lavendersparkle (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lavendersparkle) wrote2009-10-30 09:42 am
lavendersparkle) wrote2009-10-30 09:42 am
Entry tags:
Political polygamy
I've been thinking about this for a while. To be honest, I don't know if it's a serious suggestion or a bizarre satire.
I think I took things a bit too much to heart as a child when they taught us about sharing. I'm so lucky to have everything I have and I get the urge to share it with people who weren't so lucky. An example of this is that I get the urge to share my husband. I'm so lucky to have him and he's so wonderful that whenever I hear of female friends having difficulty finding a nice male partner I get the urge to say "Look, I found a great one. We could share." Now this is a non-starter because Alec has a say in things and he is deeply monogamous by nature and took the message from Big Love that three wives means three times the nagging and more than three times the arguments. He also claims that if I talk about this to much with female friends they'll start avoiding me.
From a less personal point of view, I notice that there seem to be more good single women than good single men. When I think of my friends, there are lots of women who I can't understand still being single because they seem like such perfect girlfriend/wife material but not so much so with my male friends. I'm starting to think that there just aren't enough good men to go around.
From a more political perspective, I think polygamy could be like political lesbianism lite. I can see the logic of feminist separatism on statistical level. Women with male partners are more likely to be abused by their partners and their children are more likely to be abused by their partners because men are much more likely statistically to be abusive toward their family than women. Sometimes I get infuriated by the way feminism is always having to make itself palatable to men and sometimes I think that logically we should just up and off and set things up without them. On the other hand, I like some men and I don't want men who act kingly and righteously to be excluded from this utopia. I'm also aware that for some women, all the feminist theory in the world isn't going to stop them liking cock.
I think political polygamy could bring some of the advantages of political lesbianism. Women might be safer in polygamous marriages because they are sharing their partners and their living spaces with other women who could be more likely to see and act to protect each other and their children from abuse. They could also help to screen potential husbands for each other. Women could see how a man acted with his current partners to see whether he had abusive tendencies which only came out when he was living with a partner. So one side of the benefit can be summarised as women who share husbands would be able to protect each other.
The other side of it is that if you practise polygamy you don't have to have as many married men as in polygamous society. You can skim off the least sexist/abusive x% of men to have relationships with women and not have to expose women to the rest of them. Furthermore, the very real risk that if they don't sort themselves out they'll not be able to get a female partner, could force men to stop thinking that they're G@d's gift just because they have a Y chromosome. If a man doesn't want to do his share of the housework, he knows that his girlfriend could leave him for a man whose wives will confirm that he does. I suppose it's a similar argument to those saying that popular schools should be able to expand their intake. Good husbands will have more wives and all men will have to be better husbands if they want to have a wife.
Like I said, I'm not sure if this is a serious suggestion or a parody. Just some thinking out of the box.
I think I took things a bit too much to heart as a child when they taught us about sharing. I'm so lucky to have everything I have and I get the urge to share it with people who weren't so lucky. An example of this is that I get the urge to share my husband. I'm so lucky to have him and he's so wonderful that whenever I hear of female friends having difficulty finding a nice male partner I get the urge to say "Look, I found a great one. We could share." Now this is a non-starter because Alec has a say in things and he is deeply monogamous by nature and took the message from Big Love that three wives means three times the nagging and more than three times the arguments. He also claims that if I talk about this to much with female friends they'll start avoiding me.
From a less personal point of view, I notice that there seem to be more good single women than good single men. When I think of my friends, there are lots of women who I can't understand still being single because they seem like such perfect girlfriend/wife material but not so much so with my male friends. I'm starting to think that there just aren't enough good men to go around.
From a more political perspective, I think polygamy could be like political lesbianism lite. I can see the logic of feminist separatism on statistical level. Women with male partners are more likely to be abused by their partners and their children are more likely to be abused by their partners because men are much more likely statistically to be abusive toward their family than women. Sometimes I get infuriated by the way feminism is always having to make itself palatable to men and sometimes I think that logically we should just up and off and set things up without them. On the other hand, I like some men and I don't want men who act kingly and righteously to be excluded from this utopia. I'm also aware that for some women, all the feminist theory in the world isn't going to stop them liking cock.
I think political polygamy could bring some of the advantages of political lesbianism. Women might be safer in polygamous marriages because they are sharing their partners and their living spaces with other women who could be more likely to see and act to protect each other and their children from abuse. They could also help to screen potential husbands for each other. Women could see how a man acted with his current partners to see whether he had abusive tendencies which only came out when he was living with a partner. So one side of the benefit can be summarised as women who share husbands would be able to protect each other.
The other side of it is that if you practise polygamy you don't have to have as many married men as in polygamous society. You can skim off the least sexist/abusive x% of men to have relationships with women and not have to expose women to the rest of them. Furthermore, the very real risk that if they don't sort themselves out they'll not be able to get a female partner, could force men to stop thinking that they're G@d's gift just because they have a Y chromosome. If a man doesn't want to do his share of the housework, he knows that his girlfriend could leave him for a man whose wives will confirm that he does. I suppose it's a similar argument to those saying that popular schools should be able to expand their intake. Good husbands will have more wives and all men will have to be better husbands if they want to have a wife.
Like I said, I'm not sure if this is a serious suggestion or a parody. Just some thinking out of the box.
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Plus some women want lots of men (and lots of women) :-)
But probably if you made it so no bad men could get nice women then the bad men would go and be involved with the bad women (who can't persuade the nice men and their nice wives to have them); perhaps that's for the best, but it probably wouldn't deprive them entirely of female company thus serving less well to educate them (probably make them more sure than all women are 'bad').
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There could be a social networking/dating site where they rank partners and recommend them to friends. That way, partners would have an impetus to act well in relationships even if they don't intend to stay in one particular city/social sphere.
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[I take it you saw the recent Guardian article on polygamy in Russia?]
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It captures part of the problem: not enough men, too many of them are poorly educated drunks, so share the good ones around.
Women having multiple husbands would help with the problem of monogamy being isolating and therefore dangerous, but it wouldn't sort out the problem (if it exists) of more good women than good men.
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And maybe making a well written but controvertial post will make more people inclined to leave interesting comments.
From a less personal point of view, I notice that there seem to be more good single women than good single men.
My friends seem to be the other way round. I don't know if that's interesting or obvious. I don't know if that's simply because a greater proportion of my friends are men, or because people have different instinctive assassments of "good other half material".
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And of course, the subject of the email should be...
(JB still won't get it.)