"Why should “bigamy” be a crime?"
Many of our laws are derived from historical Judeo/Christian practices and teachings. The prohibition against bigamy can be found in Matthew 6:24. "No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other."

Did you read the post or did you just read the teaser: "A man can have multiple girlfriends. Why not formalise that into a commitment for life? Why should 'bigamy' be a crime?"

That teaser actually comes from Trad himself, not from me, if you read the post.

Agreed - most Christians do not believe in polygamy (c/f Mormons). And that's certainly where our cultural values come from, as well as the laws against bigamy. Most Jewish groups do not believe in polygamy either. But what about other religions that do?

I was looking more at the policy arguments than religious tenets because we live in a multicultural multi-religious society.

I think that on balance, we should not support polygyny because it leads to inequality in society and oppression of women. And the family law problems that would result would be immense!

From what I have read, this has already been formalised in the de facto marriages act, where a married man can be held responsible for his second de facto wife, but not charged for polygamy.

This might well prove a defense against prosecution for polygamy if there is another legal system that allows it.

Legal Eagle - I have amended the blurb to make it clearer that those are Keysar Trad's words. Apologies for that.

Shadow Minister - yes - the amendments to the Family Law Act do require you to support more than one partner if you have more than one. So if Trad did decide to have a second wife, he would be required to support her under the new s 4AA. But he could also run the risk of being prosecuted for bigamy.

The thing that worries me about the new de facto laws is that there is not necessarily a rite of passage, no moment where the parties say, "Okay, we're a couple." So one party could think they were in a de facto relationship and the other might think they were not. And marriage-like obligations are being forced on people who might not necessarily want that.

Interestingly, my co-blogger was mentioning that the Romans had lesser relationships which could be entered into by contract (concubinage) - so a woman or a man could have one spouse and one concubine. The Romans also had time-limited concubinage contracts, and if you left your partner before the time was up, you had to pay them out. Indeed, St Augustine got in big trouble for not paying out his concubine when he left her before the contract was up. Maybe if we want to recognise less formal relationships we need to think of measures like that.

Susan - thanks for that.

Oh I can think of a very good reason!

We'd land up with a whole lot of blokes with 4 wives, 4-5 kids
each, wanting a huge social welfare cheque to take care of them
all!

Thanks but no thanks.