agree on still having a ways to go...
It didn't seem the hesitation was anywhere near 4 seconds, and it seemed to occur more in deciding what term to use to refer to her girlfriend more so than in acknowledging that she was sharing her joy with someone special to her
and maybe my additional husband would know how to take out the garbage!
So are any of you seriously advocating that polygamy be elevated to a legal status similar to a marriage between two people? Because I'm wondering what parameters you would consider reasonable.
For instance, if two people were married, and one of them wanted to add a third person to the marriage, would the other partner have to agree? And would all three be married to each of the others?
It doesn't seem that you should allow one of the spouses to have a second spouse if it would create an unequal relationship between the three spouses. And, if it is a situation with multiple women, do all the women in the marriage have full custody rights to a child that any of them gave birth to?
Or in the case of multiple men, is it presumed that both are the father of any children born during the marriage, again with full custody rights regardless of what any paternity test might show?
Just curious how you geniuses would work out all these issues.
I am no genius, but I'll give it a whirl.
I have mentioned this issue tongue-in-cheek (or tongues in this case? =) more than once. I cannot fathom why this would not be allowed when we allow all other adults to enter into marriage arrangements. To me that is the top parameter: must be of legal age. It would not really be that hard to draft legislation governing this. Something like this:
1. All parties must be of legal age to marry in their state. No one under legal age will be allowed into a multiple-partner arrangement, regardless of parental consent. Since the Supreme Court has already set the precedent that marriage is a constitutional institution then the legal age for multiple partner marriages could be set at a fixed level regardless of state laws (say 21, just to be fully arbitrary).
2. Options should exist for one partner only to marry one other partner, or for all partners involved to marry each other, or a combination, as they determine best fits their individual circumstance. Would only need signatures on the marriage license of all "connected" parties that they agree with the arrangement. So I could picture a scenario like this:
* One group consists of a single male and 2 females.
* Another group consists of a single female and 2 males.
* The single male from the first group, and the single female from the second group want to get married. All parties from both groups agree.
* The marriage is carried out, and everyone involved signs off on it.
3. Mothers would be the defacto legal guardians of children born into such marriages. In relationships with one male and multiple females, the male is the defacto father of all children born in the arrangement (his name is on the birth certificate same as always). In other arrangements, fathers can claim paternity but it must be proven (paternity tests), no different than if a woman becomes pregnant and does not know who the father is. At that point the father can either be added to the birth certificate as the father at the birth of the child, or adopt the child if this occurs later. Current paternity laws would apply in the event of divorce - so if a woman leaves a relationship between say 3 men and 4 women, she can claim support from the father, same as if she were seeking support from a one night stand or something else.
4. Most issue that would arise would be in the case of divorce realistically. I see no reason why standard divorce statutes could not apply here given the above mentioned parameters. Marital assets can be ordered split by the number of participants, etc. and litigated just as it is now litigated. Not a lot different really.
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