other areas. Which is why I don't see how a libertarian can make such arguments at all.

Jennifer | April 3, 2006, 12:50pm | #

anon2 | April 3, 2006, 1:08pm | #

Rauch doesn't mention prostitution, nor does he mention the benefits that increased competition for mates may yield to both society as a whole and to women who get to be even more selective. He makes no attempt to quantify how many males currently do not make good mates and may never will, nor does he mention the greater variance in IQ between men and women. Society might do much better if the men who might not marry (due to polygamy being legal) bought their sexual fulfillment and let women choose better mates.

The standard arguments for free markets apply here, but in reverse. Current state (and to a lesser extent religion and cultural) pressure causes women to mate sub-optimally from their point of view, at least if we believe that without the laws, on the balance more women will wed fewer men. If you only count the cost that the losers pay by not being able to marry and discount the benefits that the women reap and that society as a whole reaps from increased competition, sure, the costs will outweigh the benefits. It's a shame that Reason runs articles so heavily stilted, but perhaps the editors and readers don't recognize the problem of counting only one side of a balance sheet and ignoring the other side.

Rauch also takes a static look at the situation, assuming that the spread of "winners" to "losers" will remain the same generation after generation. That's not true. Many women want to have kids. Many wealthy people either don't want to have too many heirs, or may have too many heirs for their progeny to be independently wealthy when the estate is split too many ways. There are reasons to believe that the offspring that occur after allowing polygamy will have less variance in their attractiveness as mates.

Jennifer,

I agree that Rauch's argument could be applied to real-estate just as effectively that it can be applied to marriage. I think it's a bogus argument in both cases, because all he's doing is summing the costs and ignoring the benefits.

That type of argument is common for a couple of reasons. If a person is trying to decide where to stand on a given issue and he happens to only see a subset of costs and benefits, he may total the costs that he sees and total the benefits he sees and then decide where the balance is based solely on the costs and benefits he sees. Then, once he's made his mind up, when it comes time for him to advocate his position, he's going to list the costs he saw and the benefits he saw and anything that he overlooked will be omitted.

In other cases, a person will decide where he stands on an issue before even looking at costs and benefits, then he'll go looking for material that supports his argument. Since there's little social penalty associated with presenting skewed costs and benefits, he simply stresses whichever side he's advocating. Perhaps if more people would readily identify and point out such bad arguments, we'd get fewer of them.

The downside to attempting to list all the major costs and benefits is what some people might call Cathy Young syndrome, you wind up with positions on issues that are hard to evaluate purely on cost-vs.-benefit because some of the terms are very hard to estimate. Would society be better off allowing polygamy? Rauch can only make a utilitarian argument against because he ignores benefits. I see the costs and the benefits and have to honestly admit that from a pragmatic standpoint I can't judge which would be greater.

emme,

When you say "When it comes to pair bonding it's all or nothing," you're either using a definition of pair bonding that's so narrow as to be useless in context, or you're making things up. Does a cheating spouse have the same bond that a non-cheating-and-never-will spouse has? How about the cheated-on spouse?

emme | April 3, 2006, 1:15pm | #

"Does a cheating spouse have the same bond that a non-cheating-and-never-will spouse has? How about the cheated-on spouse?"

I have no idea where you are going with this. By bond I mean a man and woman who are married. You're either married to somebody or you are not. If one male has numerous bonds, meaning he has several spouses the pool of women for other men to marry has decreased. The same goes for serial monogamy for the reasons James just mentioned.

anon2 | April 3, 2006, 1:20pm | #

BTW, there are a few interesting articles available about a species of lizard where the males have three different mating strategiesmonogamous and able to watch the wife closelypolygynous but susceptible to cheatingcheaters

The interesting thing is that although any one mating style is either superior or inferior to any one other mating style, the superiority isn't transitive. In other words, it's like "rock-scissors-paper." Over generations the percentages of each group varies: if one group gets to be too popular, their over representation allows another group to prosper.

Although the authors of the study don't claim any parallels between this specific behavior in reptiles and human behavior, the lizard behavior is an existence proof that shows that multi-generational dynamics are different (and in this case easily modeled) than static analysis would suggest.

I first read of this study in The Economist, but Google turned up the link above on a game theory site. Game theory goes hand-in-hand with economics but is often overlooked.

Smappy | April 3, 2006, 1:23pm | #

I haven't read all the comments, so I may be repeating some of you, but I found the article pretty lacking. I'm a monogamist myself and opposed to personally practicing polygamy (weakly) on moral grounds and (strongly) on practical grounds. That said I don't think we need a law to codify my behavior. Points of contention:

1. If polygyny is lousy because it robs men of potential spouses, why shouldn't convents be outlawed (or regulated) for the same reason?

2. If you can outlaw polygyny because it makes for more unmarried men who are more likely to be criminals, why can't you outlaw males between the ages of 15 and 25 fraternizing, since they are more likely to organize into gangs?

3. Current attitudes toward polygyny in the U.S. make it highly unlikely that it will be practiced to the extent necessary to create a male subclass.

