Why is marriage between two people?

[Christopher Weeks]

Right, so last year we had this thread that's been continued.  In it and elsewhere, I see lots of people supporting gay marriage but unabashedly assuming that marriage is still between two people.  Why?

Frankly, I think the most sense is made by marrying a bunch of men and women -- for all the reasons that marrying one person makes sense, but more so.

[Lxndr]

I really have no idea why people assume it.  I'm with you.

[Keith Senkowski]

For me at least it is because I only have enough energy for the one woman I got, and even that is pushing it.

Keith

[Sean]

I don't have any principled objection to multiple marriage, so long as the people involved want it and are enjoying it. I do think that it's harder in some ways to make multiple-person serious romantic relationships work out, for a variety of reasons, and my friends who have been in such relationships agree.

The main argument against it appears to be that historically polygamy was connected to treating women as second-class human beings. This is true, but it also seems to me that women's empowerment is ultimately a separate issue. Also, there's no analogous argument against multiple mixed marriage or polyandry.

I do think though that if we allow multiple marriage we'll have to give up entirely on providing special tax rates and other social and economic benefits to people on the basis of married status. That might be for the best in any case. We can still provide special benefits groups of people who take care of children together, if that's something that seems like it would be beneficial to society to do.

But if a self-aware group of people thinks that it will make them happy to pursue a multiple committed romantic relationship, I don't see what principled ground I have to object to that on.

[timfire]

I think the primary reason against polygymy is emotional. I know polygomy is common historically, but how many stories are there about jealousy and favoritism arising between multiple spouses? In modern thought, a marriage is about "love." Jealousy and favoritism are major issues in romantic relationships.

Also, aren't societies were polygomy common, isn't one sex considered the "head" of household? My point is that I wonder if a marriage of 3 or 4 (or more) equals -- which is the common assumption -- is really a practical possibility.

[edit] Cross-post with Sean. [/edit]

[xenopulse]

I think from the government perspective, all domestic partnerships (marriages) should be treated as mini-corporations. People share income, but also agree to pay for each other should they separate. Or not, depending on your prenup, or whatever. Then you can have two people corporations, three people, four, whatever, with any kind of mix.

Maybe tax benefits should be completely shifted over to be based on children within that corporation. Mainly because they cost a shitload of money, but are somehow connected to the future of society. Or so I'm told.

[lumpley]

Know what I can't read with a straight face? Mitt Romney (Mormon governor of MA) saying how he opposes MA's same-sex marriages because they might open the door to polygamy.

I'm like, christ. Get a sense of history, guy. Get some solidarity. Some of my great-great-grandparents went to prison for their marriages. Yours too, Mitt.

Bastard.

-Vincent

[Harlequin]

Because nobody has really tried it in larger denominations, except for Lazarus Long and he doesn't count.

The point is that on paper, a two-person marriage is "easy".  In practice it's one of the hardest things in the world to do right.

On paper, there's no reason why line marriages etc. ought not to work just fine.  But there's also no practical evidence either way, not in an enlightened society.

It's not just quantitatively different from two-person marriage, either.  Many of the benefits of marriage (legal and similar) accrue by providing a clear, unequivocal answer to possible disputes.  The answer is of the form "one person - the other spouse."  Substituting "several people" into that blank immediately increases the complexity and room for failure of all of those agreements.  It's a qualitative difference, along the lines of the distinction between binary and trinary logic.  No reason on paper... but where's your trinary computer?

I'm not arguing that this means it won't work; I am arguing that it will remain experimental until many generations have not only tried it, but succeeded.  (Marriage as true equals isn't even to that point yet.)  I expect it'll happen, eventually.  I expect it'll have its share of really, truly, spectacular failures.  So - why do we assume dual-only?  The answer is that even if we don't, it's still appropriate to behave in much the same way as though we did.  I do not choose to be a guinea pig in the first wave of that experiment, but I'll support anyone who does.

- Eric

[Andrew Morris]

Beats me why marriage is assumed to be between two people. A muslim classmate was talking the other day about how his father has two wives. I can't recall whether he said that upon coming to America, his wives were not recognized, or if he actually had to remarry, but only to one of them.

[Brand_Robins]

I'm like, christ. Get a sense of history, guy. Get some solidarity. Some of my great-great-grandparents went to prison for their marriages. Yours too, Mitt.

Bastard.

Amen.

[joshua neff]

For me at least it is because I only have enough energy for the one woman I got, and even that is pushing it.

Keith

Word.

