Polygamy

While polygyny may benefit the men involved, it denies wives to other men, especially young, low-status men, who tend to measure their success by their manhood, that is, by the twin parameters of social status and fertility. With little to lose, these frustrated men are much more likely to turn to crime and violence, including sexual violence and warmongering. It can be no coincidence that polygamy is practiced in all of the 20 most unstable countries on the Fragile States Index.
All this is only aggravated by the brideprice, a payment from the groom to the bride’s family. Brideprice is a frequent feature of polygynous unions and is intended to compensate the bride’s family for the loss of a pair of hands. Divorce typically requires that the brideprice be returned, forcing many women to remain in miserable or abusive marriages. If polygamous unions are common, the resulting shortage of brides inflates the brideprice, raising the age at which young men can afford to marry while incentivizing families to hive off their daughters at the soonest opportunity, even at the cost of interrupting their education. Brideprice if often paid in cows, and, to afford a bride, young men may resort to cattle raids and other forms of crime. Gang leaders and warlords attract new recruits with the promise of a bride or an offer to cover their brideprice.

In suppressing intrasexual competition and reducing the size of the pool of unmarried men, normative monogamy reduces crime rates, including rape, murder, assault, robbery and fraud, as well as decreasing personal abuses. By assuaging the competition for younger brides, normative monogamy decreases (i) the spousal age gap, (ii) fertility, and (iii) gender inequality. By shifting male efforts from seeking wives to paternal investment, normative monogamy increases savings, child investment and economic productivity. By increasing the relatedness within households, normative monogamy reduces intra-household conflict, leading to lower rates of child neglect, abuse, accidental death and homicide. These predictions are tested using converging lines of evidence from across the human sciences.

The correlation between violence and polygamy (strictly, polygyny — being married to more than one wife at the same time — as having more than one husband is much rarer) is not just about violence to women. It is also about violence among men. From Troy to Brigham Young, from Genghis Khan to Islamic State, there has been a tendency for nations that allow polygamous marriage to exhibit more crime and more warfare than those that do not. The cause is increased competition for mates. Polygamy results in more unmarried young men, and these commit most violence.
Even moderate polygamy can produce large imbalances. Imagine that in a village of 50 men and 50 women, two men have four wives, four men have three wives and fourteen have two wives: that leaves 30 men chasing the remaining two women. A recipe for trouble.
A fascinating 2009 paper called The Puzzle of Monogamous Marriage, by the anthropologist Joe Henrich and his colleagues, detailed the historical correlation between polygamy and crime, chillingly explaining it thus: “Faced with high levels of intra-sexual competition and little chance of obtaining even one long-term mate, unmarried, low-status men will heavily discount the future and more readily engage in risky status-elevating and sex-seeking behaviours. This will result in higher rates of murder, theft, rape, social disruption, kidnapping (especially of females), sexual slavery and prostitution.”

In South Sudan, brideprices may be anything from 30 to 300 cows. “For young men, the acquisition of so many cattle through legitimate means is nearly impossible,” write Ms Hudson and Ms Matfess. The alternative is to steal a herd from the tribe next door. In a country awash with arms, such cattle raids are as bloody as they are frequent. “7 killed, 10 others wounded in cattle raid in Eastern Lakes,” reads a typical headline in This Day, a South Sudanese paper. The article describes how “armed youths from neighbouring communities” stole 58 cows, leaving seven people—and 38 cows—shot dead “in tragic crossfire”.
Thousands of South Sudanese are killed in cattle raids every year. “When you have cows, the first thing you must do is get a gun. If you don’t have a gun, people will take your cows,” says Jok, a 30-year-old cattle herder in Wau, a South Sudanese city. He is only carrying a machete, but he says his brothers have guns.
Jok loves cows. “They give you milk, and you can marry with them,” he smiles. He says he will get married this year, though he does not yet have enough cows and, judging by his ragged clothes, he does not have the money to buy them, either. He is vague as to how he will acquire the necessary ruminants.

even the birth of a daughter correlates with CEOs being more generous in employee compensation and benefits than the birth of a son. This study was conducted among 10,000 companies in Denmark, so it has to be taken as research among a fairly homogenous population, but there is plenty of evidence in it that gender has a more profound impact of the actions of men than we thought. Mothers and even sisters have a keen correlation to the generosity of men.

Contingent on the country, about 10 to 17 percent of the sampled marriages were polygamous. Women in such relationships were, depending on the country, about 1.3 to 2 times more likely to be at risk for physical violence from their husbands than women in monogamous marriages.

The results for polygamy didn't come as surprise, Christobel Asiedu said, because women in polygamous marriages tend to have less power and are more likely to be dependent on their husbands

1. Women are not chattel. Con's approach to the debate topic is itself degrading towards women. He treats them a commodities which must be kept in supply for men who simply cannot control themselves. Women are not commodities and should not be regarded as such. We should broadly reject Con's case because of the fundamental way it regards women.
   
