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TechnoratiCanada ponders polygamy
Now that same-sex marriage has been legalised, it seems inconsistent to prosecute Canada's polygamists.
Currently, in Canada, polygamy is in the news. The Canadian Criminal Code prohibits polygamy, but it is being practiced in some communities and the question is whether the people involved should be prosecuted. Recently, the Globe and Mail, one of Canada’s nationally distributed newspapers, published an editorial entitled "No to polygamy". It’s relevant that the Globe was a major voice in support of same-sex marriage in the public debate that culminated in its legal recognition in Canada. The core argument in the editorial reads as follows:
"In no way has gay marriage lent legitimacy to polygamy. Gay marriage was legalised by the courts in part because it so resembled heterosexual marriage; for instance, it has two people. The courts endorsed gay marriage only after a large cultural shift had occurred in the arts, in the workplace and in neighbourhoods… No such groundswell has occurred in the case of polygamy... It would be very odd if the Charter were read to require Canadians to give up their defence of core values; the document is supposed to encapsulate the country’s core values."
Are the Globe editorialists correct that gay marriage hasn’t lent legitimacy to polygamy? Does gay marriage, as claimed, resemble monogamous heterosexual marriage more than polygamy does? Is the "two people" union the distinguishing and most important characteristic of marriage?
Does a cultural shift to recognise the wrongs of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation translate to approval of same-sex marriage? If so, why wouldn’t recognising the wrongs of breach of freedom of religion do the same for polygamy?
If, as same-sex marriage proponents successfully argued, marriage is simply a social construct not based on any core biological reality, and if what constitutes a family is just a matter of adults’ personal preferences, why should polygamy be excluded as an option?
Extending the experiment with children's lives
Same-sex marriage, polygamous marriage and opposite-sex monogamous marriage are three different family structures. Family structure has major impact on children. Gay marriage supporters argue "genderless parenting" is just as good for children as opposite-sex parenting. With gay marriage, we are experimenting to see if that’s correct. Should we try a parallel experiment with polygamy and study its impact on children as compared with both gay marriage and opposite-sex monogamous marriage?
Gay marriage gave priority to adults’ preferences regarding the kinds of family structures in which children would be reared, over children’s needs and rights in this regard. Why, then, shouldn’t the same prioritising also apply to polygamy? And if not, do we need to re-think gay marriage?
And if, as the Court of Appeal of Ontario just ruled, a child can have three legal parents, why should that number not be further extended in polygamous families? This case exemplifies a combination of monogamous gay marriage (lesbian spouses) and a polygamous family structure (the spouses and the sperm donor).
What are Canadian's "core values", especially with respect to marriage, that the Globe’s editorialists see as breached by polygamy and supported by gay marriage? What if we don’t agree as to what they should be, as is true of both same-sex marriage and polygamy? Majority approval does not mean a decision is ethical, but what if a majority wanted polygamy?
Same-sex marriage opens up the possibility of polygamy because it detaches marriage from the biological reality of the basic procreative relationship between one man and one woman and that means there is no longer any inherent reason to limit it to two people whether of the same or opposite sex. Once that biological reality is removed as the central, essential feature and "limiting device", marriage can become whatever we choose to define it as.
Gay marriage advocates successfully argued that the primary function of marriage is to publicly recognise two adults’ mutual love and commitment. But why shouldn’t three or more adults, just as much as two, have their love and commitment publicly recognised and whether they are in same-sex relationships or opposite sex ones?
Ironically, traditional polygamous marriage had a lot to do with procreation and it does not negate the procreative symbolism of marriage, although most people in Western democracies believe there are other powerful reasons to prohibit it.
To the extent that an important function of marriage is to allow children to identify their biological parents and vice versa, with polygyny (one man and several wives) children can still know who their biological mother and father are (at least they could prior to assisted reproductive technologies and donated gametes, and assuming no adultery - but that latter assumption also applies to monogamous marriage). But with polyandry (one woman and many husbands) children cannot, in general, know the identity of their male parent (although today DNA testing could come to the rescue). Might that be one small reason among many larger ones explaining why polygyny has been much more common than polyandry? But to allow polygyny but not polyandry would be to discriminate against women.
