[Greta Christina] Multiple Marriage and the Texas Polygamy Case
I wasn’t going to comment on the Texas polygamy case at first. At first I didn’t have anything to say about it other than, “Oh, my god, that is so awful.” But someone asked me an interesting question the other day, and it made me realize I have something to say about this after all.
The question: Do you think multiple marriage should be legal?
Here’s why this is relevant. One of the main objections to legalizing multiple marriage is that, in the world as it is today, multiple marriages tend to be abusive. Groovy polyamorous triads aren’t the norm, the argument goes. The norm for multiple marriage, in this country and around the world, is coercive and abusive religious cults that effectively imprison women and children. And if we don’t have laws against multiple marriage, these abusive cults will be legitimized, and there will no protection for their victims.
I’m not sure whether that’s true or not. I don’t know if anyone has ever done a good, careful study on the frequency of multiple relationships, either in this country or around the world, to see if the coerced cult variety really does outnumber the consensual free-adult variety. If there has been such a study, I haven’t seen it.
But here’s the point I want to make.
When the Texas polygamy compound got raided and arrests were made, nobody was charged with bigamy.
The charges so far have all been related to child abuse. And the case seems to be largely in the hands of Child Protective Services.
So how does the illegality of multiple marriage help the victims of these situations?
Why should consenting adult polyamorists be denied the right to codify their relationships in law, simply because some religious cults use polygamy as a form of abuse?
You could argue a slippery slope argument. You could argue that legalizing multiple marriages would confer an acceptance and legitimacy on the polygamy cults, thus making it that much harder to go after them for the child abuse. I have, in fact, seen that argument made. (Sort of like the argument that the drinking age should be 21, because if it’s set at 18 then it’ll be easier for 16- and 17-year-olds to get booze. The idea being that you have to set the line further than you really think is reasonable, because some people will always cross it.)
But I’m always suspicious of slippery slope arguments. I’m suspicious of them because you can always make one. You can always argue, “We can’t have X, because X will lead to Y!” Most of the time it’s a cheap rhetorical stunt: if you can’t actually come up with a convincing argument that X is bad, instead you scare people into thinking that X will lead to Y. I’m not saying slippery slope arguments are never valid; but unless you can make a case that X actually is likely to lead to Y, you really should restrict your arguments to X itself.
Especially when X is a consenting choice of adults, and restricting it means placing an unreasonable restriction on people’s freedom.
And in fact, the “potential harm” argument could easily go the other way. It could be argued that the anti-bigamy laws actually make things worse for the victims of the polygamy cults, since they drive the culture underground and alienate its members from the law. (Much the way that anti-prostitution laws make things worse for prostitutes — even in the cases when they are being genuinely victimized.)
I’m not sure if I think multiple marriage is a good idea. It never seemed like a realistic possibility, so I honestly haven’t thought about it that much. My instinctive reaction is to say, “Sure, why not.” I’m generally in favor of consenting adults making whatever domestic arrangements they like, and unless I can see a compelling argument against it, I don’t see any reason why those arrangements shouldn’t be recognized by law. (On the other hand, I can see it being a horrible legal tangle. All the legal questions that are complicated enough with just two spouses — divorce, custody, inheritance, property ownership, tax law, etc. — could turn into a chaotic mess with three or more spouses in the mix.)
It’s an interesting question, and it’s one I’d like to see discussed. But I don’t see the abusive polygamy cults as being a good argument against it. The bigamy laws aren’t even being used against the cults. If that’s our big weapon against the cults, then it’s not a very good one.
To argue that multiple marriage shouldn’t be legal because some polygamists are abusive is like arguing that gay sex shouldn’t be legal because some priests molest altar boys. Or, to broaden it even more, that no marriage should be legal because some husbands beat up their wives. We shouldn’t be blocking people from a consenting and harmless arrangement just because some people will abuse it.
This entry was posted on Friday, 9 May 2008 at 12:00 am and is filed under Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
on Friday, 9 May 2008 at 8:56 am Ben Ostrowsky wrote:
It seems to me that people who want to marry several sweeties ought to be allowed to. There’s a load of rights that come with marriage (especially as opposed to civil union), and I see no reason to deny those rights.
There are some rights that are economically impractical unless we reinterpret “anyone married to an employee is eligible for…” as “every employee can designate one person who is eligible for…”. (Otherwise, professors would be getting hundreds of marriage proposals from students who can’t afford tuition!) Probably a lot of policies have already been rewritten in these terms, especially by the more enlightened (or at least less-troglodytic) employers.