2. Criminalizing the innocent. Making polygamous marriages illegal means that individuals who--for cultural, religious or other reasons--engage in polygamous marriages become socially ostracized and placed in unjust legal jeopardy. "[A] key challenge for now comes from the lack of legal protection – such as laws that prevent discrimination – for poly relationships. In the US Army for instance, adultery is even seen as a crime, meaning a person cannot be ‘out’ as poly if they are married." [5] In other words, these individuals have to live their lives in secret and, if they're caught, could be penalized simply for living their lives. 
   
3. Pariahs no more. One of the main reasons polygamous families may not be functioning optimally, according to Con's data (which I dispute below), is that they are treated as social pariahs. The more their relationships are normalized, the more likely they are to be comfortable using various resources available to straight couples and living mainstream-style lives.
   
4. Reducing Adultery. Polygamy would likely reduce adultery. Adultery, as a contributor to crime and divorce, is something which ought to be reduced. "The legalization of polygamy would go a long way towards eliminating a lot of these reasons. In a polygamous society falling in love with another person need not sound the death knell of an otherwise successful marriage. Instead a marriage of two can be expanded to three and even further if necessary." [19]
   

1. Expense. Women are expensive, which places an upward limit on the number of wives most men could conceivably have. Even a man with a couple of million in the bank would have a tough time attracting more than a small handful of women, because as demand for women increases, so to would the demands of women on their potential suitors. It is thus highly unlikely that polygamy would lead to a severe drought of marriageable women.
   
2. Tradition. In many cultures (particularly in the West), polygamy is not viewed favorably. Cultural pressures to remain in monogamous relationships are likely to discourage high rates of polygamy, and are thus likely, to ensure a reasonable supply of marriageable women for the general population of men. In fact, "there are only an estimated 500,000 poly relationships in the US, which is a tiny minority." [15]
   
3. Polygamy itself. Polygamy is the ability of individuals to take multiple spouses. I can envision a situation where a man has multiple wives, but those same wives also have multiple husbands. This inter-spousal sharing, so to speak, prevents any one man from monopolizing a large group of women, and could potentially prevent a shortage of wives.
   
4. Polyandry. I am not just calling for the legalizing of polygamy (1 man with many women), but also polyandry (1 woman with many men). These practices have the potential to balance each other out to some extent, ensuring a viable supply of marriageable women.
   
5. Gender Imbalance. In countries or regions with more women than men, in fact it makes quite a lot of sense to endorse polygamy, because otherwise a disproportionately large number of women will be unmarried. Why only focus on making sure men get married as Con does? It's fundamentally misogynistic to prioritize men having spouses over women having spouses. And, as I noted in my case, in countries or areas where men are the primary breadwinners (a reality of life), it is important for the wellbeing of those women that they are able to get married. [11]

1. Dependent Premise. This argument's impact depends entirely on the premise that polygamy creates a shortage of marriageable women. Insofar as that premise is flawed, so too is this entire argument.
   
2. Non-unique. Participants can be civilized in polygamous marriages as well; nothing Con has said precludes polygamous marriages from having a civilizing impact on the parties to it.
   

1. Correlation =/= Causation. Con's source takes its data from "Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, and Zimbabwe." These countries are already likely to have high rates of domestic violence given the latter two's poverty, the latter three's political instability, and all four's comparatively weak government control of rural regions. More than that, data from just four countries (and which came from only 10-17% of the sample) cannot be generalized out to polygamy everywhere.
   
2. Potential Solvency. Women in Tanzania are able to use a cultural practice involving marriage between straight women to escape domestic violence. "This means she can keep the family home which is jointly owned with the younger woman, despite a tribal law which dictates that only males can normally inherit property...It is believed marriage between women is helping to reduce the risks of domestic abuse, child marriage and female genital mutilation (FGM) within the tribe which has more than 700,000 members." [7, 17, 18] The idea of straight marriage between women as a means of pooling resources and protecting each other from harm has the potential to significantly reduce domestic violence in some cultural contexts.
   
3. Relationship Satisfaction. One would imagine that if domestic abuse were rife within polygamous or polyamorous relationships, that relationship satisfaction in these relationships would be low. In fact, that's not the case. "[I]ndividuals in poly relationships are better at communicating and that jealousy is often lower. In new research...she even discovered that overall relationship satisfaction can be higher in poly relationships, though another earlier 2015 reviewfound that satisfaction was similar among monogamous and 'consensual non-monogamous' relationships." [5]
   
4. Brideprice and Divorce. Much of the reason why wives may be more unable to leave polygamous relationships (as opposed to monogamous relationships) can be attributable to a lack of legal divorce options in relevant jurisdictions or the brideprice. By ensuring that divorce is legal (which I support) and by ensuring that the brideprice is illegal, this problem can be solved altogether.
   