We need to be careful to distinguish under-age sex, forced marriage, spousal abuse and child abuse from polygamy, itself. These horrible crimes do occur in polygamous marriages – and monogamous ones – and must be dealt with severely. But are we being fair and just in retaining one alternative form of marriage, polygamy, as a crime, when we have legalised another alternative form, gay marriage?
Political motivations
If we were cynical about politicians, we could see the support of gay marriage by some of them as based on getting the social liberal "gay vote" onside and sacrificing the social conservative vote. Legalising polygamy might do the same for the vote of certain ethnic or religious communities at the expense of the social liberal vote (especially that of feminists).
The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms contains a provision that allows Parliament to legislate notwithstanding that the courts have held that a certain law is in breach of Charter rights and is, therefore, constitutionally invalid. That is, Parliament has the ultimate authority and can act contrary to the courts’ rulings on constitutionality. This provision is commonly referred to as the "notwithstanding clause" and its use is a rare and very politically sensitive issue.
In the same-sex marriage debate, advocates of same-sex marriage decried employing the clause to veto same-sex marriage (indeed, its very existence) and the government largely agreed. In fact, with statements such as "the courts have ruled" and "we can’t cherry pick among constitutional rights" -- which using the clause would involve -- the government, taking its cue from Pontius Pilot, employed the inappropriateness of using the clause as a justification for its decision to legalise same-sex marriage. In short, they said this decision has been made for us by the courts and we must comply.
Now, some of the same people who saw use of the "notwithstanding clause" as anathema seem to be arguing that it should be used to continue to prohibit polygamy, were the courts to find that the present prohibition of polygamy is a breach of the Charter right of freedom of religion. In other words, these politically correct people would use the clause to suppress an institution they find abhorrent (polygamy) the prohibition of which transgresses a right they think is of limited importance (freedom of religion), but not an institution they approve (same-sex marriage) which they see as required to condemn discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
I don’t agree with either gay marriage or polygamy for exactly the same reason: both prevent marriage from fulfilling its primary goal. It is only when marriage is built on the natural procreative relationship between one man and one woman that it can establish the same reciprocal rights and duties between the married partners (polygamy contravenes this requirement) and between them and their biological children in order to create a family structure in which children know and are reared by their own biological parents (same-sex marriage contravenes this) and can best thrive. Other models of marriage cannot fulfil all these goals.
Margaret Somerville is founding director of the Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law at McGill University in Montreal.
Let’s quit flattering ourselves that Canadian society is monogamous. Serial marriages + widespread adultery = polygamy.
I look at many views from the outside looking in, I see that a lot of people look down on polygamist.I in a marriage “ sigular” just me and my wife. I have read about this fashion going on for centuries,even the people we boast about in our bibles lived polygamist lives King David had many wives but he messed up when he messed with Uriah’s wife he lost the first child but latter had solomon by the same women who had 800 wives and many concubines( sex slaves). I look at our founding fathers who had families and still had slave concubines. Even what I read in the bible that “ sex consemates marriage so its a lot of us who have many wives and husbands, those that secretly cheated or even had open relationships are no different than polygamist who are just open with their style of life.. I just wanted to say we live in a hypocritical society. If its so wrong why not erase all the good praise we give to famous people in the bible and in our history book: many of them had no problem with this while have their concubines and writing our bible as well as the constitution of the U.S.
