Difster doesn’t need me to abuse Jonathan Rauch’s poorly reasoned case against polygamy:
In the strict sense he is correct. Where he begins to go wrong is where he states that “monogamy gives everyone a shot at marriage.” If a woman chooses not to get married at all, she is also denying some man the chance to marry her. Why is that a problem? We are free to choose our spouses. That some woman would choose a man who already has one or more wives does not deny any other man a shot at marriage, just the reality of it. The reasons that the woman chose a polygamous arrangement are hers alone and should not be presumed upon by legislators in the interest of fairness to other men. Rauch digs himself in deeper by saying that “…some men marry at the expense of others.” Technically, he’s quite right but things are that way now. When a woman I would want to marry chooses another, that other man has married at my expense. From a legal and social policy perspective it’s a ludicrous argument to make against polygamy.
About the only thing he left out was to contrast the high crime and imprisonment rates in the monogamous USA with the lower ones in current or historically polygamous societies in response to Rauch’s final point, but that would have amounted to kicking the man when he’s already down and bleeding and Difster is too much the gentleman to add that last contemptuous exclamation point.
Okay, so maybe I do still have something to teach him….