gwern comments on Poly marriage? - Less Wrong

-9 Post author: h-H 06 June 2012 07:57PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (127)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: MileyCyrus 07 June 2012 03:55:41PM *  6 points [-]

My position is that polygamy should be tolerated, but not celebrated (or recognized by law). My reasons:

1) It will probably lead to a shortage of women, as some men hog all the women for themselves. Women are more willing to share a man than vice-versa. (Whether this is cultural or biological is irrelevant. Either way you'll end up with a shortage of women.)

2) Poly marriages are not as stable as two person relationships. The more premises an argument has, the less likely it is to be sound; so too for marriage. Dan Savage says that he's been to number of "poly weddings", but has never been to a poly tenth anniversary party.

Comment author: gwern 07 June 2012 04:17:15PM *  4 points [-]

On the society-wide advantages of monogamy over polygamy: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5317066/2012-heinrich-puzzlemarriage.pdf

My background notes on polyamory, if anyone cares: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5317066/2012-gwern-polyamory.txt