C'mon guys, does everyone agree that polygamy would be a great deal for women and a lousy deal for men... and that's why men have outlawed it, not, as they purport, to protect women?
Science is neither a philosophy nor a belief system. It is a combination of mental operations that has become increasingly the habit of educated peoples, a culture of illuminations hit upon by a fortunate turn of history that yielded the most effective way of learning about the real world ever conceived. E.O.Wilson
Quote:
pp 186:
Incidentally, the polygyny threshold leads me to ask the question In whose interest is it that polygamy be outlawed in our society? We automatically assume it is in the interest of women. But consider; it would presumably be illegal, as it is now, for people to be forced to marry against their will, so second wives would be choosing their lot voluntarily. A woman who wants a career would surely find a mnage trois more, not less, convenient; she would have two partners to help share the chores of child care. As a Mormon lawyer put it recently, there are "compelling social reasons" that make polygamy "attractive to the modern career woman." But think of the effect on men. If many women chose to be second wives of rich men rather than first wives of poor men, there would be a shortage of unmarried women, and many men would be forced to remain unhappily celibate. Far from being laws to protect women, antipolygamy statutes may really do more to protect men.
Science is neither a philosophy nor a belief system. It is a combination of mental operations that has become increasingly the habit of educated peoples, a culture of illuminations hit upon by a fortunate turn of history that yielded the most effective way of learning about the real world ever conceived. E.O.Wilson