I ran across your article while researching the best ways to pass on wealth to my polygamous family. Although, people have abused one another in polygamous relationships in the past, they have also found family and love. I have read many comments spurned by hate. In reality polygamy can work and provide for more structure and support in a world where family values are needed more than ever. The public loves tragedy and will always focus on it. Although, we don’t make the headlines we live a wonderful life. We are educated better than most and strive to better our community even if they do not believe polygamy. We don’t think that government should tell us who we can love. God consecrated David’s polygamous marriages and furthered his family by giving him Saul’s wives. Jesus lived in a polygamous society and yet, the bible never mentions anything wrong with polygamy. Polygamy has been around for a long time and will be here no matter governments do to outlaw it. There is more to our lives than what you see in the news headlines. Before I was a polygamous I was a police detective. If I held what I saw done to women and children by married men and women against all “normal” couples I hate everyone who choose that life. But, I don’t. People can not be stereotyped fairly. We must view each person for what their own actions and not by the color of their skin, religion, social status, choice of marriage, etc.
Oh my, oh my, oh my! I am THRILLED to be referred to as “Professor” Andrews by Dr. Somerville and also by the title, “Doctor.” Wow! And me an ex-juvenile delinquent who ran away from a violent home when she was 14 years old, then refused to return to school because she had missed so many classes! Alas, in reality I’m a crabby senior citizen whose only title is “Mrs.”
I detest polygamy because I’ve already experienced enough of male violence, thank you, and now refuse to do anything that will aid one human being to tyrannize another. (In my experience, violent men tyrannize women, and violent women, who lack men’s muscle power, tyrannize children). And Ron Henderson is incorrect when he says the federal government proposed legalizing polygamy—it was three female PROFESSORS (real ones!), who, noting the pitiable second-class status of women within polygamy, proposed it be DECRIMINALIZED, which is a different matter. Others writing for the same federal study stated polygamy impoverishes women, contravenes their equality rights and harms their children.
And Dr. Somerville, we have a Charter which states women have equality with men, a Charter which, when backed by CEDAW and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, will ensure that polygamy will not be legalized in Canada. Are you going to tell me that Sections 15 and 28 of the Charter will not be contravened if the State legalizes this tribal practice which comes from a time when women were considered property? Bet you 50 cents (I also have Scottish blood in my veins and money won’t leave my fingers) that polygamy is never legalized in Canada, and thank God for that.
Sincerely,
Professor Jancis M. Andrews (but only Honorary) (Oh boy, it’s going to be so hard to give this lovely title up!)
When he was in high school my second-youngest son’s best friend was a boy named Max. He along with, I think, five half siblings, shared a common father. The kids’ five mothers lived in the same neighbourhood, celebrated birthday parties together, shared kids’ clothes, and occasionally “entertained” Max’s dad. While it’s true that this little community comprised six separate households, I personally don’t see how this situation, perfectly legal under Canadain law, differs in any practical way from polygamy. Mormon wives, too, often maintained separate households. There is nothing in the Canadian Criminal Code to stop a man from cohabiting with as many women as he can persuade to share his bed. And if such a group were to enter into some kind of permanent arrangement complete with a ceremony, just what justification could be used to punish them?
Dear old Dr. Andrews can prattle on as much as she likes about protocols and United Nations declarations, but the fact is that since the sexual revolution of the 1960s and ‘70s all the rules have vanished and a bunch of international diplomats squabbling in New York cannot resurrect them. If five or six or seven Canadian women choose freely to share one man, who’s to say they can’t? And if they can come with a contract designed to protect their rights and privileges, why shouldn’t the state enforce it?
Paul Waters
Montreal
I’ve read that animals engage in homosexuality, but it’s beside the point. They don’t form extensive and complex societies. At the most, they live in large herds. One herd does not claim an entire continent for itself and develop a government, extensive infrastructure and so on.
Since we don’t live in herds, we’ve developed one man-one woman marriage in order to serve the interests of our large, complex societies. We’ve concluded that the needs of children are, with a few exceptions, best served when they are raised by those who give them birth.
SSM does not validate the power of blood ties. SSM revolves around the feelings of adults. Adopted children, however, sometimes seek out their biological parents. The power of blood ties cannot be legislated out of existence. Feelings are far less stable than are blood ties.
