Response to Rowe on Polygamy

Women are "monogamous and possessive by nature"? Sounds to me like a veritable portmanteau of assumptions. Adultery rates are, I had thought, roughly equivalent between the genders. And any argument based upon a "by nature" claim is almost always grounds for suspicion.

And I'm also a little puzzled by the claim that men will be "hoarding" women - why is that more likely than the women hoarding up all the good men? I know that I wouldn't mind having one to do the housework, one to do the cooking, one to do the gardening....okay, so I'm being a little tongue in cheek here, but I am curious as to why polygyny as opposed to polyandry is assumed here.

You are spot on with this, "Polygamous societies are a relic of a very different type of cultural system that we don't have here, where women are incapable of taking care of themselves financially and where there simply isn't any thought to them playing any role other than babymaker."

One more thing...

Jillian says, "And I'm also a little puzzled by the claim that men will be 'hoarding' women. Why is that more likely than the women hoarding up all the good men?"

If you're talking about *theory*, Jillian is right. However, I know of no tradition of polyandry, at all, in the history of the world, so to me that conversation seems like a non-starter. In general when people discuss polygamy, they're talking about polygyny.

FYI, I'm the blogger whose description of polygamy as practiced got linked around, and I think some of what I said was misconstrued. I've followed up with a post clarifying.

However, I know of no tradition of polyandry, at all, in the history of the world, so to me that conversation seems like a non-starter.

Gotta love those Internets:

Polyandry is fairly common in Tibet, Zanskar, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. It is also encountered in some regions of China (especially Yunnan), and in some Subsaharan African and American indigenous communities.

Gee, you got me. All those tribal communities in Tibet. Read my post and I think you'll agree that these examples are the exception that proves the rule.

Btw, the wikipedia link you link to implies that these forms of polyandry are mainly utlized for inheritance/intra-family transfers of wealth rather than for actually sharing one woman among several men, which I thought was interesting in itself.

Also, as "traditions" of polygamy go, these examples of polyandry seem pretty weak. Even within communities where it is practiced it appears to be unusual and not entirely accepted. It forms a pretty stark contrast to multi-generational forms of polygyny that have existed for thousands of years.

It's also important to note that, whatever the historical precedent may or may not be, that modern proponents of polygamy are gender neutral on the subject - a quick Google for "polyamory" will tell you more than you ever wanted to know about the subject.

And as for how "rare" it may or may not be - in my own life, I've run into more people who are into polyamory than I have BDSM, and I've seen claims that 10% or so of people have played with BDSM, so just my own exploration on the topic leads me to conclude that more people like poly relationships than one might think.

I agree that the legality of handling polygamous marriages would probably be difficult, but the biggest difficulty I see is income tax, and I really don't know the first thing about income taxes, so I wouldn't dare to venture an opinion on the topic. But in principle, at least, polygamous marriages among adults of legal age should be as legal as any other marriage.

It's not my cup of tea, but God bless sexual and emotional variety - it means that no matter how "out there" your tastes might be, there's probably someone else who thinks they're mighty nice. And the world's a nicer place when we're all loved the way we want to be.

Gee, you got me. All those tribal communities in Tibet. Read my post and I think you'll agree that these examples are the exception that proves the rule.

My point wasn't that they were substantial traditions, or expansive traditions, or important traditions. My point was that such traditions exist. It wans't a "gotcha". It was an attempt to educate.

However, I know of no tradition of polyandry, at all, in the history of the world, so to me that conversation seems like a non-starter.

You didn't know of any. Now you do.

...I know of no tradition of polyandry, at all, in the history of the world...

As a different answer to that statement, Andrew could just as easily have pointed out the fact that many birds and bees, among other animals, commonly practice polyandry...and it's not for purposes of inheritance or wealth. Of course, you can always move the goalpost again and restate Joe's claim to apply only to humans.

Well... Only humans have "traditions," Joe, and only humans have "history," properly speaking.

So while a few societies really have practiced polyandry, it's not a matter of moving the goalposts to meet the original claim. It only pertained to "histories" and "traditions," not to animal behavior.

Thanks. I don't have time to address everything, but I stand by my belief that women are by nature, *more* (perhaps I should have used that term as a qualifier) monogamous and possessive than men. Men are also possessive, but tend to not be as inclined towards monogamy. Hence, we could see a man desiring 50 wives, but refusing to "share" his wife with other men.

Women would never consent to an open relationship. But I'm sure that many hetero males, after years of having the same sex, would be willing to allow their wives to cheat if they got the green light in return.

