Certain rights should also probably be easy to obtain independent of larger scale contracts, such as visitation rights - such rights are important, but comparatively minor. Many of these kinds of rights should be of a modular nature rather than tied to the entire marriage contract conception, regardless of number of partners.

Finally, as others have pointed out, and I would like to emphasize, polyamory and polyfidelity does not mean that there is a relationship between each member with each other member. In fact, such cases are relatively rare, especially with larger groups (which frequently resemble a web-like network of people). For example, for three people a common arrangement is a simple 'V' - two people each have a relationship with a third person, but not between each other (if they did, it would be a full triad). Thus adding further evidence that emphasis on the *process* of forming the contract should be added, and pre-written contracts avoided.

Even monogamous relationships set different kinds of boundaries, especially among the better informed or the well-experienced.

We seem to be assuming that Poly Marriages have to be... what is the word... Everyone in the relationship *has* a relationship with everyone else in the marriage, sexual or no, and has equal rights as any other person in the marriage? And that everyone in the marriage is in the marriage, not half in and out, and can't have the same kind of relationship with any person outside the marriage, or with people in another poly marriage?

I think all poly member should have equal ?legal? rights. This may not work for some people.

I also think poly people shouldn't have commitments to outside groups or people.

Actually I disagree with myself, but I thought I'd pose the question anyway.

JaimesBeam

I can't see the immorality in either polyamory or polygamy. Inconvenience for governing and philosophical entities does not equate to immorality.

We are a nation devoted to the idea that the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are inalienable. Who am I to try to define another's happiness?

This also falls into the "give 'em enough rope" category. As was also said earlier, deriving true happiness from these relationships may be extremely difficult for all but the most accomplished human relater.

By the way, it would be possible to manage benefits for these folks. My wife is a dependent for purposes of medical insurance. But we pay for that coverage. The insurance companies would figure it out, and do it in a way that they make money at it.

Personally, if you're in a poly relationship, there's a darn good chance your level of communication is WAY OVER what normal couples are doing - or there wouldn't be such a huge divorce rate where people grow apart.

Unfortunately, an affair while married seems to be much acceptible.

Timothy, the problem is what default to fall back on in the common event that the patient has no pre-specified visitation rights wishes, and is not awake.

Objections to polyamory (whether objections to granting marriage privileges or to its ethical status) that incorporate the example of human rights abuses are completely bunk. Yes, certain groups that have traditionally practiced plural marriage are *also* traditional abusers - guilty of rape, child abuse, forced marriage and all sorts of crimes. This has nothing to do with group marriage and everything to do with the beliefs of the cultures/religions that are involved.

It's sort of a non-sequitur to equate, compare or even address plural marriage with the practice of human rights abuses like that. There's no causal connection. It's the equivalent of bringing into question the right of all women to wear items on their heads simply because some cultures/religions force women to cover their heads/faces with certain items. The answer isn't to ban head-wear for women - the answer is to criminalize/prohibit/penalize the act of forcing someone to wear something they don't wish to wear.

I hear lots of comments about polyamory along the lines of, "I'm totally okay with it, as long as it doesn't involve child marriage." That's akin to saying, "It's cool to allow street performers, as long as they aren't allowed to rob stores." OF COURSE we shouldn't allow child marriage, child rape, forced marriage, etc! Whether we're protecting one girl from being forced to marry one man or we're protecting multiple people, it's something that we should be fighting. It's an unfair, lazy cop-out, however, to argue against plural marriage on the basis that some people force others into the arrangement. There are arranged monogamous, straight marriages that involve unwilling partners as well, and like forced plural marriages, they're a result of cultures and religions that encourage them.

All that said, I agree with the consensus that legalizing plural marriage would be a long, difficult and complex road. Even so, I fully believe that we'll someday (perhaps long after I'm dead, but someday) find a way to make it work. And hopefully that won't be impeded by offensive and fallacious arguments that conflate the failure of our legal system to address forced/child marriage with the issue of plural marriage.

State defined polyamorous marriage won't work, marriage should be dismantled.

Healthcare and immigration shouldn't depend on marriage, Healthcare should be universal and immigration controls abolished.

As for hospital visitation, what happened to the wishes of the patient?

The exemption from Income Tax on money transferred between spouses is useful in preventing an extra tax burden on couples where one person does paid work. It would need to be limited to prevent it being used just to avoid tax that a single person would pay.

I come from a family that has split and recombined over and over. My parents divorced when I was very young, my father ended up getting custody of my brother and me, then he became the third husband of a woman who also had a son of her own (who stays in contact with both of those other father figures, too), and they had two children of their own while I was a teenager who I continue to play a role in raising (and people wonder why I don't want kids!). My mother married another man and ended up driving him away after a decade or so, too. My step-mom's sister is gradually isolating her part of the tribe from the rest of us for some unknown reason, my father's parents have pretty much isolated themselves from everyone (and good riddance, they're far-right arch-conservative Authority junkies who mainly just complain that my father doesn't force me to behave the way they want me to behave and call that "growing up"). My step-mom is realizing that she's gay and is currently trying to figure out which of her college friends she loves "the most" (I'm trying to get her to realize that the social patterns she has been told she needs to fit all her life continue to hold her back), while one of them has stepped in to help raise the kids and keep the house in order. My dad & step-mom stay married for the kids' sake and because they've still got a fantastic partnership, but they have different jobs in different states now (bad luck & necessity, it's complicated), and even live in different houses for a bunch of complicated and not-even-love-related reasons.

