The main problem with polygamy is that it inevitably leads to the objectification of women. There are societies where women run the households and have multiple husbands, but in a serial manner I think. That seems to work. It would be nice if we could be free to choose what sort of relationships we have. In practice we are, because you cannot prevent three people from living together. All you can do is not give the relationship a legal status.

This article from Psychology Today makes a sound argument that it is polygamy that causes most of the violence in the middle east:

http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1170642873/128#128

Most suicide bombers are Muslim
Suicide missions are not always religiously motivated, but according to Oxford University sociologist Diego Gambetta, editor of Making Sense of Suicide Missions, when religion is involved, the attackers are always Muslim. Why? The surprising answer is that Muslim suicide bombing has nothing to do with Islam or the Quran (except for two lines). It has a lot to do with sex, or, in this case, the absence of sex.

What distinguishes Islam from other major religions is that it tolerates polygyny. By allowing some men to monopolize all women and altogether excluding many men from reproductive opportunities, polygyny creates shortages of available women. If 50 percent of men have two wives each, then the other 50 percent don't get any wives at all.

So polygyny increases competitive pressure on men, especially young men of low status. It therefore increases the likelihood that young men resort to violent means to gain access to mates. By doing so, they have little to lose and much to gain compared with men who already have wives. Across all societies, polygyny makes men violent, increasing crimes such as murder and rape, even after controlling for such obvious factors as economic development, economic inequality, population density, the level of democracy, and political factors in the region.

However, polygyny itself is not a sufficient cause of suicide bombing. Societies in sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean are much more polygynous than the Muslim nations in the Middle East and North Africa. And they do have very high levels of violence. Sub-Saharan Africa suffers from a long history of continuous civil wars—but not suicide bombings.

The other key ingredient is the promise of 72 virgins waiting in heaven for any martyr in Islam. The prospect of exclusive access to virgins may not be so appealing to anyone who has even one mate on earth, which strict monogamy virtually guarantees. However, the prospect is quite appealing to anyone who faces the bleak reality on earth of being a complete reproductive loser.

It is the combination of polygyny and the promise of a large harem of virgins in heaven that motivates many young Muslim men to commit suicide bombings. Consistent with this explanation, all studies of suicide bombers indicate that they are significantly younger than not only the Muslim population in general but other (nonsuicidal) members of their own extreme political organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah. And nearly all suicide bombers are single.

Yeah, we see the Mormon religion's heaven is a bit like airplane travel, with First class, business class, and economy.
Mormons teach that you MUST be a polygamist to get into First Class Heaven.

That may be why they need special mormon underwear, you couldn't get that silly just playing with one dick!

Sprint that was a very big over simplification actually.

If you look at it first of all. In southern Lebanon and Palestine, there are not so many polygenist marriages actually.. And that is where your article claims most suicide bombings take place.

If you want to see polygenist marriages, check places like Africa and the Gulf, where no suicide bombing takes place. That's where it really occurs.

mozzaok wrote on Jun 26^th, 2008 at 10:53am:

So Mozzaok,

You still haven't shown how someone having an extra wife will interfere with your life?

Also I wonder in that case, why you have no problem with someone cheating on their wife and have children outside of marriage with their mistress in the West, but you do have a problem with people taking on another wife legitimately.

It's hypocritical. Obviously if you're cheating  on your wife its far more abhorrent because she doesn't know about it (hence cheating) and it could end your marriage. But instead of attacking that behaviour you attack a situation where a woman allows her husband to take another wife. Surely if you truly believed in monogamy you'd have more of a problem with people cheating on their wives than you do at the moment.

Definitely hypocritical.

The philosophical debate about sexual freedom is a different issue Malik.

My Primary concern is an alien culture seeking to change my traditional culture.

I do not wish to see any religious group, have laws changed to accommodate their beliefs.

I oppose the erosion of MY culture.

freediver wrote on Jun 26^th, 2008 at 10:46am:


Oh fiddlesticks.  Freedom from religion means for example that you can go shopping on sundays if you like, or even get drunk if you like.

We should all have the basic freedom not to be forced to participate in religion if we don't want to. You might say that it's part of freedom of religion, but so what? Freedom from Religion still exists - or it should do.   

http://assembly.coe.int/Main.asp?link=/Documents/AdoptedText/ta05/EREC1720.htm

"The Parliamentary Assembly forcefully reaffirms that each person’s religion, including the option of having no religion, is a strictly personal matter. However, this is not inconsistent with the view that a good general knowledge of religions and the resulting sense of tolerance are essential to the exercise of democratic citizenship."

That's freedom from religion. Sometimes I think we are so backwards compared to the Europeans.

mozzaok wrote on Jun 26^th, 2008 at 10:53am:


I agree with you to a point. I like typical Australian culture. I enjoy an espresso and a bit of carrot cake, I like to have a falafel kebab when I'm hungry. I also like yum cha and the occasional sushi with wasabe as much as I will enjoy watching Queensland win next week at the State of Origin.

Take a look at some of the players in that clash of titans. They represent a reasonable cross-section of Australian culture. I'm not sure if there are specifically any Muslims among them, but there are certainly people with different family and cultural traditions.

Most of those traditions will tend to blur as time goes on. As Malik stated, the Muslim community is already having problems with their kids. (Who doesn't?)

Lines of distinction will continue to blur, and we'll have more in common with just being Australians rather than being Muslims or Catholics or Godless Heathens for that matter.

I'd prefer to live in a land of freedom, and freedom of choice. If you compare Australia to the US, both have variety, but we're totally different and distinctive. If countries were ice cream flavours, Australia would be tutti-frutti and America would be stale vanilla.

That's my two cents anyway.