In terms of cheating rates, the stats could be confusing.

For instance, a small but significant % of women are by nature promiscuous -- they have the "nymphomaniac" orientation. (Street term: slut). And it is these women who have sex with a disproportionate # of males and skew the data so that the averages look the same.

Let's conduct a thought experiment: we have 50 men and 50 women in a room. The next night all 50 men had sex, but only one of the women had sex. And the only sex that occured was heterosexual. How do we solve the riddle? 1 women had sex with all 50 guys. And if you conduct an average, the group of men and women both had on average, one sexual experience that night.

Men, as long as they aren't rapists, can only have sex on consenting terms. Women tend to demand monogamy before consent. Men who cheat often cheat with prostitutes or "loose" women who have the nymphomania orientation. (Or they could be cheating with a women who has developed emotional feelings for him, and desires that he leave his partner).

Even though guys, on average tend to mature later and date younger women, stats show that guys lose their virginity at younger ages than women. This seems counterintuive. I used to dismiss this as bragging, but later changed my mind. I know a lot of guys who lost their virginity at fairly young ages -- 13, 14, 15 -- to slightly older women, with whom they never were in a relationship. And others with prostitutes. I've never heard of a women losing her virginity to a male prostitute.

Men, at least the ones who are assertive and desperately horney enough, at young ages probably tend to seek out that small percentage of women who will consent to have sex with them. Often they seek out the "loose girl" in the neighborhood who is always *busy.*

Even when it comes to cheating, men and women cheat for different reasons. Men, it's usually for release and the need for sexual variety. Again, there is literally *no* market for male prositutes who want to sell themselves to women for relationshipless sex. Women cheat because their emotional needs aren't being met. And if a women's husband cheats on her, that's bound to prompt her to fall out of love with him, and look elsewhere to have her emotional needs met. Then the sex happens.

that shold have read: "but refusing to 'share' his ['wives,' not 'wife'] with other men."

Jon,

Although I think in general you are right about women being less inclined toward polyandry of all kinds, I do recall an MTV special on the subject, which profiled a few relationships that were based on polyandry - both 1 man, many women and vice versa.

As I recall, the relationships were frought with both jealousy and the difficulties of keeping them secret (sort of like being in the closet as a gay person), and at least one of them had dissolved between the filming and the airing of the shown. Interestingly, all of the relationships were gender-neutral in terms of power sharing - these were not Mormon polygamous marriages, for instance.

It was not a scientific sample, but the program did show the difficulties of these relationships, and IMHO the reasons why most people would choose two person relationships over higher numbers if given the option.

Being as socially liberal as John Lennon on an acid spree, I have no problem with gay marriage or polygamy. What does trouble me is the insurance issues involved in legally recognising multiple partner unions. I'll be damned if I am paying for the check ups of a Utah judge and his three wives and thirty plus kids. I will be farther damned if I am to pay for the social security benefits his yard apes will recieve if he kills himself after realising he can't afford to feed two football squads and a few basketball teams, two hundred and fifty dollar a week judging stipends not withstanding.
As far as women being less likely to want to be involved in polygamy, I don't see that at all. While I hate to speculate as to what the current sexual fashion in Possum Creek Arkansas is, here in Seattle it's very much in style for people of both sexes to have multiple partners, oft in the same bed. Seattle isn't a representative sample of the US, but since we gave the red state hicks Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Dave Matthews and Modest Mouse it seems clear that certain trends started here spread to areas where progressive politics are still in the fetal stage of development. Incidentally, this is the only major city I have ever visited where I can walk down any street at any time of night and not constantly look over my shoulder examining the shadows for signs of switch blades. That may or may not have something to do with the fact we feed and clothe our homeless to an extent where their desperation isn't all consuming.
All the best,
Astral Mage

Jon Rowe: "We know that respecting liberty of contract and property rights also leads to small percentages of individuals owning disproportionate amounts of wealth; but that's okay, because it's better than any alternatives."

Yes, but there is an important difference here in that wealth and possessions are not a zero-sum game. If a rich man buys two cars, this doesn't deprive a poor man from buying a car, since free market can produce any number of cars.

Sexuals pairings, on the other hand, are very much a zero-sum game. For any man who takes two wives, we know for a mathematical certainty that some other man must go without a wife. This man necessarily exists and he has absolutely no choice in the matter.

Ed Brayton: "If even 10 or 20 million American women decided that they wanted to be a part of a polygamous marriage, it would not reduce my chances of finding a mate by even a single person, for the simple reason that any woman who would make that choice is not a woman I would be the least bit interested in."

