Home / General / Down The Slope

Down The Slope

/
/
/
619 Views

Matt Yglesias raises the interesting point that it’s entirely possible that–whether or not it’s a “slippery slope” in the sense of being logically inevitable (and I don’t think it is)–the recognition of same-sex marriage will lead to the formal recognition of polyamorous relationships. Assuming for the sake of argument that he’s right–is this something that one should worry about?

Matt says no. For a while, my response to this was to say that this wasn’t necessarily desirable, given the gender subordination inherent in bigamous marriages. My old arguments, though, are I think quite transparently wrong, for a couple of reasons. The biggest one is that, of course, this makes claims about bigamous marriages that was generally true about marriage as a whole. Until quite recently, a wife was essentially legally defined as the sexual property of her husband, and also subordinated any number of property rights and other rights. Marriage between two people both reflected and reinforced male supremacy, so it’s hardly surprising that marriages between men and multiple women would do the same. But there’s nothing inherently male supremacist about marriage–in the sense of people making a formal commitment of partnership with a bundle of concomitant legal rights and privileges–and an underlying (if not necessarily formal) assumption of erotic intimacy, and I think this is equally true of marriages between two and multiple partners. On a related point, when I thought of “bigamy” I generally thought of bigamous marriages within Mormon communities–which are certainly male supremacist. But where they worse than two-person marriages within these communities? I’m not a sociologist, but I rather I doubt it. And I think many of us have known people in informal polyamorous (or, at least, “open”) relationships that are not predicated on reactionary gender roles. Polyamorous relationships may not work for many people, but then most people won’t choose to marry someone of the same gender either. I wouldn’t assume that formal polyamorous relationships are any less stable than those between two people, and we certainly have no way of knowing.

So, I’m inclined to think that there’s really nothing to worry about should we proceed down the slippery slope; perhaps people can explain why we should, but I don’t see it. And there is–as Evan Gerstmann has pointed out–a moral slippery slope if not a causal one. If there is a reason to codify same-sex marriages but not polyamorous ones, I think the burden of proof is on those who would deny the right.

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Linkedin
This div height required for enabling the sticky sidebar
Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views :