General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Should Polygamy be illegal? [View all]Squinch
(50,774 posts)fundamentalist sects in the US of whether they would support or work against legalization. The current system does give them a certain cover. And does allow for a hugely wealthy spouse (in this case, always the husband) to take no responsibility for an indigent wife (or twelve). So the responsibility falls to the state. If polygamy were legalized and the necessary laws were change, these guys would take an enormous financial hit. (Imagine suddenly having to share your millions with 32 wives.)
Also, it puts the state in a difficult position. Right now, "surplus" boys are discarded when they hit adolescence - often being taken to a highway in the middle of the desert and dropped, by their mothers. The state has begun to make arrangements for these boys. If legalization were to occur, they would still need to discard these boys, because they can only accommodate a fraction of the number of boys as girls in their society. So does the state still take these boys in? And if so, why?
All that said, I couldn't care less if they all married each other. There is a lot of pure evil in most of those societies, and most of it comes way before polygamous marriages in my book of what needs to be addressed. Most of it DOES seem to stem from the plural marriages, but if they could be eliminated while the plural marriages continue (and it is a question whether they can) then there's no reason not to let the marriages be legalized.
ETA: also the wife-trading that goes on now would be more difficult for them under a legalized system. Right now a woman can be awakened in the middle of the night and told she now "belongs to" some guy down the street, along with all her children. If she were legally married, they couldn't "reassign" as they do now. I bet the loudest voices against legalization of polygamy would be these polygamists.