Polygamous marriages validate blood ties but do not serve the best interests of children. My father was born in 1901. He was raised in a household with his mother, father, two aunts, an uncle, and two grandmothers. It was terribly confusing for him to receive orders from so many adults. It can be difficult to get two adults on the same page in connection with child rearing. With more than two adults, the opportunity for mixed signals is too great.
The institution of marriage will never be perfect because humans are not perfect. Traditional marriage, however, is the best overall solution. I wish that sexual libertines would realize that and leave it alone. No one is stopping you from forming relationships outside of marriage, but you insist on attacking marriage itself.
An old Chinese curse reads “may you live in interesting times”. These are interesting times.
It is certainly true that the same arguments for SSM hold true for polygamy. In fact I was just reading that most SSM supportors, like democrats, support polygamy! fewer Republicans support it. However, for me there is no need for any erudition or research to discover whether or not it is right. As long as we lay claim to Christanity we ought to reject polygamy, for God tells us that his ideal for a better society is one man one woman. Of course pointing out how God’s ideal is better by doing research is all well and good and necessary. However, the research is not to point out that polygamy is wrong, but why it is wrong; why God says it is wrong. This helps us to understand a little better the mind of God for his creation.
Some may dispise bringing God in; or bringing religion in as they so often holler. But the fact is that man is a created being and is three dimentional: body, soul, and spirit; meaning: mind, body, and spirit (spiritual nature). We cannot make any proper argument in favour of humanity’s sexual behaviour while leaving out his spiritual dimention. But this is precisely what our western world is doing, and this is precisely why we are failing so dismally in society.
No. I have not seen the Creator. Neither have you seen evolution. What we have both seen is that life begets life; nothing cannot produce something; we also see that living things demonstrate that there is a designer. The better conclusion is that there must be a designer. Wether farm animals or wild ones both show design; both follow the laws of sexuality, which is male/female pairing. Pout and huff as much as we like, the facts give the lie to evolution and homosexuality as natural behaviour! While Polygamy is more natural and acceptable than the un-natural homosexual act, it is still not the best behaviour for our society.
Women are put in a much inferior status when polygamy exists. Would we men like to share our wives with other men as in a matriarchal society? I certainly would never dream of it. But then I am a man. Isn’t this making women inferior? Even if women accept it does not make it right. We accept many things that are wrong. When we right the wrongs as much as we can we will experience a better society.
I have posted on polygamy over at The Opine Editorials.
Backtrack:
http://opine-editorials.blogspot.com/2007/08/polygamy-in-canada.html
Prof. Somerville was correct to raise the example of the Ontario court which broke with precedent and granted parental status to three adults for one child.
The child had both a mother and a father. Neither was willing to relinquish parental status. A second woman had a relationship with the child through the mother. The three adults agreed that the father should not be required to relinquish; his parental status was essential to the best interests of the child. Thus, the second woman could not adopt the child.
The court reasoned that the agreement of the adults, combined with the existence of the same-sex union, forced its hand. It must act in the best interests of this child.
It said that if not for the same-sex union this scenario would not have been imaginable. This is very hard to believe since there is a very long history of step-families and of adoption in this country.
No union, even marriage, bestows parental status on a step-parent. Adoption is required. And that depends on parental relinquishment or loss.
The court wondered what might happen if the child’s mother died. Well, the father is not a potted plant, right? His status was deemed essential, after all.
So the interests of the adults coincided, for now, and this compelled the court, it said, to grant tripartite parental status.
The father is married. He and his wife have children. Perhaps his wife, too, could claim co-equal parental status due to her relationship with the father of the child. That was not raised in the case but the door is now ajar.
SSM argumentation hasn’t closed the door. It flung it open.
The nature of marriage is both-sexed. Its core is 1) integration of the sexes, 2) contingency for responsible procreation, and 3) these things combined as a coherent whole.
Polygamy is a series of two-person marriages. The first wife does not marry the second wife. Neither wives marry the third. But each marries the same man. The presumption of paternity still applies in each marriage.