4. The current age-sex makeup of the U.S. makes it more likely that polygyny would soak up excess unmarried women than create a marriageable woman shortage.

5. Rauch's analysis is based on a closed system, which, immigration laws notwithstanding, the U.S. is not. Americans who couldn't find a domestic mate could marry women from overseas.

anon2 | April 3, 2006, 1:32pm | #

emme,

Whether you realize it or not, you're using "pair-bond" in two different ways. If unnoticed, the difference makes your argument stronger. When it's pointed out, the difference negates your argument.

At 10:56 you mention the "assumption held by evolutionary psychologists that's desire in general to pair-bond is stronger than the desire to pursue property". Then at 11:22 you say "When it comes to pair bonding it's all or nothing." However, the all-or-nothing variant of pair bonding is not what evolutionary psychologists are talking about, since evolutionary psychologists deal with the real world (and often takes cues from the animal kingdom). The fact that cheating exists (both in humans and in the non-human portion of the animal kingdom) shows that pair-bonding is not all-or-nothing.

If you choose to use "pair-bonding" as a synonym for marriage, which is what you're saying at 1:15, you then lose the ability to draw in evolutionary psychology, since that's most definitely not what their talking about. In fact, at that point you should just substitute "marriage" for "pair-bonding" in your previous arguments and you'll see that your objection to Jennifer's arguments disappear.

Adriana | April 3, 2006, 1:37pm | #

The arguments about men having a right to get married obscures the fact that marriage for men is akin to access to toilet facilities: Not something nice we do for them, but something nice they do for us.

After enough hammering that people have a right to sanitary facilities, they kind of forget that they do not really need them, and can relieve themselves right where they are, and they feel deprived if they have to do that. Very convenient for the rest of us.

With marriage, the more you hammer on that men have a right to a marriage partner of their choice, the more they forget that they can live just as easily as unattached bachelros, hanging out with others like them, having casual sex, and not having to worry about raising children, Of course, unattached men have a way of being more of a nuisance than attached, but that is not **their** problem.

Akira MacKenzie | April 3, 2006, 1:37pm | #

While I should be susceptible to arguments that make more women available to geeky males...

That's why prostitution should be legalized.

mk | April 3, 2006, 1:48pm | #

Americans who couldn't find a domestic mate could marry women from overseas.
True. Also they could adopt a larger amount of girls from the get-go (granted that only works for one generation). Take

sulla | April 3, 2006, 1:52pm | #

You're all down in the weeds arguing about polyamory, but Rauch is really just writing about gay marriage. That's the axe he's trying to grind. But the dog won't hunt. Any objective look at the current legal/logical environment leads one to conclude that allowing gay marriage leads to legal polygamy within a decade. You can't have one without the oth-er.

mk | April 3, 2006, 1:53pm | #

Damn,
this article

Larry A | April 3, 2006, 1:53pm | #

As far as I've been able to determine, no polygamous society has ever been a true liberal democracy, in anything like the modern sense. As societies move away from hierarchy and toward equal opportunity, they leave polygamy behind. They monogamize as they modernize. That may be a coincidence, but it seems more likely to be a logical outgrowth of the arithmetic of polygamy.

Rauch bit it on this one. If no liberal democracy has ever tried polygamy then the "in other societies it always ended up with men taking several wives and not the reverse" argument falls apart simply because we haven't seen it tried yet where both genders can say yes or no.

Think market.

George Bigshot has the funds and influence to attract four wives. That leaves three men unmarried.

Suzie Homebody wants to have several kids and really wants to home school them instead of working double shifts at a convenience store. She emails the three men and makes them an offer. She'll be a stay-at-home wife/mom while they split the provider role.

Meanwhile, George figures out that the only way to get a handle on his honey-do list is to invite in another husband.

And Suzie gets caught up in selling Mary Kay, so one of her husbands takes over the housekeeper/teacher role. Rhonda Representative needs babies to dandle while she proves how liberal she is, so she marries into the group as well.

And so it goes.

Eric the .5b | April 3, 2006, 2:17pm | #

"There were many, of course, but the dangers of childbirth trounced them most of the time. If anything, wars may have been fought to get rid of the surplus males that were around due to the number of women who had died in childbirth."

See how "problems" sow the seed of their own resolution? Ain't anarchy grand?

If you're presenting war to get rid of excess men as an anarchic "solution", no.

ChrisO | April 3, 2006, 2:38pm | #

Perhaps govt. ought to get out of the marriage business altogether.

I'm not terribly worried about American society becoming a polygamous world full of dangerous 300 lb. malodorous unmarriables who go around wreaking havoc. Make a great movie, though...

Back at the cost side | April 3, 2006, 2:50pm | #

Think unintended consequences.

George Bigshot has the funds and influence to attract four wives. That leaves three men unmarried. As each of these women either turns 35 or has a child, George divorces them per his pre-nup and gives other men an opportunity to negotiate with the women in light of the changed circumstances.

