RHJunior (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} rhjunior) wrote in selenite, |
You make the assertion that "marriage patterns have constantly changed" without much consideration to the full spread of the data.
Or in other words: Yes, there have been polygamous/polyamorous societies in the past. But just how well did they do?
The fact that even the most successful polygamous society never managed to get much further than the Dark Ages should give one pause. Anthropologists are fond of dredging up this aboriginal tribe or the the other to show that polyamory is natural to man; while yes, this or that primitive jungle tribe has perpetuated for thousands of years as a polygamous or other "sexually P.C." culture, they never seem to note that after all those thousands of years they are STILL a primitive jungle tribe.
You note that "bureaugamy" has failed as a parental/familial model. I submit to you that we have seen "divorceamy", "serial partner-ogamy," and "single-parent-ogamy" proven to be equal if not greater failures. (Consider that people begged for and still tend to beg for "bureaugamy" on the grounds that single parenthood cannot cope with the familial burden!) And NO civilization, no matter how sexually libertine, has EVER granted homosexual pairs the same status and social role as that of a married couple.... not even the Greeks called a "gay" couple married, or suggested they were an optimal choice for raising heterosexual people's offspring. One might suspect that this was for a damned good reason.
Our society has already experimented with every possible variation of polyamorous "families," from unwed mothers to serial divorcees with joint custody to wife-swapping hippies who serve up wedding cake decorated with the words "Smash Monogamy" at their four-way bisexual hand-fasting. We have tried them all and found ALL of them to be wanting. We have prisons full of fatherless sons and graveyards full of disease-slain "sexual pioneers" to show for it; we are not interested in dabbling in such things any more.
And we are fantastically uninterested in allowing people to conduct a self-gratifying social engineering experiment on helpless children that even the Greeks would not contemplate.... solely to salve the bitten consciences and chronic self-esteem issues of the militant homosexual.
Or in other words: Yes, there have been polygamous/polyamorous societies in the past. But just how well did they do?
The fact that even the most successful polygamous society never managed to get much further than the Dark Ages should give one pause. Anthropologists are fond of dredging up this aboriginal tribe or the the other to show that polyamory is natural to man; while yes, this or that primitive jungle tribe has perpetuated for thousands of years as a polygamous or other "sexually P.C." culture, they never seem to note that after all those thousands of years they are STILL a primitive jungle tribe.
You note that "bureaugamy" has failed as a parental/familial model. I submit to you that we have seen "divorceamy", "serial partner-ogamy," and "single-parent-ogamy" proven to be equal if not greater failures. (Consider that people begged for and still tend to beg for "bureaugamy" on the grounds that single parenthood cannot cope with the familial burden!) And NO civilization, no matter how sexually libertine, has EVER granted homosexual pairs the same status and social role as that of a married couple.... not even the Greeks called a "gay" couple married, or suggested they were an optimal choice for raising heterosexual people's offspring. One might suspect that this was for a damned good reason.
Our society has already experimented with every possible variation of polyamorous "families," from unwed mothers to serial divorcees with joint custody to wife-swapping hippies who serve up wedding cake decorated with the words "Smash Monogamy" at their four-way bisexual hand-fasting. We have tried them all and found ALL of them to be wanting. We have prisons full of fatherless sons and graveyards full of disease-slain "sexual pioneers" to show for it; we are not interested in dabbling in such things any more.
And we are fantastically uninterested in allowing people to conduct a self-gratifying social engineering experiment on helpless children that even the Greeks would not contemplate.... solely to salve the bitten consciences and chronic self-esteem issues of the militant homosexual.
