Time to recognize polyamorous marriage?

AllForIt

What arguments did Dil make for it, other than the fact she so happens to be in a sexual relationship with multiple partners?

Polyamory is a romantic relationship with more than one partner at a time.

Polygamy is marriage with more than two spouses.

Polygyny = husband with multiple wives.

Polyandry = wife with multiple husbands.

Lots of cultures already recognise legal polygamy, mostly African cultures.

While I would not engage in non-monogamous relationship myself, I'm not completely opposed to it for other people.

Live and let live.

Jarhead_Tendler

I feel sorry for the 4 kids involved they didn't ask for this. The 3 adults can do as they please

archermoo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120388354#Comment_120388354

Most of the poly people I know are women. Some of them are also bi.

endacl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120389004#Comment_120389004

She hadn’t been recognised as a leading figure in the ‘everybody treats everybody wrong and I know better’ sphere for a few months. She needed a headline.

gmisk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058289234/time-to-recognize-polyamorous-marriage

No.

She is also a pain in the arse. The single worst "comedian" I have ever had the misfortune of seeing in my life.

endacl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120392953#Comment_120392953

Worse than Alison Spittle?!?!?!?!?

lmao10

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120388509#Comment_120388509

Unfortunately there are many incels who can't get anything from dating apps and this fosters a very angry and negative attitude in them. So while going on the apps is a fun experience and leads to fantastic times and relationships for most people, there is a subset for whom that is not an option. I don't agree that a loving relationship is only between two people. Una Healy seemed to enjoy herself in her "throuple". I can't really say that I wouldn't want to have been David Haye in that situation.....

gmisk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120394140#Comment_120394140

Not seen her before

JohnnyFortune

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120394567#Comment_120394567

Lucky, lucky man!!

https://youtu.be/83fjRsW90u0

Love don't judge 👀

silverharp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120399554#Comment_120399554

you cant really unsee that can you? she looks like she has more testosterone then the others combined lol

A2LUE42

Wouldn't this already be covered in the rights of cohabiting couples legislation? Considering the mess that divorce/separation between a couple can be, having additional people involved in a legal separation could take it to a different level entirely.

Rights of cohabiting couples

Oops!

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120387319#Comment_120387319

The South Park skit on that is brilliant.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120391741#Comment_120391741

How many do you know?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120405364#Comment_120405364

One of the saddest sights I've ever seen

redlough

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120389004#Comment_120389004

You never get an argument for or against. You just get a statement they think will get the most traction in the desperate need for attention

techman1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058289234/time-to-recognize-polyamorous-marriage

They have 2 sons, can you imagine what it is like for them going to school etc. Why is she going public with this aswell, can't be great for her sons. Also interesting that the third woman wishes to stay anonymous. Imagine if this was a married man looking for a relationship with a second woman because he has got bored with his wife or vice versa.

As for polygamy, it is a disaster and leads to huge social problems, you only have to look at the middle east countries to see the problems. The rich and connected men have several wives but a lot of men then have no wives. That's root cause of why so much violence in middle eastern countries

nozzferrahhtoo

^ It is probably rarely good for kids to have the love life of their parents become the subject of media attention, even in a traditional relationship. Let alone an out of the ordinary one. But that aside I do not think children in alternative relationships automatically suffer in any particular general way.

Children raised by homosexual couples for example seem to generally fair as well as, and in some studies of lesbian parents in particular slightly better than, their more traditional counterparts and peers.

My own experience / knowledge of a "truple" parenting children would be our very own @taxAHcruel here on boards. So I guess that is an anecdote of 1. Or 4 given he has 4 children, 2 each with his 2 partners. And they are anything but suffering. They are the most grounded and well rounded and together children you would ever want to meet. And they are probably the most amazing parents I have ever seen. And I do not need to "imagine what it is like for them going to school" as I have seen that in real time and they do perfectly well there.

As for the OPs question as to whether it is time to look for legal recognition for this, I would say it is far from it. Unlike the Gay Marriage Referendum there is 1) Statistically no one affected actually seeking it and 2) Little to no Public seeking to support it on their behalf. And in fact it seems anecdotally that @taxAHcruel and others like him are not even seeking it and would not be interested in campaigning for it even if a referendum on it were to be proposed, or availing of it even if it were passed. In fact if anything he articulated the most coherent arguments AGAINST it I have read on threads on the subject in the past.

So yeah I can not see this media blip about one single relationship going anywhere, let alone towards proposed changes to the status quo.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120387246#Comment_120387246

Might be two men....?

JupiterKid

Having an open relationship is one thing, and many more couples are practicing this arrangement in recent years - straight couples, that is. Gay male couples have been having open relationships for decades and if agreed boundaries between both parties are in place, it can work well.

Interestingly, lesbian women couples tend to have the strongest commitment to monogamy.

