Argument: Polygamy will always be sexist with patriarchal polygyny predominating

Reasons to agree

Jonathan Rauch. “One Man, Many Wives, Big Problems. The social consequences of polygamy are bigger than you think”. April 3, 2006 – “The second crucial word is “polygyny.” Unlike gay marriage, polygamy has been a common form of marriage since at least biblical times, and probably long before. In his 1994 book The Moral Animal: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology, Robert Wright notes that a “huge majority” of the human societies for which anthropologists have data have been polygamous. Virtually all of those have been polygynous: that is, one husband, multiple wives. Polyandry (one wife, many husbands) is vanishingly rare. The real-world practice of polygamy seems to flow from men’s desire to marry all the women they can have children with.

Moreover, in America today the main constituents for polygamous marriage are Mormons* and, as Newsweek reports, “a growing number of evangelical Christian and Muslim polygamists.” These religious groups practice polygyny, not polyandry. Thus, in light of current American politics as well as copious anthropological experience, any responsible planner must assume that if polygamy were legalized, polygynous marriages would outnumber polyandrous ones — probably vastly.”

Reasons to disagree

External links and resources:

• wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygamy