AHC: Polygamy as accepted as homosexuality

[naraht]

Polygamy in general or Polygyny specifically?

Polygamy in OTL has really ended up at the two ends of the cultural spectrum with almost *nothing* to do with each other.

1) largely religiously based polygyny (1 man - many women): Muslims, Mormon fundamentalist sects, and other homegrown cults similar to the Mormon fundamentalist sects.

2) polyamory (leading to Polygamy) - decendants of 1960s "free love" where the number and gender balance are up to the individual group of people.

While on some issues, I can see the far right and the far left getting together, this just isn't it.

I think such a TL would have to have pick one of the two...

 

[Wendell]

The key here is that polygamy you can have the marriage continued as people die off and others join. So there is no inheritance, estate, etc taxes for the state to collect. Homosexual marriage means that one of the partners will eventually die off, and the state collects then.

You also get into the fun of one person deciding to leave the marriage. They were one of the three people involved, and want an equal share (1/3). By the time the divorce has hit the court, the marriage has gotten more people, and their share is less than 1/3. Lots of fun.

It would not work out that way in practice; were ploygamy more broadly accepted, society might be in some regards more conservative, and divorce rates lower, and/or leaving women in worse shape than the man from whom they've been divorced. Conversely, the estate as it was at the time of the divorce filig might be the standard by which the estate division is measured. What's more interesting here though are possible changes to child custody. If a woman divorces a man (uinstead of the reverse) and he already has another wife, how likely is the woman divorcing to get custody if her ex-husband already has potentially more children and another wife to be a mother figure?