This is just total, utter, sheer, horrible nonsense.

If 20 million American women decided to be a part of a polygamous marriage, and even if this choice reveals these women to be dealbreaking-level unappealing to you, it would still seriously hurt your chances of finding a mate, since you would suddenly get 20 million new male competitors for the women that you actually do find appealing.

To continue my previous comment, I'll quote Steve Sailer's article "The Problem with Polygamy".

"I have come to believe that this blind spot stems from it being virtually impossible for a man to imagine himself as one of the 149 losers, rather than the one big winner. He might prefer one wife to 150, but his male ego can't allow him to identify with all the men who end up rejected and alone. This psychological quirk creates a reality distortion field in the heads of men. Demography is not the sexiest of the social sciences, but one demographic fact that just about everybody knows is that among marriage-aged people there are almost exactly as many men as women. Indeed, among people between the ages of 15 and 64 in the world as a whole, there are 102 men for every 100 women, according to the "CIA World Factbook." Yet, men who favor polygamy almost never believe this basic constant of demographics."

Jillian: "And I'm also a little puzzled by the claim that men will be "hoarding" women - why is that more likely than the women hoarding up all the good men?"

Because that is what has always happened in our planet, in reality.

"I know that I wouldn't mind having one to do the housework, one to do the cooking, one to do the gardening....okay, so I'm being a little tongue in cheek here,"

Tee hee hee, giggle giggle, why don't all these surplus men just eat cake?

Astral Mage: "Being as socially liberal as John Lennon on an acid spree, I have no problem with gay marriage or polygamy."

You have no problem with a large number of men being doomed to a life without love and marriage? Even most conservatives are not as heartless and glib as you.

"While I hate to speculate as to what the current sexual fashion in Possum Creek Arkansas is, here in Seattle it's very much in style for people of both sexes to have multiple partners, oft in the same bed."

"Astral Mage". What an appropriate nickname for a obvious dopehead hippy-dippy in the middle of an immense reality distortion.

Here's a hint: porn movies don't exactly depict the real world, so I wouldn't base any social policy on their depictions of how people behave.

Excellent point Ilkka. I think you've hit upon the only legitimate grounds for outlawing consensual and adult polygamy.

And we've also hit upon a point where equality and liberty clash with one another.

I think equality needs to be understood through the lens of liberty, property, and contract. And equality should be given at most equal weight with them, never more.

In giving equality equal weight, perhaps consensual and adult polygamy *ought* to be outlawed.

Or, as a libertarian, I might choose to allow consenting adults to enter into whatever marital arrangements they wish, as long as its consensual and adult.

If the "new" polygamy ends up looking like the "old," then I'm inclined to outlaw it.

ME: "If even 10 or 20 million American women decided that they wanted to be a part of a polygamous marriage, it would not reduce my chances of finding a mate by even a single person, for the simple reason that any woman who would make that choice is not a woman I would be the least bit interested in."
This is just total, utter, sheer, horrible nonsense. If 20 million American women decided to be a part of a polygamous marriage, and even if this choice reveals these women to be dealbreaking-level unappealing to you, it would still seriously hurt your chances of finding a mate, since you would suddenly get 20 million new male competitors for the women that you actually do find appealing.
To be honest, I'm still not concerned about it. Maybe that's because I'm just arrogant enough not to worry about the competition. Or maybe it's because I don't need to worry about ever finding a woman again. But the possibility that I'd suddenly have an extra 20 million men competing with me for the same smaller pool of women just doesn't scare me.

"To be honest, I'm still not concerned about it. Maybe that's because I'm just arrogant enough not to worry about the competition. Or maybe it's because I don't need to worry about ever finding a woman again. But the possibility that I'd suddenly have an extra 20 million men competing with me for the same smaller pool of women just doesn't scare me."

Well, I guess that explains your attitude. Most of the 20 million men doomed to life without possibility of marriage might not see things the same way, though. We will see the practical consequences of this in China and India soon enough, with their upcoming horribly lopsided sex ratios.

As much as libertarians may advocate and cheer for polygamy, the society needed to maintain it by keeping the boot on the neck of the surplus men and directing their anger and frustration towards suitable scapegoat groups is by design so volatile and repressive that I doubt that it is a society that libertarians really want.

If polygamy became legal and widespread, these surplus men might start to target polygamists and their flunkies for assassination and violence. And this would not be morally wrong any more than the Warsaw ghetto uprising was morally wrong. In fact, I would join the cheering whenever the angry mob of men lynched a harem owner. When you are a target of attempted genocide, you have every right to defend yourself, including fighting back and killing the perpetrators.

