2nd May 2008, 12:21 AM
What I have a problem with here is that people who are living without hurting someone have to suffer because of the actions of the (admitted majority) of those who ARE hurting people.
We have to think from the perspective of the individual here. ABF, I understand your legitimate issue and I agree with it, but each issue must be treated seperatly. Even without a legal system in place for it, this sort of abuse is going to take place. The proper solution should have been for people to more closely observe this ranch. Clearly a lot of abuse was going on and the reports coming in from before this recent one were more than enough grounds to issue a warrent for spying on them. I would even go as far as to say that abuse that the victim doesn't recognize as abuse or call abuse should still require the arrest of the abuser. This is already accepted in the case of children, but for example spousal abuse victims will often refuse to press charges on their own behalf and the law has no method of keeping the abuser in check in those instances.
In this case, all that would be needed is to have people keep track for signs of abuse and get that reported so that any illegal cases could be taken care of.
The fact is, yes one can SEE the inherent sexual imbalance of a polygamist scenario (remember there are many variations of course, not just one man to many woman, but the reverse and the full gamet of ratios in between, including 1:1), but though a power balance is possible it is not always necessary that it's exploited. Case in point: pregnancy. Right from the start the woman is in a worse position than a man. They have already invested the cost of an egg, greater than a sperm, and now have the cost of bearing the child to term and the process of birth. The man has an easy power balance solution right in place, and that's to ditch the very moment he finds out about the pregnancy. That's why there are a number of legal options set in place to protect against that. Such things could be applied here too.
However, I'd like to add one other thing. I think that the idea of legally recognized marriage really just muddles everything up. Maybe it would be for the best if the law didn't regognize marriage at all, or give benefits as such just for a ceremony. I think there is an alternative, to protect the "homebody" that would emerge in that relationship, and further protect those in all sorts of other relationships, including room mates and whatever deals they make with each other and all sorts of stuff I'm not really able to imagine right now. This solution would be to protect those in the weaker position in any sort of situation where two or more people are living with each other. By weaker I mean financially weaker. The idea would be those with less money would be protected from threats of being walked out on by the one with more. There would be a time limit in place and so on, but it could work better.
Incidentally, I think that sometimes people handle divorce in a way that's far too messy. They treat it like zero sum, but they could both benefit if, for example, they only hired ONE lawyer to work out the paperwork and worked WITH each other to manage the divorce reasonably. Working together in the relationship was for the best, why not work together during the seperation? Then again, for most people by the point it's reached divorce their emotions are too high and lawyers working "against" each other, constantly getting fees by dragging out the proceedings with constant "counter-demands" they both know the other side would never agree to over the course of years, rather than over the course of say a week or so.
We have to think from the perspective of the individual here. ABF, I understand your legitimate issue and I agree with it, but each issue must be treated seperatly. Even without a legal system in place for it, this sort of abuse is going to take place. The proper solution should have been for people to more closely observe this ranch. Clearly a lot of abuse was going on and the reports coming in from before this recent one were more than enough grounds to issue a warrent for spying on them. I would even go as far as to say that abuse that the victim doesn't recognize as abuse or call abuse should still require the arrest of the abuser. This is already accepted in the case of children, but for example spousal abuse victims will often refuse to press charges on their own behalf and the law has no method of keeping the abuser in check in those instances.
In this case, all that would be needed is to have people keep track for signs of abuse and get that reported so that any illegal cases could be taken care of.
The fact is, yes one can SEE the inherent sexual imbalance of a polygamist scenario (remember there are many variations of course, not just one man to many woman, but the reverse and the full gamet of ratios in between, including 1:1), but though a power balance is possible it is not always necessary that it's exploited. Case in point: pregnancy. Right from the start the woman is in a worse position than a man. They have already invested the cost of an egg, greater than a sperm, and now have the cost of bearing the child to term and the process of birth. The man has an easy power balance solution right in place, and that's to ditch the very moment he finds out about the pregnancy. That's why there are a number of legal options set in place to protect against that. Such things could be applied here too.
However, I'd like to add one other thing. I think that the idea of legally recognized marriage really just muddles everything up. Maybe it would be for the best if the law didn't regognize marriage at all, or give benefits as such just for a ceremony. I think there is an alternative, to protect the "homebody" that would emerge in that relationship, and further protect those in all sorts of other relationships, including room mates and whatever deals they make with each other and all sorts of stuff I'm not really able to imagine right now. This solution would be to protect those in the weaker position in any sort of situation where two or more people are living with each other. By weaker I mean financially weaker. The idea would be those with less money would be protected from threats of being walked out on by the one with more. There would be a time limit in place and so on, but it could work better.
Incidentally, I think that sometimes people handle divorce in a way that's far too messy. They treat it like zero sum, but they could both benefit if, for example, they only hired ONE lawyer to work out the paperwork and worked WITH each other to manage the divorce reasonably. Working together in the relationship was for the best, why not work together during the seperation? Then again, for most people by the point it's reached divorce their emotions are too high and lawyers working "against" each other, constantly getting fees by dragging out the proceedings with constant "counter-demands" they both know the other side would never agree to over the course of years, rather than over the course of say a week or so.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)