I’ve mentioned below (and in many past posts) that legalizing or constitutionalizing same-sex marriages might indeed eventually lead to the same for polygamous marriages — the slippery slope argument is plausible, though of course far from certain.
I suspect, though, that this won’t in fact happen. The gay rights movement has succeeded, both legally and in many situations politically, because of a confluence of reasons. Homosexuals are only about 2-3% of the population; but they also have many more nonhomosexual friends, family members, and colleagues. They have the natural political sympathy of much of the liberal movement, that tends to take a broadly egalitarian and sexually libertarian view.
Homosexuals are generally not very socially insular, at least by choice; while there are some mostly homosexual organizations and social circles, homosexuals tend to work, play, and socialize with heterosexuals. This means that, once there’s enough tolerance for homosexuality that homosexuals are willing to identify themselves, many people — even many conservatives — find that quite a few of the people they like are homosexual. And this has been especially so in elite circles that have a disproportional impact on law, policy, culture, and even public opinion.
The chief sources of polygamy in America, as I understand it, are likely to be Muslim immigrants and some Mormon sects. (These wouldn’t be the only sources, but I suspect they’d be the main ones.) These are relatively socially insular. Few people outside the group are likely to have close friends who are polygamists.
What’s more, these groups don’t have a natural political home in the Left, because they tend to be highly socially conservative in many ways (setting aside polygamy itself, of course), and because they tend to be devoutly religious. I’m not saying that many people on the Left will deliberately refuse to endorse polygamy because they don’t like the politics and religions of polygamists. But I doubt that many of the Left would be eager to go to bat politically for people with whom they have so little in common. And people on the Right aren’t likely to back these groups, either, simply because most people on the Right are morally averse to polygamy.
Finally, it doesn’t seem likely that polygamy will attract many ordinary people who are better integrated socially, and who do have natural allies on the Left or the Right. I suspect that few American women, for instance, would be that inclined to enter into polygynous (one man, many women) marriages. I suspect that even fewer American men would be inclined to enter into polyandrous (one woman, many men) marriages. I suspect that many American men who might want multiple sexual partners wouldn’t be that inclined to actually marry, and in some measure have to support, multiple wives. (Men of course might marry women who are at the same income level as they are, but I suspect that those are the very women who would least want to enter into polygynous relationships.)
One can imagine some scenarios in which culturally well-integrated Americans might seek polygamy — for instance, a rich man marrying many poor women (perhaps especially women from foreign countries, including ones where polygyny is not uncommon), or the occasional many-men many-women marriage. But I doubt that many of these will happen. And so polygamy will still be a preference of a few culturally and politically isolated religious groups; and neither judges (who on such issues are, I think, quite influenced by their social perspectives and perspectives of the people around them) nor legislators are going to be that likely to push for legalizing or constitutionalizing polygamous marriage.
Now all this might change. I suspect that in 1965, many people doubted that the homosexual rights movement would ever get off the ground. Perhaps I’m missing some other political force that would be able to successfully push — both in court and in legislatures — for allowing polygamous marriages. (For instance, perhaps there’ll be some massive influx of immigration of religious Muslims who are polygamous or at least culturally open to polygamy, though if the influx is huge enough, then that might lead to a legalization of polygamy whether or not same-sex marriages are legalized.)
But it still seems to me that, as a practical matter, even if same-sex marriage is legalized, we’re unlikely to in fact slip down to allowing polygamy.
Comments are closed.