Bigamy

[English]

Absolutely not.
Yes, I'm sure it's awful to discover your spouse is already married, however to make it punishable by imprisonment or a fine is ludicrous. It's nothing to do with the government surely? If the wronged party wishes to make a private prosecution that's a different matter, however I don't see what greivance the state has?

[stry_cat]

The government shouldn't interfere with marriage.  So if you can get 10 women to marry ya that shouldn't be illegal.  However, if you don't tell them that you're married to 9 other women that is a problem and should be handled like any other fraud.

[minionofmidas]

The reason bigamy is illegal isthe same that gay marriage is illegal - the traditional Western definiton of marriage as something between one man and one woman.
Legalzing one without legalizing the other is highly inconsistent.

[DA]

The definition of marriage isn't the government's buisness, the contract that comes with legal marriage is. Most people tend to be arguing over the name, which is negligible.

[Bono]

Exactly. But we have to diferentiate. If the contract between two parties establishes exclusivity, than bigamy is prosecutable because it violates the contract. but if it doesn't, than it's none of the state's business.

[Brambila]

The reason bigamy is illegal isthe same that gay marriage is illegal - the traditional Western definiton of marriage as something between one man and one woman.
Legalzing one without legalizing the other is highly inconsistent.

Uhh, it's not just western. It's universal. Marraige is between a man and a woman, and in some special cases between some men and some women. Point being, marriage between two people of the same sex is not found in ANY tradition of ANY society. For that matter, the reason why gay marriage is wrong is for seperate reasons for why bigamy is wrong.

However, I think bigamy should be made a criminal offense if one of the spouses presses charges. The spouse is lying by marrying another when he/she is already married.

[migrendel]

I do not believe it should be a crime. I would not support intruding into the sphere of individual liberty.

[bergie72]

The reason bigamy is illegal isthe same that gay marriage is illegal - the traditional Western definiton of marriage as something between one man and one woman.
Legalzing one without legalizing the other is highly inconsistent.

How would gay marriage be equated with bigamy or polygamy?  Gay marriage would be a one person to one person agreement, or contract.  You could even say it was a contract with an 'exclusivity clause', equal to 'forsaking all others, etc' in today's marriage vows.  

With that limitation, gay marriage could be legal, but bi/polyagmy would still not be legal.    Personally, I don't agree with marrying 2+ people, but from a libertarian (little 'l') perspective, I wouldn't be opposed to it.  

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The reason bigamy is illegal is the same that gay marriage is illegal - the traditional Western definiton of marriage as something between one man and one woman.
Legalzing one without legalizing the other is highly inconsistent.

You need to differentiate between bigamy and polygamy.

Bigamy is the act of being in multiple marriages.
Central features of marriage, as far as the law is concerned, are the comingling of assets and liabilities and the provision for the care of the children of that marriage.  Bigamy is thus a particular form of fraud and as such should be a criminal offense.

Polygamy is a sngle marriage inviolving more than two people.  Since it is a single marriage with all of the participants being aware and having consented to it, it is is not fraud and therefore should not be a criminal offense.  Whether civil law should recognize a polygamous marriage is a seperate question. (Just as the question of whether a homosexual marriage should be recognized by the law is yet another seperate question.  Unfortunately, the words homogamy and heterogamy (or even orthogamy) that could be used to suscinctly differentiate between the two forms of two person marriage already have other meanings.)

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Back when it cost a lot of money to get divorced in the U.K, Bigamy was very common.
Juries almost always aquitted.

[minionofmidas]

Brambila - you're of course right that polygamy is found in human societies (quite frequently, actually) while gay marriage is not. That was why I wrote "Western" rather than "Universal".
The point, though, was that legalizing either would be a serious change to our traditional definition of marriage, much like relegalzing divorce has been. That's why I think being in favor of one but not the other (no matter which) requires a somewhat tortured, if not impossible reasoning.

[minionofmidas]

Back when it cost a lot of money to get divorced in the U.K, Bigamy was very common.
Juries almost always aquitted.

When did that change? In "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning", there's an echo of that: "No woman is worth making a divorce over."

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Back when it cost a lot of money to get divorced in the U.K, Bigamy was very common.
Juries almost always aquitted.

When did that change? In "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning", there's an echo of that: "No woman is worth making a divorce over."

I'm not sure, but I think it was suprisingly recently... It may even have been as late as the '60's (I can't think of any Government that would have liberalised divorce laws before then...)

I know that it was still the case in the late C19th, because of my Great Great Grandad (not that anyone would have dared prosecute him though; he ran the pit village he lived in with an iron fist...)