Say what? Genocide?

Yes. Convention on the Punishment and Prevention of the Crime of Genocide, Article II: "In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: ... (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;"

As they say, "I am not a lawyer", but taking away most women certainly qualifies as a measure of preventing births, no?

So Jon Rowe and other legal minds, there is your reason to condemn polygamy while accepting gay marriage right there. I really don't see why you would need anything else.

As for there are practicing polygamists and advocates of polygamy reading this, consider Article III, same document: "The following acts shall be punishable: ... (b) Conspiracy to commit genocide; (c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;"

As much as you try to deny this, we know for certain that for every polygamist with n wives, n-1 men are forced to life without marriage. We are not able to point out who these n-1 men exactly are (after all, the most devious thing of polygamy is that the polygamist himself probably does not even know any of these men, and will therefore try to pretend that his polygamy does not harm anyone) but we do know that these men necessarily exist, and this knowledge should be enough to convict the polygamist of the crime of genocide.

Ilkka-
I find a couple of things disturbing about your posts on the subject of polygamy. First, I do not "advocate and cheer for polygamy" as you implied. At most, I'm saying that we should tolerate it as a tiny fringe. I simply do not believe that it will spread any further than that in our culture, and I've explained all the reasons why without substantive response to show why I am wrong about that. I also fully recognize that polygamy is a very bad form of marriage. But I also think that so-called "open marriages" are a very bad idea and don't wish to see those banned either. There are a few thousand polygamists in the United States out of a population of around 300 million. If legalized, I doubt it would go any higher than that.
Secondly, and I'm sure this isn't the way you intended it, is that I think your argument presumes that women are property in at least one sense. The notion that every man deserves to have one, or has a right to one, seems implicit in your arguments, though again I doubt you see it that way or intend it that way. The fact is that some people, male and female, never find mates for various reasons. Their rights have not therefore been violated. Even without legalized polygamy, there is undoubtedly a small group of people who are in plural relationships. I recall seeing a very famous porn star on TV who said that she is in a plural relationship with a man and a woman and had been for 15 years or so and planned to be so for life (the man was married to one of the women, as I recall, and the other lived with them). This would also, by your reasoning, deny some man somewhere a mate. But would you ban that? It's their life and they can live it as they see fit. If this is really an act of genocide as you so hyperbolically put it, then obviously one of the women should be forced to leave this relationship and take up with someone else. But I can't be the only one who thinks that goes entirely too far.

Ed Brayton: "I simply do not believe that it will spread any further than that in our culture,"

But of course not. The wealthiest high-status men would never monopolize haremfuls of women to themselves even if such thing was allowed. Also the men in the second highest social stratus would never even dream of trying to imitate their betters.

"Secondly, and I'm sure this isn't the way you intended it, is that I think your argument presumes that women are property in at least one sense."

Women are not property, but the zero-sumness and sheer importance of sexual pairings requires that special consideration is given to the issue.

Myself, I would prefer the system of serial monogamy in which people were free to pair up with anyone else they like... but excluding one-night stands, with at most one other person at any given time.

"The fact is that some people, male and female, never find mates for various reasons. Their rights have not therefore been violated."

If I have understood your argument correctly, you claim that since some people remain unmarried either voluntarily or due to forces beoynd their control, it is not a problem if someone (a polygamist) intentionally forces someone else (a surplus man) to remain unmarried regardless of the latter's desire to find a spouse and marry her. And simple mathematics and graph theory proves that the choice to marry two women forces some other man somewhere to remain unmarried: that unlucky man has at most an illusion of choice.

Very well. Since many people get injured or die in traffic accidents, it is not a problem if someone intentionally runs over someone else with his car, right?

Actually, let's change the scenario so that the driver does not know the victim, but chooses him randomly on the spot. And to make this an even better analogy to polygamy, in which the polygamist generally does not know which other man he necessarily deprives from the possibility of marriage, let's make it so that the hit-and-run takes place at night so that the driver never sees the face of his randomly chosen victim, and that the driver does not read the newspapers or listen to news to see who the victim was.

Let's further use your assumption that such random hit-and-running does not become widespread in our culture, but that only a few sexy and "cool" rebels occasionally engage in it.

Now, what problems would you have with this scenario that you currently do not have with polygamy?