You can take the religion out of it, as many multi-marriage people do, but the major religions which include provision for polygamy do so on the basis of addressing social ills.
Now, SSM argumentation claimed that consent was the key to marriage. That this unlocked the prohibition against the same-sex combination. However, the combination was prohibited; it was simply incapable of forming a bona fide marriage. Yet, polygamy, with mutual consent, is to be denied somehow by those who supported SSM?
SSM argumentation drew attention to the lack of protections for children raised in same-sex households. They, like polygamous permitting religions, claimed that social ills required treating SSM as if it was marriage. But SSMers reject the same line of reasoning when it comes to the families, sometimes quite large, in which children lack the protections that come with parents who share marital status.
I am against polygamy, however, if one uses SSM argumentation to get SSM, it is plain that the same argumentation leaves open the way to polygamy as well.
Well, the tampering with an institution that has been given to every nation on this planet from creation is not that simple. Some societies have become ‘godless’ and would dispense with everything that smacks of biblical, godly, morality. They are the minority, but have a huge voice in the west. They would like to herd every society their way. The moralists, on the other hand, wish to remain faithful to God and morality which came ultimately from him.
Well, what’s the solution? As I see it, and many anthropologists agree here, we need God and morality in our society. Without these man would become worse than beasts, as we see them already approaching this level; and we hear from these people an anti-god and and an anti-morality rhetoric. The real issue is, however, that man is a sinful human being; and sin leads to all sorts of demented, diviant, and wicked behaviour. The only solution is the acceptance of Christ in the life of mankind; and this is an individual, personal choice. Without this action man would destroy himself, for this is the ultimate goal of sin. God, however, has set up a plan to save man from this destruction. And many have, and will take advantage of this plan. Any other solution and way will fail, short of annihilating ourselves from earth! Which God will not permit.
Brendan of Wollongong said:
“There is an implicit presumption in the comments of some hetero-marriage supporters that marriage is a strict license to have children. It is not. It never has been.”
Au contraire, marriage is an entirely natural phenomenon which had appeared spontaneously in order to assure the continuation and preservation of the species long, long before there were any laws or any states. Trying to define marriage as only a legal construct is part of manipulating the evidence - just like insisting that marriage is primarily about “love” - so common among the deluded supporters of this obvious absurdity.
Sneering contempt for the minority, while indignantly masquerading as an “oppressed” majority, is so charmingly self-defeating. Similarly, misrepresentations from vocal commentators about what is “natural” come as no surprise given that knowledge of nature, for some of them, is apparently limited (eg. to heifers and other farms animal).
Of course, people are entitled to their personal opinions, but the mere having of an opinion doesn’t make it true or reasonable. Consider that the oft-mentioned “Creator” is not a fact in the animal kingdom either. Have you seen it? Are you able to distinguish between faith and fact? Do not buy that nonsense until you have actually witnessed it yourself. Were such a thing to even exist, we have no way of knowing if it is sentiently concerned one jot about which relationships we choose to recognise in law (and probably it would not).
Same-sex marriage does not “open the door” to polygamy any more or less than heterosexual marriage does. The very existence of marriage in ANY form could be construed to “open the door to polygamy”. The point steadfastly ignored by the controlling God-toting “Strictly Hetero” squad is that sexual identity is an innate characteristic, whereas polgamy is patently a behavioural lifestyle choice.
Of course the topic is polygamy and not homosexuality. I find it very amusing that homosexuals reject polygamy on the very same grounds, or just about, that homosexuality was withstood by the majority of the population! I believe that most men would rather have polygamy than homosexuality! However, polygamy is not the ideal for society. Government expenditure has nothing to do with whether or not this behaviour is right or wrong. We in the west do not practice it because we realize that it is not the best for society; but it is far preferable to homosexuality. We have only chosen to legalize homosexuality due to activism, judical, financial, and governmental. And of course, the weakness of Christians have given the reins to this behaviour.
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