I'm perfectly fine with other people having polygamous marriages, just as I'm cool with two consenting adults of the same gender getting married--it doesn't have anything to do with me, so why should I care? But I don't think I could handle being married to more than one person. Plus, my wife is insanely competitive. She'd view a harem as a Tekken tournament.

[Valamir]

Personally, I don't see the point of institutionalize "marriage" to begin with.

Any arguement about it representing a higher level of committment is belied by the frequency not only of divorce but repeated divorce.

The only thing it represents is a higher level of hassle...right from planning the ceremony and guest list to having to combine assets and credit ratings and file taxes jointly.

If people are committed to a life long relationship with each other based on love, affection, respect, comradship, and support (emotional and/or financial) then great...go do that.  What's the point of institutionalizing that with a marriage.  Why does some other party...priest or judge...have to give his ok to make such a relationship legit.  The institutionalization of marriage is a fundamentally pointless hold over from the days of relative lawlessness when women had to be protected by men from from other men...first fathers, then husbands.  It got adapted to a more civilized time when the protection was less a factor than financial support.  But now...women don't need a man's protection or a man's money...so there is no need for laws enforcing such a situation.  Its a ridiculous piece of completely irrelevant non functional baggage.

If you want to proclaim your love and devotion for your partner...do it.  Do it publically if you like.  Do it with a ceremony if that makes it feel more substantial...but marriage...feh. Stupid and pointless.  If you want to proclaim your committment before God...go ahead.  He's listening.  God knows you're married in your heart without needing the state to issue a certificate.  God doesn't care about the state's certificate.  You can "be married" in the eyes of God without needing the approval of government.

Which is why I find the whole "Gays should have the right to marry" thing to be even more pointless.  Fighting tooth and nail for something that has no intrinsic value.  Personally I find the "domestic partnership" that most gay couples reside in, to be vastly more sensible than "marriage" any way (which is why I'm in one).

The only shitter about not being married under U.S. law is the ridiculous restrictions on things like Health Care privacy (try getting information from a doctor about your S.O.'s condition if your not "family"), and inheritance, and estate tax.  Fortuneately there are some things you can do with trusts and powers of attorney to mitigate most of those restrictions.  And the restrictions themselves serve no purpose...they were just written in an era when marriage was the assumed state of normalcy and it made for a convenient way to write the law.


Love between two people = good.
Sharing a life together = good.
Marriage = stupid silly nonsense.

[Christopher Weeks]

Ralph, I agree with all that.  But dude, the point was really...

Love between two people = good.

What about love between fifteen?

I'll presume that you'll give that a "good" too.  But it's interesting that even in a thread about typical monogamous marriage/relationship, you defaulted to two.

[Harlequin]

Ralph - I have to disagree there.  Skip concerns of implementation; let's assume it was somehow being handled reasonably, with no silly concerns over "who do we allow to do this?" and all that.

Look at it as changing the default settings.

Default setting when you die is that the state becomes the guardian of your children.  We modify that default if you have surviving kin.  Marriage overrides that modification and puts in place its own default.  It is possible for you to explicitly place an entry in that blank - assign a guardian in your will - but it requires work, just like modifying the default in any piece of software.

And as in software, defaults are damn useful when stuff starts changing.  If foobling becomes commonplace, it becomes very important to know who your designated foobler is.  One could require everyone to manually register a preference here.  But in the absence of an institution like marriage, there would be no assumed default.  Defaults can be extended by extrapolation legitimately, as they can be overridden; specific settings (the designated guardian of your children) cannot be extended by extrapolation (designated foobler) the same way, particularly if the specific settings aren't all set to the same value.

It is useful to have a program set new integers to zero unless otherwise specified.  It is useful to have social institutions set new queries to "spouse" unless otherwise specified.  Call "spouse" what you will, this is a dimension which "lifelong committed (but not recognized by the state) relationship" simply does not capture.

- Eric

[xenopulse]

There is a reason for the state to support some kind of arrangement, namely that often, one person does the income-work and the other person does the house-and-kids-work. The latter person is seriously screwed if there's no safety net for them once the first person decides that it's all over.

Now, that doesn't need to be marriage per se. It could be a contract of sorts. But a lot of people might not be smart enough or even want to accept that possibility at the time they start such an arrangement. This way, with marriage bringing government benefits, it secures child support and alimony for most people who end up in such an unfortunate position.

So we could drop state support and watch people crash and burn until contracts become the standard... or we could continue and expand the concept of government-sponsored domestic parnerships.