But of course not. The wealthiest high-status men would never monopolize haremfuls of women to themselves even if such thing was allowed. Also the men in the second highest social stratus would never even dream of trying to imitate their betters.
In case you hadn't noticed, it's not exactly "high status men" being polygamous in this country, it's bottom of the ladder losers in Utah. And no, I don't believe for a moment that if it was legalized, rich men would start doing so. For one thing, our divorce laws would kill them financially. They already DO have harems, in the sense of multiple mistresses commonly, they just don't marry them. And allowing polygamy wouldn't change that a bit.
Myself, I would prefer the system of serial monogamy in which people were free to pair up with anyone else they like... but excluding one-night stands, with at most one other person at any given time.
Myself, I prefer a free society, where consenting adults can pair up with other consenting adults in whatever configuration they all consensually prefer. Personally, I prefer monogamy, always have and always will. But since the choices of other consenting adults doesn't prevent me from making those choices, I don't think I should try and prevent them from making their choices.
If I have understood your argument correctly, you claim that since some people remain unmarried either voluntarily or due to forces beoynd their control, it is not a problem if someone (a polygamist) intentionally forces someone else (a surplus man) to remain unmarried regardless of the latter's desire to find a spouse and marry her.
This is just plain silly. Regardless of whether they are allowed to marry, lots of men already have more than one lover (lots of women too). In no way are they "intentionally forcing someone else to go without a mate" or any such nonsense. Let's take this hypothetical scenario. Male A has two lovers, Female A and Female B. Both females know about each other, both consent to being lovers of male A with that full knowledge. Male B comes along and he wants to be with Female A, but Female A prefers to be with Male A even if he's also with Female B. Now, by your reasoning, Male A is "intentionally forcing" Male B to go without a mate. But that's bullshit. Male B doesn't have a "right" to be with Female A, Female A has a right to be with the person of her choice regardless of whether you approve of it or not, and regardless of whether Male B approves of it, or whether he is forced to spend the rest of his life playing with himself. The missing part in your ridiculous analogy is consent.

"Let's take this hypothetical scenario. Male A has two lovers, Female A and Female B. Both females know about each other, both consent to being lovers of male A with that full knowledge. Male B comes along and he wants to be with Female A,"

I agree that this is a demand that Male B has no intrinsic right to make. But it is not the right that I believe most people believe that he has, the right of a realistic possibility of finding and marrying someone.

As polygamy goes, we can improve your scenario by looking at Males A and Z instead of just Males A and B. The crime of Male A is not depriving Male B from getting Female B, who as you said, prefers being second wife of Male A to being second wife of Male B. The real crime of Male A that I am addressing here is his intentional depriving Male Z of the possibility of getting any wife at all.

To start, the polygamous Male A marries Female B in addition to Female A, as in your scenario.

This causes Female B not to pair with her second choice, Male B. In turn, Male B has to marry his second choice Female C instead of his first choice, Female B.

This causes Female C not to pair with her second choice, Male C. In turn, Male C has to marry his second choice Female D instead of his first choice, Female C.

Assuming that there is same number of men and women (and in fact, there are slightly less women than men), it all eventually trickles down to Male Z. This poor chap never meets or gets to know Male A, and has no idea why he is never able to get himself any kind of wife, not even Female Z, the 300 lbs. loudmouth chain-smoking mother of five bratty children who lives in the trailer park. Male A enjoys his two wives and sings "tra la laa, my free choices don't force anyone to do anything".

As an unrelated side note, let's quickly see who wins and who loses in this chain to determine whose interest polygamy is in. Winners are Male A and all Females B-Z, whereas losers are Female A and all Males B-Z. Even so, most people seem to seriously believe that men win and women lose in polygamy, when the truth is clearly the exact opposite of this. I bet that there is lots of interesting psychology behind this fallacy.

Above, when I wrote "prefers being second wife of Male A to being second wife of Male B", of course I meant to write "prefers being second wife of Male A to being first wife of Male B".

Then, I'd like to reply to this claim: "In case you hadn't noticed, it's not exactly "high status men" being polygamous in this country, it's bottom of the ladder losers in Utah."

So if it's a "bottom of the ladder loser" who gets to have ten wives, then what does that make the nine other men who don't get to have wives at all?

Actually, a while back I read an article about these Utah surplus men that the polygamist elders throw out of their communities. After reading this article, my first thought was that if these young and healthy-looking men men ever chose to use their 10-against-1 numerical superiority to catch and hang every polygamist elder, and I was sitting in the jury in their trial, I would give these men a large reward instead of convicting them of anything.

