How does polygamy treat women as second-class citizens anymore than regular old marriage does?
Have you met many older married couples? I interact older married couples all of the time in an assisted living community. It is typically the man that cling onto the woman like a lifeline. It is typically the man who has come to rely on the woman so much that they can't even imagine how they would live without the woman. From our conversations, it seems that the man reach this mental state a few years into the marriage.
You are correct that in a marriage, one party is dominant while another party is submissive. However, the roles are often switch depending on the situation. Perhaps the wife is very good with money so she takes a dominant role in controlling finances. Perhaps the husband is very good at planning family vacations so he takes a dominant role in that. There isn't one permanently dominant side.
In a polygamy, there has to be one dominant person and many submissive people. In history, it is typically the women who play the submissive role. In this arrangement, the dominant/submissive roles never change sides as the male remains absolutely dominant.
I used the example of Hugh Hefner in the polygamy thread. Huge holds near-absolute power over the playboy bunnies. Do you really think those women would be willing to be in that relationship if they could attain their goals in life through other means?
You assume much.
You assume a LOT, in fact.
Some marriages are equal, some marriages the female is the "dominant" force, some marriages the male is the dominant force.
There's no reason to believe that in a multi-partner marriage that an equality has to be found or a reliance on gender on the other for the relationship to hold and just because you get married doesn't mean you give up your dreams and wishes for the sake of your partner or that your dreams and wishes trumps your partner's dreams and wishes. Balance and equality can be found and successful marriages it often is found.
The kind of polygamy you keep talking about seems to be of the variety practiced by the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints.
Mormons (LDS/Church of Latter Day Saints) are often chided for believing in and practicing polygamy which makes about as much sense as making fun of a Christian for using a confessional. Mormons and FDLS both may be related in some ways but both practice their religion in very different ways and the FLDS church is the more extreme one and much of what they do is no longer accepted or practiced by the LDS group which is much more "modernized" take on the religion.
It's actually probably a lot more like comparing a Hasidic Jew to a modern-day Jew. Hasidic Jews follow the Torah and the umpteen commandments very closely and even have ideals we would consider to be somewhat antiquated when it comes to marriages and relationships with women. Modern-day Jews are far more easy going and in America most of them don't keep Kosher (something Hasidic Jews do strongly.)
It's part of FLDS's religion that women are "second class" citizens and a man has to have many wives in order get high salvation. Like it or hate it, it's their religion, it's only practiced by a few thousand so it's hardly a big thing.
The LDS church, however, is very Christian in their treatment of marriage and women, pretty much putting everyone on an even keel. (Although female members are not required to go on a mission as part of the doctrine.)
If multiple-partner marriages were to be allowed in America I don't think it'd be used to subjugate or restrain women (again, I remind you, that subjugating, restraining, and treating women as property was the entire
origins of marriage.) But as you said today in modern times in some couples it's the woman who is the dominant partner.
And that last word is the key. "Partner." People in marriages these days are
partners in a family unit. A polygamous marriage would be no different in modern times. As a matter of fact there's already people out there who live together as a multi-couple unit happily and healthily. (Though not officially married as a multi-partner grouping, it's just how the live and operate together.)
Stop confusing what some group of 10,000 people living in Utah are doing with what the average person would do if they were so inclined to marry multiple people.