The point is this: in my travels, I've come to the conclusion that "family" means two things. The first sense is something you do, the second sense is something you are; these two senses don't always "go together," and the former is way more important, way more binding, way more fulfilling than the latter. Genes don't matter, we're just genetically programmed to think they do. Social patterns don't matter, we're just socially programmed to think they do. But then when something awful happens to someone and they can't make a decision for themselves (for example), other people need to decide what to do. What happens when people who think they have a claim to make decisions for another person disagree amongst themselves? This is why the law needs to get involved. There's no keeping the government out of love, it's a huge complicated not-really-awesome system precisely because people are huge complicated not-really-awesome messes, and we can't always agree with each other, so part of the civilization game is that we allow the law to be the arbiter of these otherwise insoluble disputes. And we use legal ideas like "marriage" and "will" and "DNR orders" so that we can know (let others know) just what we want done and where we stand with other people.

Ebonmuse, I'm thinking it might be most productive to just make another post on this, as much ground has been covered in the comments alone. If you want to talk about the ethics of legalized polyamorous marriage, I think Denmark allows for marriages with multiple partners, so you could do some research there to see what the consequences have been.

I tend to agree with Polly in that ideally, the government wouldn't be involved in marriage at all. Then no one is being discriminated against, because the taxes and benefits would be the same as those offered to single folk. A relationship should not have to be legalized for a kinship status to be recognized. So, I should be able to say, these are my partners, they are allowed to be on my health plan and to visit me in the hospital, regardless of some bureaucratic rigamarole the state put us through. Domestic partnerships, but extended.

I say this as a married woman who is very devoted to her spouse, but who also sleeps with other people from time to time. My devotion to him has nothing to do with the fact that we can file taxes together. I agree that the civil contract of marriage should be open to any couple for as long as it exists, and if it can be extended beyond couples in a practical way, awesome, but that is secondary to my desire to banish the stupid thing altogether.

1. People may enter into marriage conglomerates. These conglomerates can include any arbitrary number of people. When entering a conglomerate, one signs a contract regarding redistribution of wealth, child custody, visitation rights, etc. etc. Standard contracts would probably arise, but each conglomerate could use whatever contract it chose.

2. People may enter into more than one such conglomerate, with each such conglomerate remaining distinct. This allows for both "glob" type polyamorous relationships (where >=3 people are all in a relationship with each other) and "graph" type polyamorous relationships (where A's relationship with B and B's relationship with C does not necessarily imply a relationship between A and C). Also, it allows for arbitrary combinations of "glob" and "graph".

Would these contracts and arrangements be a freakin' legal hassle when problems occur? Hell yeah. But we already have overcomplex legal systems for businesses. These systems, for all their warts, are better than forcing any business above a certain complexity level to operate outside the legal system. The same applies to interpersonal relationships.

Oh, another advantage: we'd be creating lots and lots of jobs for lawyers, helping to ease the unemployment problem. :-)

On the contrary, you quite often bring your new friend into your group of existing friends. In the end, you've increased the net sum of friendly love that you give.

Geez Jeremy you must be a helluva nice guy. I don't make friends easily and I've found that the few friends I had almost always didn't know each other or didn't get along. So I had to choose. Sometimes I've even put forth conscious effort to keep "worlds from colliding."

Of course, I don't think most people are like me, either.

I think most are in-between. Seems that the deeper the relationship the more it has the potential to take out of you. It may even be that te ability to BE polyamorous might be different at different ages of the same person. Career-obsessed 30 year olds aren't the same as established, calme 50 year olds.

I readily admit that some can handle poly and shouldn't be derided for accommodating their expansive relate-ability with other like-minded people.

One thing that I've often wondered about is whether the til-death thing isn't completely unnatural for most people - i.e. people other than me. People grow throughout their entire lives. It seems silly to stick it out with one person if that person doesn't grow, say, out of their late twenties when you're in your 40's. Or, if you find that you and your partner no longer have the same values, priorities, ideals, whatever. Decades can do that. Should two+ 20-somethings really be expected to be the same, compatible people in their 50's? Seems ludicrous. I'm not even the same person I was 5 years ago. Certainly serialamory DOES seem to be the norm for most. Again, not to me, but I can see it in others.

Imagine a culture where this very human tendency were recognized and marriages came with implicit optional-renewal clauses every decade or so. Imagine all the acrimony of divorces that could be avoided, all the sense of failure and false guilt. I'm talking about cultural norms and societal expectations, still absolutely no governmental involvement.