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The Forum > Article Comments > The slippery slope to polygyny > Comments

The slippery slope to polygyny : Comments

By Moira Clarke, published 15/6/2012

Gay marriage does not open the way for forms of marriage involving more than two - whether humans or species.

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And grateful what will protect a man from exploitation?

A marriage contract certainly does not.

The reality is that there are those who will use any lever they can get to exploit others, who they are is not a gender specific issue. Gender stereotypes around the issue just serve to empower some of those exploiters even more.

R0bert
Posted by R0bert, Sunday, 17 June 2012 9:13:34 AM
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Marriage between same-sex couples should not be conflated with polygamous marriage on the grounds of private freedoms. The former enhances the individual’s personal freedom, while the latter mainly enhances the freedom of men while disadvantaging the freedom of women.

For many centuries, the cultural taboos surrounding heterosexual marriage and polygamy heavily restricted the expression of women’s sexuality. Once those restrictions began to break down with the advent of the sexual revolution in the West, women have become a lot more polyandrous in their sexual behaviours in a relatively short period of time – revealing the belief that women are essentially monogamous for the falsity it has always been.

Yet, even in the West, the expression of women’s sexuality is still being suppressed and/or exploited under a reactionary barrage of patriarchal privilege. Any move to polygamous unions in the West should proceed with extreme caution regarding its implications for women’s rights
Posted by Killarney, Sunday, 17 June 2012 9:30:38 AM
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You can't separate the sexual mores of women in the modern West from the economic and social paradigm from which it sprang. If the "sexual revolution" represents anything, then it represents a liberty granted by women's relative economic and social independence and a modicum of control over their reproduction. This state of affairs has arisen in the wake of social democracy in a time of great technological advance. If you think that represents proof of monogamy being a falsity, I would reject that premise. At no other time in human evolution has the female of our species been in a position to simultaneously reproduce and not be wholly reliant on a male for physical protection and basic material support.

Women have been afforded greater sexual freedom, and greater freedom in general. But the loosening of bonds and the fading of sexual taboo in society is shadowed by any number of attendant debasements - many of which are now being loudly lamented by the feminist cohort.
Posted by Poirot, Sunday, 17 June 2012 10:01:08 AM
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Poirot. I'm not sure what you are disagreeing with. My comment completely allowed for the paradigm that human sexuality is inextricably linked to social and economic structures. Some people are by nature monogamous, others polygamous. The patriarchy simply divided the distinction along gender lines, in order to allow men the greater freedom.

While feminists are mindful of the pros and cons of greater sexual freedom for women, they are certainly not lamenting that freedom. What feminists ‘loudly lament’, as you put it, is the patriarchal exploitation of the lifting of previous taboos on women’s sexuality. This exploitation is particularly manifest in the rampant pornifying and sexualising of women in the public culture (still very much controlled by men). Once women have an equal say in, and control of, our means of cultural expression, I fully believe that this exploitation will greatly diminish.
Posted by Killarney, Sunday, 17 June 2012 12:32:48 PM
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Given that homosexuals are a small portion of the general population, and that, an ever smaller portion of them wish to "get married," why are we wasting so much time over this? It is a non-issue (i.e. bread and circuses) to distract us from much more important things.
Posted by Jon R, Sunday, 17 June 2012 1:03:18 PM
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Killarney,

I'm having trouble grasping your point. On the one hand your extol the new freedoms which allow women to strut their stuff...be wholly free sexual beings - and on the other you blame the "patriarchy" for the so-called "pornification" and "sexualisation of women " in public culture.

You can't have your sexual liberation and your modesty too. What did feminists expect would happen to an intelligent, yet carnal species once the taboos were lifted?
Posted by Poirot, Sunday, 17 June 2012 1:11:32 PM
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