On Jul 12, 2011, at 9:34 PM, Finkelman, Paul <paul.finkelman@alba...> wrote:

> Given the huge number of men in jail or who die at a young age, one might even turn Marci's argument on its head, and argue that polygamy is the only way for some women to marry.  

This reminded me that I'd seen an article somewhere on fraternal polyandry in a society in the Himalayas where the pickings are scarce when it comes to wives, so the men, usually brothers, share.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyandry_in_Tibet

This triggered the notion that our ideas concerning marriage stem from time immemorial sources, the old testament, the new, the way property was held and descended in ancestral homelands, etc.  Some of the old testament plural marriages would hardly be legal here, today.

Monogamous marriage, among whatever social benefits it may confer, and problems it may avoid, certainly has something to do with inheritance, the legitimate, first child (male) inheriting while successive sons entered the military, the clergy, etc. (England, for instance, among the landed); outside children were regarded as not legitimate and labeled with words that became curses.

China's one-child policy has created a dearth of females, an imbalance that leaves fewer wife candidates for the overpopulation of men; one remedy has been for men to go abroad to other Asian countries to try to find brides to bring home to China.

In short, when it comes to domestic arrangements, marital agreements, one's deal with fate has often had more to do with economic necessity than religious scruple.  The goal in America, it seems to me, is to eliminate the abuse (at common law a husband could beat his wife with a stick no thicker than his thumb, perhaps the origin of the rule of...) of spouses, children, and anyone else living within the curtilage, including the livestock.

If someone wants to pray over the resulting notion and give it a blessing, well and good...

rs