But polyamorous setups where a man has two women spouses, or vice versa, or three gay men in a “thruple” arrangement often do not work out well as jealousy and resentment can quickly set in. Then there are the legal aspects to such arrangements in terms of formal marriage that can be extremely onerous and complex. And what about the children, if any, in such family arrangements - their welfare and needs must be considered.

Our own taxAHcruel is in a polyamorous relationship with two women - perhaps he can share his views on the matter as someone who is living in such an arrangement.

Those polygamous setups in the USA are usually by Mormons where the multiple wives of the man have agreed to be very subservient to their husband and his needs and wants. Similar to the situations in the Middle East and Africa. I don’t think you’d see many feminists that keen on sharing their male spouse with several other women.

In any case I don’t see any calls for legal recognition of polyamorous relationships here outside of the Muslim community, some of whom are already in polyamorous setups with a man with more than one wife - but under the legal radar as the State is not going to recognise polygamy any time soon.

Monogamy is a lofty and noble ideal, but humans are simply not hardwired for monogamy and it is a culturally and religiously imposed/conditioned “norm” in most societies. It’s primary purpose is to keep societies stable.

techman1

I think that is the main reason no government would recognise this because we have seen the problems from Muslim countries where they have been doing it for thousands of years, most women and a majority of less connected men are disenfranchised by it. The disenfranchised men turn violent and the disenfranchised women disappear, are hidden , that's really the reason why they insist on women covering up in those countries . You don't need those laws when everyone just as one wife or husband. Monogamy maybe boring but it results in the most stable harmonious societies

joseywhales

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120409402#Comment_120409402

While I agree that monogamy is hard, for me that is the point. My commitment to a monogamous relationship everyday is how I express my love for my wife. For me, it is a way to prove that I have self discipline and that I can stick to my commitments and that my word is 100%. It gives me great pride to be a trustworthy partner and that I can evolve beyond my animal instincts through discipline and commitment, to provide a more stable environment to raise a family, which has always been an ambition for me. My lust and ego do not control me.

Having said all of that, I couldn't care less what other people want to do with their life, it's their journey.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120409758#Comment_120409758

Ah come one! - That's twice you've blamed polygamy for problems in Muslim counries - can you make a direct causational link?

It's also legal in Utah and that has NONE of the violent issues you mention

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120413920#Comment_120413920

Polygamy is not legal in Utah. (In fact, Utah has the strongest anti-polygamy laws of any US state.)

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120413931#Comment_120413931

My apologies, I stand corrected - but the rest of my post stands: there is no causational link between polygamy and violence.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120409758#Comment_120409758

The main reason no government will recognise polygamy in Ireland is that polygamy isn't practised in Ireland.

Marriage is a social institution. The only relationships which there is any point in the government recognising are the relationships which people actually have. So legal recognition follows the reality of the relationship, not the other way around. In a society in which polygamy is not practised to any material degree, legal recognition is an irrelevance.

There's a second limb to this which is that, even if a model of polygamous marriage were being practised in Ireland, we still wouldn't recognise it if we thought it was undesirable or harmful. For example, anyone advocating recognition of polygamous marriage in Ireland today is likely intending an egalitarian model, in which men and women are equally free to take multiple spouses, and men and women have equal status within a polygamous marriage. Also, it will be egalitarian in the sense that same-sex and opposite-sex polygamous marriages are both accommodated.

But most of the real-world models of polygamous marriage which are found in other countries, and which enjoy legal recognition in other countries, are not like this at all. Polygamous marriage customs and conventions vary, but they are nearly all notably inegalitarian. There have been communities that have tried to foster idealised egalitarian models of group marriage; in general the results have not been encouraging; the institution (and, frequently, the communities in which it is practised) tend not to last very long.

So, in short, I don't think the issue of recognising polygamous marriage in Ireland arises until will have a functional and acceptable model of polygamous marriage that is actually being practised in Ireland that would benefit from legal recognition. We're a long way off that.

Lil Fred

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058289234/time-to-recognize-polyamorous-marriage

Truly we are in the age of peak deviancy

Grayson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120387090#Comment_120387090

But if they do, then it gets harder for them if something goes wrong. What happens if they're sick and the spouse that's with them doesn't have power of attorney.

Not saying we should jump into it either. The whole area is a mine field. If I'm married should I be allowed get married to another woman without my wifes consent? Should all polyamorous relationships be inclusive so you don't marry one person in them, you marry all of them? In that case if one person wants to divorce one other, what happens to the group? Is it all gone?

