Menage-a-trois marriages?

Grayson

sbsquarepants wrote: »

There are plenty of cultures that allow 3,4,5 or whatever number of people to marry, however they usually only allow 1 man to basically own women as property. Surely this is a step up from that situation?
I personally couldn't care less who marries what, it's entirely their own concern. People should be allowed live and love as they see fit.

In islam, if a man has more than one wife, he had to be able to supply separate homes for each, keep each in a standard equivalent to the other, spend an equal time with each and the first wife has to agree to the marriage. In the case of third wifes, the first two wifes have to agree.

But of course in places like saudi, even though this is law women are still treated like second class citizens. Think of it like the southern US after emancipation. Black people might have been officially equal, but in reality the white polulation still made life ****e for them and the courts always sided with the white population.

Tazium

Cavehill Red wrote: »

Not a model I would wish on kids. I know many kids do live an existence of revolving door stepparents, but research indicates this does have adverse effects on their development right into adulthood.
There is perhaps an argument for the 'tribal' model of raising kids, where children are collectively and communally looked after by a small community of adults. That worked in the distant past here and works today in the rainforest.
But I don't like your suggestion at all, I'm afraid. It's a charter for parental sexual selfishness at the cost of child development, stability and security.

Agreed, such a model in this society would be complicated in terms of co-habitation and closeness I'd imagine. Some extended families are quite involved while others aren't.

kneemos wrote: »

You make it sound like a pennance,why bother with marriage at all in that case?

It was a thought, not a suggestion. Why bother with marriage at all? That's off topic and worthy of another thread. There are parents who are not married to each other and is this vastly different from the thought suggested? As for marriage being a penance, not all are happy, therefore some are unhappy. Is an unhappy marriage a penance?

Morag

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFkeKKszXTw

Cavehill Red

These smug Yank satires are very tedious.
"Betty" doesn't explain traditional marriage (tradition in the Western world for many centuries defines marriage as between two people of opposite gender) or even Christian marriage, but simply relates a load of Old Testament fairy stories.
Now, I'm a fairly ardent atheist of the Buddhist persuasion, and I don't have a problem with gay partnerships, but this sort of misrepresentation seems to me to do more harm to the argument it seeks to support, that of gay marriage, than it does to that it seeks to undermine.