Ilkka-
You continue to use this phrase that those who are engaging in polygamy are "intentionally depriving" some male of the ability to find a mate. That is nonsense. Their intent is to marry as many women as they decide to marry within their community, it's not to keep someone else from doing the same thing, or marrying even one. The word "intentionally" can only mean "with the intent of depriving", and there simply is no intent.
Your entire theory here relies upon the idea that massive numbers of men and women are going to start being polygamous if it is legalized. Not only is there no evidence whatsoever for that supposition, there is a good deal of evidence against it and numerous reasons that I've listed previously for why it wouldn't happen - reasons you have never bothered to respond to, I might add. Plural relationships are already legal, regardless of whether they can actually marry, and a very small percentage of people are in them. But by your reasoning, a plural relationship is tantamount to genocide and we must legally prevent people from doing it. That requires not merely that we ban polygamy, but that we police everyone's sex life to make sure that they are involved with only one person. Indeed, you explicitly endorsed that kind of repressive policy when you said:

Myself, I would prefer the system of serial monogamy in which people were free to pair up with anyone else they like... but excluding one-night stands, with at most one other person at any given time.

If people are not free to have "one night stands" or not free to have more than one lover at a time, which is what you say you desire, how on earth do you propose to prevent them from doing so without a police state? All of this inflated rhetoric about genocide is simply a cover for your urge to control others and keep them from entering free and consensual relationships with each other. Ironically, it puts you squarely in the camp of those who want to throw homosexuals in prison.

Me: "Myself, I would prefer the system of serial monogamy in which people were free to pair up with anyone else they like... but excluding one-night stands, with at most one other person at any given time."

Sorry, my ambiguity. The part "excluding one-night stands" is supposed to modify the sentence after it, not the one before it.

Second, about the intentionality. If someone commits an act while knowing perfectly well that the act is certain to have harmful consequences to someone else (although I wouldn't be surprised if the consequences of simple pigeonhole principle were too hard for most people to understand), there is your intentionality to harm right there, at least in the moral sense. The fact that the act itself also provides them some other pleasure does not change this.

Ikka,
Your entire arguement seems to be treating women like a commodity. Male Z in your example has as much right to female Z as male B did to female B, none. If a man cannot convince a woman to marry him he simply cannot get married. Trying to blame someone else, who convinced several women to marry him, is childish.

I haven't studied the polygamy but it seems to me women in the U.S. today have far more power, economically and politically, than any polygamous culture in the past. Were polygamy were to be legallized this would have to have an enormous impact. For example, if many women were married to one man I am sure most of them would have lovers on the side. I don't think large harems would be common. It would be too expensive. If it became a status symbol (see how many wives I can support) rich women would start collecting their own harems.
I think most polygamous relationships would be 3 or 4 people getting together to share responsiblities. They could have 2 or 3 incomes and still have a stay at home parent. That seems like it would work. I wonder why it isn't more common now. Probably not stable.

Ed Brayton: "If people are ... not free to have more than one lover at a time, which is what you say you desire, how on earth do you propose to prevent them from doing so without a police state?"

Actually, I propose this not with a police state, but mostly with social shaming.

Besides, any "police state" involved in this would be child's play compared to the police state that is absolutely necessary to maintain a society where 25-30% of marriage-age men are permanently shut out of any possibility of marriage, which I still consider likely to emergy if polygamy advocates got their way.

Admittedly there would probably be lots of drugs and prostitution and guns in such society, but otherwise I very much doubt that this society would be a fertile ground for any kind of libertarian social and economic ideas. No liberal polygamous society has ever existed, and never will.

In this light, I seriously shudder when I think of how China and India will be in fifteen years or so. Most of the social, political and economic advances that these contries have seen during the recent years will be undone by the simple multiplayer prisoner's dilemma introduced by the ultrasound machine.

David Holland: "If a man cannot convince a woman to marry him he simply cannot get married."

Indeed. And surely this man will just quietly sit down, accept his fate and low status and never bother anyone with it. Well, yes, if these men were less than 1% of the male population if polygamy was fully legalized, as you and Ed believe. Absolutely not, if these men were 25% of the male population, as I believe would happen in that scenario.

Sorry it took so long to get back.
Ikka,
We will probably never know which of us is right. The thng to keep in mind is that in order for 25% of the men in the population to have no mates available at least 25% of the women would have to choose to be in a polygamous relationship. I just can't see a significant number of women choosing to be a millionaire's trophy wife number 50 instead of college sweetheart's one and only. At any rate I doubt we'll ever know.