I strongly suspect, but cannot prove, that there are many more poly families doing a good job of raising kids than there are polygamous cults screwing kids up and/or just plain screwing kids. We just don’t see the good guys on Fox News because the police don’t raid their homes. That gives a horrible first impression to most viewers who think that poly familieswith kids mean “religious nutjobs molesting kids under the aegis of marriage” rather than “Heather has two mommies and two daddies, which is awfully convenient when Heather needs to get to her soccer game”.
on Friday, 9 May 2008 at 6:31 pm Caius wrote:
I get particularly peeved when the slippery slope argument gets used against gay marriage, in a slightly different way: that if gay marriage is legalized, the next step will be polygamy, and then marriages to animals and children. And actually, this holds a drop of water if you consider that the argument for gay marriage is commonly phrased as, people should be allowed to marry whoever they want. Of course, taking that at face value is pretty disingenuous, when there are much more nuanced, compelling, and thorough arguments for gay marriage (the most thorough I’ve seen for why gay marriage would be an extremely positive move for society was in a series of articles by Jonathan Rauch, the first of which is here: http://www.jonathanrauch.com/jrauch_articles/gay_marriage_1_the_case_for_marriage/index.html). I really recommend you take a look if you’re interested in the issue.
The slippery slope argument is a cop-out, and a stupid one, because it basically grants that the other person’s argument is correct. When Bill O’Reilly says, “I’m against gay marriage because they’ll allow polygamy next”, he’s essentially saying, “gay marriage isn’t wrong in itself, but it’s a good buffer zone that keeps polygamy at bay”. Which is a pretty stupid argument, I hope you’ll agree, even if you’re in staunch opposition to polygamy.
I’m fairly skeptical of polygamy (and polyamory as a tenable model for a long-term relationship), mainly on practical grounds of the possibility of that kind of relationship and commitment between more than two people, but I’m willing to admit my ignorance on the subject and defer to those with more experience (or better, scientific data).
on Friday, 9 May 2008 at 8:51 pm watercat wrote:
Three thoughts…
Along with a study to see if the coerced variety outnumbers the consensual variety within multiple unions, there should also be a study comparing percentages of abuse in multiple unions with that in binary ones.
From what I’ve seen, the Fondle Little Daughters Sect rarely bothered to obtain official marriage certificates from the state, so technically they aren’t guilty of bigamy in most cases.
IMHO the slippery slope arguments are inherently dishonest. For example,
This group has two characteristics: (a) polyamorous, (b) abusive:
(b) is bad, therefore we should outlaw (a). WTF? That sounds too stupid an argument for anyone to ever make, but substitute gay for (a), and pedophile for (b), and it sounds awfully familiar.
on Saturday, 10 May 2008 at 11:40 am C. L. Hanson wrote:
Actually, I think legalization is a good solution even for cases that aren’t egalitarian and might potentially be abusive. The reason is related to your observation that the polygamists aren’t being prosecuted for bigamy.
The thing is that bigamy is notoriously difficult to prosecute, so making it illegal in cases where it involves consenting adults does nothing but push it underground. Legalization would create a paper trail that would help those who are in such marriages against their will to seek legal recourse. Logically, since marriage is a legal contract, a new legal marriage would affect existing marriage contracts, so taking a second spouse against the will of the first would be grounds to sue for divorce. This would be far more helpul (than criminal charges) for those women who want to get out of such marriages while at the same time simplifying life for those cases that are really consensual.
In the case of the FLDS — while it’s very likely that there’s some serious abuse going on — the fact that their entire community was pushed into secrecy means that the authorities were unable to find legitimate evidence and accusations against those people in the community who are most likely guilty. It looks very much like the raid — as it was carried out — was completely illegal and unconstitutional, and hence counterproductive. We’ve been having quite a heated debate about this point (among Mormons and ex-Mormon atheists) on the Main Street Plaza Blog here. It’s very similar to the problem with criminalizing prostitution: it’s harder to separate out and prosecute the cases of actual abuse or exploitation when the activities of consenting adults are lumped together in the same (il)legal category.
on Saturday, 10 May 2008 at 7:31 pm watercat wrote:
Here’s a word you should look up, C.L.;
C-O-N-S-E-N-T
on Sunday, 11 May 2008 at 10:54 am valdemar wrote:
If marriage is for the procreation of children in the way ‘God intended’, as some argue, why is polygamy/polyandry so wrong? So long as it includes at least one male and one female…
on Sunday, 11 May 2008 at 11:46 pm The Uncredible Hallq wrote:
C. L. Hanson: “The thing is that bigamy is notoriously difficult to prosecute, so making it illegal in cases where it involves consenting adults does nothing but push it underground. Legalization would create a paper trail that would help those who are in such marriages against their will to seek legal recourse. Logically, since marriage is a legal contract, a new legal marriage would affect existing marriage contracts, so taking a second spouse against the will of the first would be grounds to sue for divorce. This would be far more helpul (than criminal charges) for those women who want to get out of such marriages while at the same time simplifying life for those cases that are really consensual.”
I suffer from extreme legal ignorance here, but this comment fosters the impression I have, that you can in theory be prosecuted for bigamy even if you don’t try to obtain multiple marriage licenses, yes? We could repeal those laws to keep it from going underground, and yet not provide any legal structures to actively support polygamy. Trying to do that would be a headache, though Ben’s suggestion might be a start.
on Monday, 12 May 2008 at 12:17 pm Matt wrote:
I have a question about the consequences of legal polygamy. How many spouses is too many? Is there no such number? If marriage in this way conveys the same legal benefits of usual marriage, could an entire cult become a single married entity? Is that a problem? (I don’t know enough about law to speculate)
Legalized polygamy wouldn’t bother me, by the way.