Big Trouble
Regular readers of this blog know that I’m a reasonably strict
libertarian in both economic and social issues. I tend to think that
the State has no business regulating private affairs, and my definition
of private
is fairly broad. I don’t believe, for example,
that marriage should be an institution of the State (it is God’s
creation, not man’s). This has led me to oppose the anti-polygamy
laws not because I support polygamy (I oppose it) but because I
don’t think that punishing polygamy is the proper business of the
State any more than punishing the wearing of shorts by grown men (an
offensive practise far more common) is the proper business of the
State.
Rich Lowry has an article which gives me pause. He points out that polygamy as practised in Islamic and fundamentalist Mormon circles inevitably results in some pretty severe social effects. The most notable is that a few high-status men have many wive, leaving low-status men on the fringes of society, with little hope of marriage and children.
He’s right about the problem, although he doesn’t seem to realise that this is an effect of polygyny (multiple wives) rather than polygamy. A similar effect would probably be seen with polyandry (IIRC that was common in Tibet at one point, with brothers marrying a single wife).
The article provides a good reason for polygyny to be illegal: its negative effects spill over to the population as a whole. It may be that even a few polygynous marriages would be enough to have widespread negative effects.
I wonder though if those effects would hold in a generally polygamous society in which there were group marriages, polygynous marriages, polyandrous marriages and true marriages. And I wonder if polygamy would actually be all that common even were it legal. Certainly the majority of the churches would refuse to perform such marriages (though no doubt the Episcopalians would rush to be the first to allow them). Most women would object to a plural marriage as strenuously as they would to an affair. And I think most men really don’t want the extra bother.
Still, it does demonstrate that private choices can have public consequences.