“‘If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.”https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Leviticus+20%3A13&version=NIV

Pro says: “polygamy has been debated as an issue of religious freedom, with various fundamentalist groups believing that it is a religious requirement that they enter into polygamous relationships”

“The sound quality was poor, but the packed courtroom hung on every word. Jeffs' voice drifted down from ceiling speakers like curling smoke. The FLDS "prophet" both threatened and reassured the girl, mumbling prayers that enjoined her to joyfully perform God's will. In the courtroom, hands involuntarily flew up to cover mouths as it became clear that the girl had been restrained on a sort of temple altar bed, while several of Jeffs' adult "wives" stood by to assist him in case the child panicked. Five minutes into the recording, Jeffs' droning prayers were accompanied by the sound of rustling clothing. Then came a rhythmic heavy breathing that no adult could misunderstand; it went on and on. At one point, Jeffs, panting, asked the girl if she "liked it." She answered in a small, squeaky voice: "I'm OK, sir." “ https://www.hcn.org/issues/44.10/flds-continues-abusive-polygamist-practices-in-utah-and-arizona

“In some African faith systems, the more wives, and thus children, a man has, the "greater the chances that the family will enjoy immortality.”

“Islam also allows for polygamous marriages under certain conditions, and some Muslims believe it to be their religious duty to have multiple spouses.”

“The Quran instructs Muslim men to “marry women of your choice two or three or four””

“but warns that “if you fear that you shall not be able to deal justly [with them] then only one or [your concubines]. That is more fitting so that you do not deviate from the right course.” The Prophet Muhammad said, “Whosoever has two wives and he inclines towards one to the exclusion of the other, he will come on the Day of Judgement with his body dropping or bending down.”

“In other words, “It is mission impossible,” according to Mufti Barkatulla, a senior imam and sharia council judge in Leyton. He firmly believes that there is no place for polygamy in modern Britain. “There are a number of cases we have come across and there is hardly a case where a man can balance all the duties required in a polygamous situation . . . In today’s industrial society, it is impossible to observe the conditions laid down by the scriptures.” Polygamy, he points out, predates Islam and was permitted in Islam in the context of war to offer protection to war orphans and widows. Many of the Prophet’s 11 wives were widows”

“In suppressing intrasexual competition and reducing the size of the pool of unmarried men, normative monogamy reduces crime rates, including rape, murder, assault, robbery and fraud, as well as decreasing personal abuses. By assuaging the competition for younger brides, normative monogamy decreases (i) the spousal age gap, (ii) fertility, and (iii) gender inequality. By shifting male efforts from seeking wives to paternal investment, normative monogamy increases savings, child investment and economic productivity. By increasing the relatedness within households, normative monogamy reduces intra-household conflict, leading to lower rates of child neglect, abuse, accidental death and homicide. These predictions are tested using converging lines of evidence from across the human sciences.”

“a new study of polygyny in Tanzania finds that the practice of sharing a husband may, in some circumstances, lead to greater health and wealth for women and their children”

1. Pluralism precludes Con's case. Con's case is entirely predicated on a consequentialist paradigm, which is in inherent contradiction to pluralism. Respect for basic freedoms often comes into conflict with pursuit of beneficial outcomes. In fact, almost all of Con's response to my case come from this consequentialist mindset, reflecting Con's totalized value perspective. To the extent that Con's case is an expression of a totalizing value or a totalizing value mindset, it must be rejected out of hand.
   
2. Pluralism means no values are inherently better than any others. Human welfare is just one good out of many and cannot inherently outweigh the other goods expressed within my case. It is a balancing act, as Con admits, and so human welfare, as a value, is not more weighty or valuable than any other value which we must balance within a pluralistic framework.
   

1. The freedom of any religious group should not be curtailed because of the gross misconduct of some of its members.
   
2. The group in question is not inherently problematic, because for 32 years, at least, it lived a crime-free existence, with the sole exception that it was polygamous.
   
3. In my world, Jeffs and his accomplices would have still faced legal repercussions for their misconduct; child abuse would be legal in neither of our worlds.
   
4. By making polygamy legal, we can reduce the appeal that fringe faiths like this have for people interested in the polygamous lifestyle. If polygamy is legal, people interested in it would not need to seek out seclusion from the world within these fringe groups. Thus, legalizing polygamy would likely reduce the potential for this kind of abuse.
   
5. Con suggests that 18 year olds are open to manipulation, but this is true in his world too. If they are manipulable, they are manipulable in a monogamous or polygamous society.
   
6. It is important to note that Con has not drawn any definitive link between polygamy and child predation. If the FLDS had been a monogamous cult, the misconduct may have been just as likely. Indeed, many monogamous cults have engaged in such abuse. [21]
   

4. Observe good sportsmanship and maintain a civil and decorous atmosphere

10. Violation of any of these rules, or of any of the description's set-up, merits a loss