And historically it's been a way to put women down. So any laws around it need to make sure that it's not used to abuse women.

taxAHcruel

Finally decided to start using my new account after my old one closed :) I requested it be closed when the site was "upgraded" and then forgot I had done that months later. Than suddenly all those requests were processed and a lot of us who were still posting were suddenly reminded we had closed our accounts :)

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120413948#Comment_120413948

I hope so. "Deviant: adjective: departing from usual or accepted standards". Certainly something worth getting behind. While the word has negative connotations - not being a slave to what is accepted as the norm is to my mind a good thing. Once one stays within the bound of law and morality - or works to change law or morality through discourse and reason - then deviate all you wish and add color to our society and lives. I would hope we are not at the peak. I would like to see more of it across the board.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120409402#Comment_120409402

Indeed. We worked hard to formalize much about our relationship with the help of our family solicitor. It helped a lot of course that one of my partners is in fact a law doctorate working now in the more academic side of law. So she could talk that talk and helped us deal with a lot of it. Though to this day we joke that she likely hid small print in there that we do not understand that means she controlls all our assets and souls!

Most of this we completed about 12 years ago so a lot of the details - even the ones I as a legal lay person understood - are fuzzier to me now. The weekend after we signed the final papers related to all of this we had a "marriage" of sorts with friends and family to mark it with a ceremony and party and so forth. And that was enough for us.

The most important aspects of the whole thing for us were things like medical proxy, inheritence and parental status. I have two children with each of them now. Were they both to die tomorrow - or were I and one of them to die tomorrow - we wished to ensure that the remaining parent would be recognised as the legal parental guardian of all 4 of the children. Should one of the three of us - or any of our children - be hospitalised, then we wish to be sure that medical access and choices would be afforded all three of us. And so on.

The other luxuries that married couples enjoy - such as tax status or whatever - we did not pursue much. Though my username is inspired mostly by how much I hate tracking and controlling our taxs and tax situations. Hence the use of the word "cruel" and painful scream of "AHHHH" to play on Tax Accrual.

And as Nozz rightly pointed out I would have no interest in pursuing a campaign for any kind of legal recognition for relationships like ours. I feel such changes to marital law should scale sensibly with the amount of benefit they would bring - and inversely with the amount of effort required to implement. Unlike the Gay Marriage Referendum which I campaigned heavily for on- and off-line and walked the streets of 6 counties working on - the relative benefit is tiny and relative effort huge - and so I would see no benefit to wanting it.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120413902#Comment_120413902

I would say that we feel exactly the same as you do. Every word you wrote would apply to us too. The one small change we would make is that where you write "my wife" we would write "our relationship". Everything else is exactly the same and I could not have said much of it better myself.

A vague analogy here to me is to imagine a king. Many people might bow to a king. But in fact he is just a representative of the throne. Both the king and the people bowing to the king serve the throne. In much the same way your wife - or my partners - and myself are representatives of our relationships. And it is to that relationship we are dedicated - and by proxy therefore to each other.

Not a perfect analogy in many ways I grant you - but it serves.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120387205#Comment_120387205

Oh they can be maintained alright. It just is not easy. Then again when you look at divorce rates these days - maintaining any relationship is not easy. So I would not say these kinds of relationships are harder per se. They just have different challanges. And different can be hard because you have fewer peers to turn to for advice who share your lived experience and fewer social supports tailored to your situation.

On the other side of the coin however many things are easier. Economies of scale mean that many things that cause marital break down - such as financial resources, time to spend with children, chores, and much more are easier. We have pretty much identical requirements on such things as any couple with 4 children have - but that responsibility and effort split over three people rather than two. So when I ever feel like saying our relationship is difficult - I do remember to check my privileges too.

A lot also comes down to why or how you enter such an alternative relationship. For us it just happened. We neither sought it or desired it but simply found ourselves in it. I suspect this is one of the healthier ways to end up in it. Others actively seek it and then it becomes part of their agenda in partner selection and so forth. And I think the more "forced" such things are - the higher the chances of failure. Partly but not entirely because people might be compelled to take certain compromises just to get the goal attained of being in such a relationship.

Certainly though there are no dysfunctions in our home that I am currently aware of :) Most of all we try to remember that our relationship is in fact 4 relationships. 3 couples and a truple. And we do our best to maintain and nurture each of those individually and equally.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120388354#Comment_120388354

I have no idea if it is or not. I have never seen statistics on it. However I could make some random guesses as to why it might be. The first is that I find the one thing that makes such a relationship work is communication. And the old male stereotype is that men are worse at expressing themselves and their emotions. A second could be that men tend to be more competative. A third might be the whole biological aspect of off spring recognition where women are much more certain that an off spring is theirs than men can be. A fourth might be that men tend to have more resources historically - maybe less so today - so more capable of supporting such a relationship. A fifth might be the "ick" factor many men have to other males in sexual contexts that women perhaps have less of. I have no idea if any of these are real or true. Just 5 random guesses.

Though you said you were specifically referring to TV shows rather than statistics on such relationships. I guess the reason such shows might tend towards the 1 man multiple women scenario - might be the same reason as why people may be more likely to click on a story about a male teacher sleeping with his teenage student than a female teacher sleeping with a teenage student. The former tends to get more of a reaction than the latter. Especially from men. It's just more click baity. Again guesswork though. But I have certainly seen men in the former case call it exploitation but in the latter say "good on the kid - I wish my hot teacher was doing that with me when I was that age!".