Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Marriage Equality Gives Women More Choices

Feminist blogger Jessica Mack has written again about the polygamous freedom to marry. (I’ve previously enjoyed her blogging on this subject.)

Because polygamy flouts the deep-seated norms of monogamy in Western culture, it is stigmatized and often equated with the worst it has to offer: early and forced marriage, child abuse, and rape. While these kinds of things do happen in polygamous cultures, and should be prosecuted to every degree possible, the truth is that they aren’t unique to polygamy.

Certainly not.

She references the Brown situation and Turley’s opinion piece.

The Browns are not fighting for legal recognition of polygamy – although maybe they should be – but rather the mere decriminalization of it. Seems reasonable to me.

It’s very modest of them.

She asks…

What do others think this means for the future of polygamy in the US? What are the best and worst case scenario outcomes of this case, which has already generated more of a dialogue about polygamy in the US than we’ve ever had? In addition, what could a long-overdue dialogue on polygamy mean for increased acceptance of non-monogamous relationships as a viable model for love and marriage?

Go answer her.

Here is essentially what I wrote...

The immediate best case scenario is freedom of association for poly people. The worst case (not going to happen) is denial of the freedom of association. Either way, awareness is being raised.

I strongly believe that an adult should be free to share love, sex, residence, and marriage (or not) with ANY consenting adults. A woman should be able to marry another woman. She should be free to marry two or more women, either in a dyadic construct or group construct. She should be free to marry two or more men. Or men and women. And if she freely chooses, she should be free to marry a man who is already married to other women or plans to marry other women. But the important foundation to all of this is gender equality under the law, domestic violence prosecution, and the freedoms NOT to marry, and to leave a marriage.

May the Brown’s lawsuit help pave the way!

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