Benefits to the Legalization of Polygamy

I am a believer in human diversity. I believe that all people are individuals and should have the right to make decisions that benefit them as individuals, even if those decisions would not please everyone where they applied to society as a whole. To enter into a polygamist relationship is a personal decision that one should have the right to make. Not only does it not encroach on the rights others outside the relationship, but a degree of polygamy could have beneficial effects on society and the general human genome, and it is legally sanctioned by the first amendment of the Constitution. Polygamy is not an appealing practice to every individual, but those who wish to participate in it should have the right to do so. For these reasons, I ask you to please introduce a bill to legalize polygamist marriage in Missouri.

It was once said by Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. “The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins." Polygamy falls under the category of a fist swinging in the air. Polygamy is defined by Webster’s dictionary as “Marriage in which a spouse of either sex may have more than one mate at the same time.” This definition covers “polygyny”, where a man has multiple wives, “polyandry” where a woman has multiple husbands, and “group marriage”, where a family unit is formed by some combination of both multiple men and multiple women. According to Ron J. Hammond’s text book, Intro to Psychology, polygyny is the most common form of polygamy. Some may argue that men having multiple wives would encroach upon the right of other men to have at least one wife, because the ratio of men to women is around fifty percent to fifty percent in this country. However we have to consider that no one is actually entitled to a relationship, and that women are not a commodity but human beings who make decisions. This problem exists outside of the controversy of polygamy. Consider the football jock in high school that has girls lined up around the corner, and the geek who gets turned down by every girl he asks out. Even if the football jock is being faithful to his girl of the week, the other girls still will not want to date the geek. Though this may seem unfair to the geek, it would not be fair to force one of the girls to date him, either. Though a society that outlaws polygamy may not force women to marry men they do not wish to marry, the basis of the gender ratio argument assumes that if not allowed to marry the man she would, were polygamy allowed, that she will marry another man as second choice. If a woman decides to marry a man who already has a wife, though this mathematically leaves a man single, it is her right to marry into the relationship with the man and his wife, if all involved are in approval of the arrangement, but it is not the right of the single to marry the woman who preferred to marry someone else. As a basic right of humanity, no one is entitled to a relationship with a nonconsensual partner.

There is fear that the legalization of polygamy could lead to the legalization of bestiality, pedophilic, and other nonconsensual relationships, as any change in law often leads to “Slippery slope” arguments. This fear is unfounded because animals and children do not have the power to consent to sex or legal contracts, but groups of adults do. There is no fuzzy line between taking advantage of an animal or child and a group of persons over eighteen agreeing on a lifestyle to live together. There is also fear that legalizing polygamy will lead to an increase in sex slavery and human trafficking because of the association of some religious cults that support polygamy and abuse of religious power, specifically Warren Jeffers the president of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints who allegedly arranged marriages between the men of his church and underage girls, and was convicted of the sexual assault of two underage girls. Condemning all polygamy because of the actions of this man would be a mistake. Polygamy is not human trafficking and the two should be considered and treated separately. Lead is often found in children’s toys, but children’s toys are not outlawed, because it was not the toys themselves that were harmful it was the lead they contained. Likewise, polygamy should not be outlawed because it has been associated with human trafficking, because it is the human trafficking that is harmful, not the polygamy itself.

A polygamous family is not inferior to some legal situations in which children are often raised, and some forms of polygamy even offer benefits to a family unit beyond what a traditional “One man one woman” marriage does. It has been pointed out that a mother and/or father in a nuclear family unit can give all of their attention to the offspring of their singular spouse; one parent in a polygamous marriage may have their attention spilt between the offspring of their various spouses. This is true, but our society already allows people to be single mothers and fathers if they choose to do so. If a family structure including only a mother or only a father is legally acceptable, why should “A mother and ‘half a father’” or “A father and ‘half a mother’” not be a legally acceptable family structure as well? A “marriage chain” is the practice of every person having two spouses, forming a large network of marriages (Sally is married to Bill who is married to Jane who is married to Andy, who is married to Joy, and so on). In theory when one of two biological parents of a child is absent or unfit, the child falls into the care of the next spouse in the “chain”. This network could be a safety net of social responsibility for those who choose to participate.

Genetically, a society that includes family structures besides the traditional nuclear family could be beneficial. Because of the fifty-fifty gender ration in our country, and the fact that polygyny is more common than polyandry, some men are likely to be left out of the gene pool, were polygamy legalized. A National Longitudinal Survey done by The Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that women then to marry men who can produce money. The amount of money given to a profession is society’s way of showing the skills that it values. Therefore, we can conclude that women tend to marry men with skills and traits that society as a whole values. The men with these “good traits” are more likely to pass them on in a polygamous society, and the men without the “Good traits” are less so. This would create more children with “desirable” traits, but would also make the general population more genetically homogenous, which is scientifically looked at as a disadvantage for a species. The genetic homogeny resulting from the disproportion of polygyny to polyandry would likely be balanced out, however, by the introduction of group marriages. Group marriages encourage more variety in the gene pool as women are likely to bear the children of more than one man as opposed to multiple children of the same man, and men are more likely to bear children with more than one woman as opposed to multiple children with the same woman. Thus, the legalization of polygamy would encourage a generation both to pass on desirable traits, and at the same time not threaten genetic diversity and public health.

I checked this morning, and according to the site, Missouri’s (My state) debt is at $4,548,359,235 as of July 2011. Jailing people for crimes that do not harm anyone, such as polygamy, is not only unfair to the persons jailed, but eats government time and funding. Though I could not find the records of government money spent on prosecuting polygamists in Missouri, a governement does not create laws it has no plans to enforce, and any money that could potentially be spent on this issue would be a waste. The states state needs to cut back on spending, and proscuting thoes found to be in polygamous relationships is not a use of tax dollars that benefits society

Polygamy is a religious practice, and it is unconstitutional for it to be outlawed. Mormon Church is often associated with polygamy because the founder, Joseph Smith, claimed to have had a revelation that specific men of his church should enter polygamous marriages because they were commanded to do so by God. The Mormon Church has refuted its support of polygamy since then, but there are still some splinter groups of the Mormons that practice polygamy as part of their religion. According to the BBC, there are over 30,000 people practicing in Utah, Idaho, Montana and Arizona where Mormonism is common. The first amendment of the constitution states “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...” to outlaw polygamy, as it is a benign religious practice, is therefore unconstitutional.

Polygamous relationships are the choice of an individual, create legitimate family structures, are beneficial to the gene pool, and in some cases are a religious practice. It is unconstitutional to bar people from these forms of marriage, and our government is wasting valuable time any money prosecuting people for a victimless crimes.