23rd April 2008, 7:20 PM
A Black Falcon Wrote:I really cannot imagine an argument in favor of polygamy.
Most importantly, polygamy in practice virtually always means polygyny (one male, multiple females), not polyandry (one female, multiple males). This makes sense, given the male domination of pretty much all cultures. Polygamy (polygyny) makes that worse.
Should we ignore injustice just because the people being oppressed don't realize that they are being oppressed? Those women in the FLDS don't realize it, because they've been brainwashed from birth. But going in there and stopping that behavior is the right thing to do anyway because, while morals are something that vary between cultures, I'd say that there are things that are pretty clearly unfair, and polygamy is definitely one of them. Forced isolation and brainwashing are more of them, of course. People certainly should be allowed to choose for themselves, but when it's something which is to their own detriment, is inherently unfair, is almost always tied closely to sexism... I don't know if it would be truly possible to make such a relationship fair.
One other question, if you don't accept that, is the issue of how many people are hurt. If the only person hurt is the person doing it, society is likely to let people do things. But once it starts to affect others too in a negative way, society wants to restrict that action. So cigarette smoking is cracked down on, I would say, mostly for the fact that the smoke poisons other people, not because of how it hurts the smokers (though convincing them to stop is a side benefit). Polygamy does cause social problems. The only way it could not is if the gender imbalance was so bad that the loss of women (or in rare cases men) to polygamous relationships wasn't so much so as to affect the possibilities for the rest of the population to marry, because having a large number of people (usually young men) who have no marriage prospects really isn't a good idea.
Most women wouldn't go for gangbangs ; Most men wouldn't share one women.
The FLDS have been known to just randomly expel young boys without cause , Solely to ensure more girls for the older men . These young boys are completely cut off from their families; Growing up isolated and forced out into a scary alien world they know nothing but lies about.
The FLDS have inflicted abuses on all their young ones not just the girls.
Shutting down the FLDS and outlawing the group seems as a wiser resort.
Another means is to stop welfare and social assistance to polygamous wives ,Who are classified as single mothers when they are not. Forcing the male to support the expense of so many wives may help discourage it.
The FLDS isn't just a American problem; Out in B.C Canada there is a enclave.