PolygamyFollow

With all the news about this Warren Jeffs guy and his proclivities for fucking little girls, it's gotten me thinking about the whole Polygamy thing. Don't get me wrong, I'm not "for" marrying and ******** little kids. But if it's consenting adults, I don't see the issue.

But that's not really what I was thinking about. Polygamy is illegal. But my question is: How can they charge you for anything? If, say, my husband and I were married and we decided to bring in a roommate to help pay the bills, then something happened and the three of us decided to share my husband, or share me, or whatever, how can that be illegal...? How could we be charged? I mean, it's not illegal to have an "open marriage," so what's the difference? Is it just that you can't have a legal marriage with more than two people, or can you seriously be arrested if three adults are living in one house, to of which are married, and all three are fucking one another?

How so?

It's more about the property issues. When 2 people enter int a marriage, you have an idea that in the event of a divorce, how the split of assets is going to be. It gets messy when more spouses are added into it. You could easily say that whoever puts into the marriage, financially, should be able to pro-rata get that out of the marriage in the event of a divorce. How do you address spouses who do not work versus the ones who do? What about financial support? Do all the spouses contribute? How do you value property buy-outs based on when spouses are entering into the marriage and exiting?

I see these types of issues come up in probated estates all the time and see how they'd be applied to polygamous marriage.

Property issues sound more like a personal problem, though. I mean, let's say the first person listed on the marriage certificate gets everything unless otherwise specified by a will. That seems easy enough.

All states that still allow for common-law marriage these days have it as an opt-in. If you and your partner live together for X years, you can declare yourselves married but the state can not declare it for you. But, yeah, in the case of polygamy you're probably presenting your various cohabitants as spouses.

I've no idea how it shook out but I remember hearing about legal issues with that polygamy reality show. Since the man and the women were all considering each other (man-woman) as spouses and presenting themselves as such, it would be enough to trigger bigamy laws under the assumption of a common-law marriage.

If you just all lived and humped together with no declaration of marriage, I don't imagine there's much they could do aside from getting Family Services potentially involved if there's kids in the picture.

Edited, Aug 5th 2011 11:01am by Jophiel

Yeah, I edited. I meant to post more and hit it too soon.

Mainstream liberal media, always putting out false information and then changing it afterwards in an attempt to keep MURKA dazed and confused. Filth, I tells you. Filth.

That's probably the original reason. These days, there's a lack of any credible movement to change things and the question of the legalistic nightmare if it were changed.

"This looks a lot like polygamy ..."
"No Officer, it's a gang bang. It just hasn't started yet."
"Oh, carry on then."

The husband isn't concerned about making his wives happy, he is only concerned with making himself happy. By having multiple wives, he has different woman to meet his different needs, therefore keeping himself happy.

Kinda surprised by the unenlightened view of polyamory here. People have needs and wants, and when they feel that bringing another person into the relationship more fully satisfies those needs and wants, they do it if their other partner(s) consent. At their core, polyamorous relationships are no different than monoamorous ones besides the acknowledgement by those involved that it's normal, acceptable, and healthy to form relationships with the people you need to in order to feel complete and satisfied. It's based on an acceptance of the idea that it's unrealistic for two people to mutually provide that for one another all on their own.

Legally it's only a matter of abusing the system. The government generally can't/won't do anything if people are living as in a polygamy as long as their paperwork is legit.

Personally I'm a monogamous kinda guy, but I could imagine adding someone else to the mix if they meshed really well.

There hasn't been much discussion of polyamory at all (two people?). It's mainly been about polygamy, which is a legal matter.

This thread makes me sad that I canceled Netflix because I didn't get to finish all of Big Love.