Suzie Homebody wants to have several kids and really wants to home school them instead of working double shifts at a convenience store. She emails the three men and makes them an offer. She'll be a stay-at-home wife/mom while they split the provider role. Each man refuses because none wants to be put in a position of making lifelong support payments for another man's genetic material.

Meanwhile, George figures out that the only way to get a handle on his honey-do list is to invite in another husband. This way George can have sex with another man, while maintaining an appearance of heterosexuality. People are fooled, but the wife eventually figures it out.

And Suzie (after having 3 dupes) gets caught up in selling cosmetics, so one of her husbands takes over the housekeeper/teacher role. This is the husband that makes out like a bandit after the divorce -- lots of child support because of so many ex-spouses. On the plus side, the ex-husbands pay gladly because they are just happy that Suzie isn't getting their kids. Suzie's freaking pissed, especially after the 3 men had teamed up at the divorce proceeding to make bogus allegations of abuse against her in order to ensure that the kids get the biggest possible piece of all that cosmetics money.

Ruthless | April 3, 2006, 2:52pm | #

If you're presenting war to get rid of excess men as an anarchic "solution", no.

Eric the
I'm not presenting war. That's Dubya's job.

Rimfax | April 3, 2006, 3:53pm | #

Of all of the interesting and incisive critiques of state endorsed polygamy (or even just polygyny), it was more than disappointing to find the only argument in this article to be that it makes for bad social engineering. This was so oogy that I had to check to make sure that I wasn't accidentally reading the Time Magazine website.

speedwell | April 3, 2006, 4:31pm | #

I've said it before elsewhere and I'll say it again here... I'm a woman, and my guy and I are all for polymarriage (that is, we aren't for marriage per se as a state-regulated institution, but hey). We discussed it and decided that we would be open to it if the right person/people came along.

So we started to think about it. The right person/people would have to be right for both of us, and we'd have to be right for them. And then imagine someone else coming along after that. We'd all have to be right for them, and they'd have to be right for us.

Damn, he and I have been together for eight years and we still aren't perfectly sure we're absolutely right for each other, lol. Some people never do find "the right person" at all, not even for monogamy. What hope do polyamorists have?

Ruthless | April 3, 2006, 4:33pm | #

Rex Rhino,
Aren't you saying prohibition doesn't work?
I tried to say that earlier, responding to Mark, when the server squirrels were on smoke break.
Others also probably made comments, then gave up.

Ruthless | April 3, 2006, 4:44pm | #

speedwell,
Could you be describing a subcategory:
Picky, pussilanimous polyamorists?

Anvilwyrm | April 3, 2006, 5:14pm | #

By the arguments of this article, lesbians should be against the law, as they "consume" 2 women.

How is this different than one guy marrying 3 women?

Math:

1 male/female + 1 lesbian marriage = 1 man, 3 women, no loose ends.

1 male/3 female poly marriage = 1 man, 3 women, no loose ends.

I thought you were *for* gay marriage?

BTW, real world here, I am in a poly relationship now, and I am friends with other poly couples. The male/female relationship is about 1:1, overall. I have a wife and a girlfriend, my wife has a boyfriend, and my girlfriend has a husband. Net: 3 men, 2 women. do we get a medal for freeing up a scarce female?

BTW, we are neither mormon, wiccan or hippies. Look outside your prejudices at some point.

Ruthless | April 3, 2006, 7:38pm | #

Anvilwyrm,
You deserve a medal for keeping it straight, at least.
Speaking of which (pun intended), with each passing year, considering my advanced age already, I'm surely freeing up scads of females??

Jared | April 3, 2006, 8:53pm | #

The keyword in this argument, as it so often is, is "sanctity".

If we allow Polygamy, the sanctity of having sex with two women at once is forever ruined. What act will horny men raise to the highest sexual when it is going on in every suburban household from Nassau to the OC?

Seriously though, I'm used to this site advocating hard work transfering into people's just desserts. If a guy has the sheer strength of will to put up with multiple women around the household, damnit, he should get to marry them. Lo, how the impassioned monologue of nagging metastasizes to a chorus...

Only the brave.

Ruthless | April 3, 2006, 9:45pm | #

Jared,
Have bonobo chimpanzees got a problem with "sanctity"?
What laws govern their flea-bitten shennanigans?
Have their mating patterns evolved over the past 500 years to insure there are no dry branches nor unavailable females?

The Real Bill | April 4, 2006, 12:55am | #

Why would there necessarily be excess men? Wouldn't polyandry exist as well?

Because many are realizing that monogamy is a lie and we don't want to be stuck fucking the same person for the rest of our lives.

Spoken like a true loser. I had plenty of women in my time and I'm perfectly happy being monogamous now. I actually had enough women that it got boring. I much prefer the deep closeness that can form between two (and only two) people in a long-term relationship. If some people want polyamory, I've got no problem with that, but don't assume everyone wants it. Just don't get the fucking government involved!

(Maybe it's possible that polyamorous relationships can be as intimate as monogamous relationships, but I don't believe it.)

BTW, I'm not religious at all; I'm just following my heart. (I apologize to all made ill by this statement.)

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