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Canadian study recommends legalizing polygamy
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Canadian study recommends legalizing polygamy
Friday, January 13, 2006
Nishat Hasan[JURIST] A study commissioned by the Canadian Justice Department and obtained by Canadian Press has urged the Canadian federal government to legalize polygamy to help protect women and children in those relationships. Section 293 of the Canadian Criminal Code currently bans polygamy, although a few Canadian provinces give limited recognition to foreign polygamous marriages for spousal support. The study, authored by three law professors at Ontario's Queen's University Faculty of Law, was prompted in part by concerns by British Columbia authorities about whether they should charge members of the Bountiful religious community in Creston, BC, which practices polygamy openly. The Canadian parliament legalized same-sex marriage across Canada in 2005.
Canadian Press has more.
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This isn't polyamory, this is bullshit and giving true polyamorists a bad name. You can't love that many women and girls marrying that young is sexual abuse. Plain and simple.
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i may not be canadian, but i have enough understanding of common law and civil law and international law to have a decent stab at the framework of human rights and so forth at play there.
true polyamory is quite different from "religiously premissive plural conjugation" ... [aka parallel, male-centric sexual relationships clothed in the mantle of "god says it's ok/required"]
nor do i see any reason to relax age and other requirements that would apply to any/every other marriage.
i agree with richard dawkins more often than not - religion has been allowed a peculiar position in society - one that would be considered unjust, unlawful, and just plain unbelieveable if it were anything else.
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I can see how legalising polygamy might also simplify the process of prosecuting abuses. One could define just what non-abusive polygamy is (i.e. everyone consents, is over the lagal age etc. etc.) rather than having the current confused system where any and all polygamy is illegal, but rarely prosecuted. People will form these relationships anyway - if it is brought under the umbrella of the law, surely it will be easier to provide the people involved with the same protections granted to people in normal marriages?
One could argue that the current blanket prohibition of marriages involving more than two people is allready based on religion. I don't think people should be able to abuse someone simply because of their religion (a giant harem of teenage girls who are virtual slaves springs to mind), but neither do I think society should forbid something on relgious grounds. Likewise, I don't think we should be forbidding something because it *might* be abusive in some cases. Abuse happens in normal marriage too.
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whilst i'm interested, i'm more interested in discussing the topics and issues than delving into the canadian situation myself. too many other things ahead in the "to do" list *sigh* :)
frankly, there is no prohibition on polygamous de facto marriages that i can think of, it is only the de jure that specifies one of each only.
the prohibition is as much, or more, about economic matters than religious ones. the restriction coincides with christian moral doctrine regarding monogamy. the original progenitor of legalised marriage was property - specifically inheritance of feudal tenures. pretty much still is ;)
the recognition and legitimisation of polygamous relationships may or may not be as contentiousas single-gender marriage. personally, i prefer recognition and legitimisation - that path offers the best hope for all concerned. not only for protection, but also because once things can be done openly, there is less room for shit to be hidden out of fear, or to use fear of exposure to enforce compliance.
permitting situations of unecessary fear is worse than transgressing someone's notion of moral outrage.
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I've had the argument about complexities of ecconomics and property law put to me before as a reason for not legalising group marriage. It would certainly be more complex in the instance of divorce and such like than two person marriage. At the same time though, we have a legal system that somehow deals with corporations, so I'm sure we could find a way! And on top of that, these relationships (as you say) allready exist in a de facto form. Currently the people involved have no rights to property and so on in these situations.
It's a complex issue - on the one side you have the whole alternative lifestyle polyamory people, who are usually all about communication and equality and all that nice stuff. On the other you have the full on religious groups who are generally into the one-sided man with many wives model (polygamy as opposed to polyandry or anything else) - which has a history of scary abuse of often very young women. In practice I think we usually know what we're looking at, but I suspect it's harder to separate the two legally.
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But it would have to be done very delicately because the religious groups would see themselves as persecuted if they are somehow banned from practiced there model of polygamy while it is legalized. And when there is perceived persecution, there is perceived martyrs and rallying around a cause and you get the big picture.
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politics makes such a simple thing much more complex.
frankly, if i were legalising polygamy, i'd be clear about it being an extension of the current framework. the same-gender process would be a matter of removing the references to the genders of the persons marrying.
i would impose clear rules regarding the circumstances when it would be permissible to marry a second or subsequent person. i would provide a set of presumptions regarding property and children that extends from the current monogamous arrangements - essentially relaxing the rules regarding the number of persons and their genders.
but i would be clear about a couple of things. marriage for economic gain would not be permitted. marriage of minors would face the same scrutiny as now - only parental consent would definately be replaced with court scruitiny - including the interest of the child, and a followup process (for all minors in any form of marriage).
i would be encouraging the creation of property trusts, or other arrangements that make it clear who owns what or has an interest in what. ditto regarding any children. i'd be making clearer profcesses for people to consider the what and why of assests and of children during relationships rather than leaving it to any potential messy end.
this might seemlike a big impost, but in light of the way some people operate in relationships, considering the tax arrangementsand so forth people already entertain, and the way children can muddy things - i'd be going for a more upfront process.
marriage - especially de jure marriage is not to be lightly entered into. certainly not as casually as many people do. it should also not be so complicated to extract from - binding people into relationships they don't want is just stupidand cruel. governments are trying to make it harder for people to get out if they've gotten into marriage. to me, it ought to be a more formal process to get in, and less obstruction to getting out. divorce is messy, for all manner of reasons - but a lot more could be done before and during methinks.
and de facto relationships are no less messy either.
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if marriage is viewed as creating a form of trust between the parties, it would be *far* simpler to determine who owned what, who was entitled to what. those questions are only difficult because of the emotional baggage that surfaces during breakups.
ditto re children. we at least know who gave birth to each child. and dna can clarify the rest if needed.
it'sthe emotional stuff that the real stumbling block. people have all manner of emotional expectations - many of which are never expressed until the fan is covered in excrement. wading through that is complex, but again - not impossible.
we live in a society that finds itself covered in detailed, politically motivated rules and regulations. wading through the social security law, or the tax law, is daunting for anyone - neither necessarily make achieving their (apparent) ends easier.
nevertheless, i believe that adults ought to be legally permitted to do a lot more of the kinds of things they do anyway - openness is the best antidote to fear and despair. when we can see what's going on, it's much easier to see the nasty stuff and to then address it.