Legalize It?
Okay, I don't have a dog in this fight, but I know people who do:
https://www.cnn.com/2025/11/25/world/video/ebof-pope-leo-polyamory-polygamy-harry-enten
TL/DR: The Pope spoke against polyamory and polygamy. The commentators went on to say that 21% of Americans find polygamy morally acceptable, up from 6% twenty years ago. Among young people, 31% find it morally acceptable. The commentators were clearly shocked and judgmental.
As for me? The problem I see with this story is that the commentators use polyamory and polygamy interchangeably. They aren't the same thing. The survey the commentator quotes (apparently) also asks only about polygamy, but I'm wondering if the surveyor defined polygamy correctly during the survey.
For the record, polygamy is ONE MAN with MULTIPLE WIVES. Also, the wives are NOT married to each other. This is the Mormon version, and also the version practiced widely in India and the Middle East.
Polyamory is MULTIPLE SPOUSES of any gender. Usually, but not always, the group members are all married (or romantically involved) with each other. (In some polyamorous groups, Person A is married to Person B, and Person B has a relationship with Person C, but Person C has little or no relationship with Person A, for example.)
All polygamy is polyamory, but not all polyamory is polygamy.
I would not support a law that recognizes polygamous marriages. It's not equality if a man can have multiple wives, but a woman can't have multiple husbands.
I =would= support allowing people in a group to all be married to each other, along the lines of, "If it makes you all happy and it works for all of you, then you should be allowed to do it." The logistics of such a law would be tricky, though. In a group of, say, four people, how would medical insurance work? If one of the group died, how would spousal inheritance work? If a child is born to two members of the group, what parental rights would the other two people have? If one person wanted to leave the group (divorce), what responsibilities would the other three have as ex-spouses (alimony or division of assets, for example)? How would it work if one of the people who left was a biological parent to a child that all four of them had parental rights to? Would the law require everyone in the relationship to be married to everyone else, or could you have A marry B and B marry C, but C not marry A? (That last one is a real head-scratcher.)
All those wrinkles could be ironed out. The law loves nothing more than a good set of regulations to explore. But there's another issue here.
If the government did recognize polyamorous relationships, almost certainly the vast majority of such relationships would be polygamous--one man with multiple women who aren't married to each other. As it stands right now, there's no way to talk about polygamy without the work "exploitation." Polygamy exploits women and subverts them to the will of a single man. (It doesn't =have= to work this way, but it always =does.=) It also creates a hierarchy among the wives that often leads to fighting and abuse. Men who practice polygamy overwhelmingly see their wives as (sexual) servants at best, slaves or property at worst. Remember those brothers from Romania? The ones with the toxic, hypermasculine series of YouTube videos who were arrested for trafficking dozens of women? Imagine if they had been allowed to marry those women. Their legal case would become extremely tangled and more difficult to prosecute. Also, every single society that practices polygamy is misogynistic. There are no societies that practice equality (or try to) that also allow polygamy. You have to have strict laws and customs to regulate women when in your household, it's you against six women who don't like you very much.
I know people in stable three-way relationships. Loving polyamory is not the same as exploitive polygamy, but if you legalize the first, you're just about guaranteed to get the second. So while I support legalized polyamory in theory, I don't think it would work in practice.
But you still need to get your terms right!
comments
https://www.cnn.com/2025/11/25/world/video/ebof-pope-leo-polyamory-polygamy-harry-enten
TL/DR: The Pope spoke against polyamory and polygamy. The commentators went on to say that 21% of Americans find polygamy morally acceptable, up from 6% twenty years ago. Among young people, 31% find it morally acceptable. The commentators were clearly shocked and judgmental.
As for me? The problem I see with this story is that the commentators use polyamory and polygamy interchangeably. They aren't the same thing. The survey the commentator quotes (apparently) also asks only about polygamy, but I'm wondering if the surveyor defined polygamy correctly during the survey.
For the record, polygamy is ONE MAN with MULTIPLE WIVES. Also, the wives are NOT married to each other. This is the Mormon version, and also the version practiced widely in India and the Middle East.
Polyamory is MULTIPLE SPOUSES of any gender. Usually, but not always, the group members are all married (or romantically involved) with each other. (In some polyamorous groups, Person A is married to Person B, and Person B has a relationship with Person C, but Person C has little or no relationship with Person A, for example.)
All polygamy is polyamory, but not all polyamory is polygamy.
I would not support a law that recognizes polygamous marriages. It's not equality if a man can have multiple wives, but a woman can't have multiple husbands.
I =would= support allowing people in a group to all be married to each other, along the lines of, "If it makes you all happy and it works for all of you, then you should be allowed to do it." The logistics of such a law would be tricky, though. In a group of, say, four people, how would medical insurance work? If one of the group died, how would spousal inheritance work? If a child is born to two members of the group, what parental rights would the other two people have? If one person wanted to leave the group (divorce), what responsibilities would the other three have as ex-spouses (alimony or division of assets, for example)? How would it work if one of the people who left was a biological parent to a child that all four of them had parental rights to? Would the law require everyone in the relationship to be married to everyone else, or could you have A marry B and B marry C, but C not marry A? (That last one is a real head-scratcher.)
All those wrinkles could be ironed out. The law loves nothing more than a good set of regulations to explore. But there's another issue here.
If the government did recognize polyamorous relationships, almost certainly the vast majority of such relationships would be polygamous--one man with multiple women who aren't married to each other. As it stands right now, there's no way to talk about polygamy without the work "exploitation." Polygamy exploits women and subverts them to the will of a single man. (It doesn't =have= to work this way, but it always =does.=) It also creates a hierarchy among the wives that often leads to fighting and abuse. Men who practice polygamy overwhelmingly see their wives as (sexual) servants at best, slaves or property at worst. Remember those brothers from Romania? The ones with the toxic, hypermasculine series of YouTube videos who were arrested for trafficking dozens of women? Imagine if they had been allowed to marry those women. Their legal case would become extremely tangled and more difficult to prosecute. Also, every single society that practices polygamy is misogynistic. There are no societies that practice equality (or try to) that also allow polygamy. You have to have strict laws and customs to regulate women when in your household, it's you against six women who don't like you very much.
I know people in stable three-way relationships. Loving polyamory is not the same as exploitive polygamy, but if you legalize the first, you're just about guaranteed to get the second. So while I support legalized polyamory in theory, I don't think it would work in practice.
But you still need to get your terms right!
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