[minionofmidas]

Back when it cost a lot of money to get divorced in the U.K, Bigamy was very common.
Juries almost always aquitted.

When did that change? In "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning", there's an echo of that: "No woman is worth making a divorce over."

I'm not sure, but I think it was suprisingly recently... It may even have been as late as the '60's (I can't think of any Government that would have liberalised divorce laws before then...)

That book was written in the late 50s...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Back when it cost a lot of money to get divorced in the U.K, Bigamy was very common.
Juries almost always aquitted.

When did that change? In "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning", there's an echo of that: "No woman is worth making a divorce over."

I'm not sure, but I think it was suprisingly recently... It may even have been as late as the '60's (I can't think of any Government that would have liberalised divorce laws before then...)

That book was written in the late 50s...

That fits

[English]

The reason bigamy is illegal isthe same that gay marriage is illegal - the traditional Western definiton of marriage as something between one man and one woman.
Legalzing one without legalizing the other is highly inconsistent.

Uhh, it's not just western. It's universal. Marraige is between a man and a woman, and in some special cases between some men and some women. Point being, marriage between two people of the same sex is not found in ANY tradition of ANY society. For that matter, the reason why gay marriage is wrong is for seperate reasons for why bigamy is wrong.

However, I think bigamy should be made a criminal offense if one of the spouses presses charges. The spouse is lying by marrying another when he/she is already married.

Brambila, with all due respect, can you please stop stearing every thread onto the issue of homosexuality?

[minionofmidas]

I did that.

[English]

I did that.

Damn you Trondheim!!

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

Hell no.  It's a personal matter.  

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

The reason bigamy is illegal isthe same that gay marriage is illegal - the traditional Western definiton of marriage as something between one man and one woman.
Legalzing one without legalizing the other is highly inconsistent.

Uhh, it's not just western. It's universal. Marraige is between a man and a woman, and in some special cases between some men and some women. Point being, marriage between two people of the same sex is not found in ANY tradition of ANY society. For that matter, the reason why gay marriage is wrong is for seperate reasons for why bigamy is wrong.

However, I think bigamy should be made a criminal offense if one of the spouses presses charges. The spouse is lying by marrying another when he/she is already married.

Actually, gay marriage is cherished by a society.....gay people!  But they don't matter, cause they're not like the majority, which seems to be the way you think.  

And as English pointed out, you are obviously obsessed with gays.  I don't know if you're insecure, or that you really dispise them that much, but chill with it already, we know how you feel.  

[Brambila]

The reason bigamy is illegal isthe same that gay marriage is illegal - the traditional Western definiton of marriage as something between one man and one woman.
Legalzing one without legalizing the other is highly inconsistent.

Uhh, it's not just western. It's universal. Marraige is between a man and a woman, and in some special cases between some men and some women. Point being, marriage between two people of the same sex is not found in ANY tradition of ANY society. For that matter, the reason why gay marriage is wrong is for seperate reasons for why bigamy is wrong.

However, I think bigamy should be made a criminal offense if one of the spouses presses charges. The spouse is lying by marrying another when he/she is already married.

Brambila, with all due respect, can you please stop stearing every thread onto the issue of homosexuality?

I didn't bring it up, Louis did.

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No, that's not the way I think. Whether or not they are a minority has absolutely nothing to do with it. It's not how I feel about them, it's how I feel about how society is reacting to this. I'm not going to stop until I see change for the better.

[nclib]

Bigamy (or polygamy) should definitely not be a criminal offense.

Whether or not the government should recognize it is a different story.

[badnarikin04]

We should allow people to marry 8 midgets, 3 retards, 17 frogs, 84 white tigers, and a lamppost if they want to.

Why do we even give benifits to those who state their love towards each other? The government should not interfere with marriage. Period.

[John Dibble]

Bigamy and polygamy are technically the same things, but bigamy implies that the wives are ignorant about eachother's existence. Religious ceremonies aside, any contractual or state recognized polygamous should require that all parties involved in a marriage consent to it - meaning if you marry one woman and want to marry another, the first would have to consent to the second being there and visa versa. Violating a contract is against the law, so therefore bigamy as stated above should be illegal.

Let us also not forget that marriage in the contractual form often binds the finances of those involved. Since finances are shared, financial decisions also must be shared. Bigamy would bypass that consent, allowing another person into the shared finances without the knowledge of the other party or parties already involved.

Therefore, for the above stated reasons, contractual bigamy should be illegal. Spiritual bigamy(that is, only married to more than one person by ceremony and not by law or contract) is another matter altogether, but should probably be grounds for divorce.

[badnarikin04]

No lampposts! What are you; weird or what?

I'm just using an example. Love is love. Why interfere with it?