I don't think the number of people someone can marry should be limited either.

Isn't one woman enough of a P-I-T-A? Imagine more than one. All PMSing at one time nagging the hell out of you. Why would any sane man want more than one?

[Ratmagiclady]

Isn't one woman enough of a P-I-T-A? Imagine more than one. All PMSing at one time nagging the hell out of you. Why would any sane man want more than one?

You seem to have a prejudice that polyamory has to be about 'One man with several separate wives.'

You just imagine the jealousies and demands of monogamy, toward which it seems we're clearly not instinctually-suited, multiplied.

Committed group relationships are hard to work out, but actually *remove* a lot of the stresses and fatigues associated with monogamy. In monogamy, each kind of has to be everything-and-the-only to someone else at any given time: in poly situations, it's actually a lot *less* demanding, stressful, and exhausting in ways a lot of people consider 'just how things are.'

To paraphrase Rocky Balboa: "I got gaps, they got gaps, put us together, we fill gaps."

As I said before, the issue of how many people can be in a family isn't the same thing at all as having a monogamous institution and excluding some kinds of people from it, but polyamory itself is actually, of itself, a really good thing if people stop thinking in terms of trying to own each other.

So much of monogamy can be in terms of *conflict,* really. You want something, the only partner can either do it or not: if they're overstressed, you feel like your 'territory' needs to be changed. Cause of this they act as though poly is just some kind of orgy or people 'cheating' or whatever other projection.

Hardly makes sense to me, that.

The fact is, for a long time in my life, while I can help and offer a lot to a lot of people, I've long been limited in some ways, and what's more, though much of that time, it's been knowing *I may die.*

I see little virtue in demanding my sweetie be alone if that happens, or be deprived, or for me to find myself destitute again if, Gods avert, anything should happen to *her.* (Especially since some people's idea of 'Defending marriage' is to ensure we have no property rights regarding the life we've built.)

It's hardly to say we're not *capable* of monogamy, (Quite the contrary: the last thing we'd need is any drama of someone trying to split one of us off or something, and we've been content with each other for almost a decade, now.)

But monogamy has its own complications, and poly is not the same thing as just multiplying them. Actually it solves a lot of the *problems* people associate with 'sex' or 'bonding' but are really just about the monogamist framework. That's the interesting part: We're evolved to live in small bands, not to be crammed into 'nuclear families' trying to live up to an idea.

But it's a separate issue. '*One* man and *one* woman' is a definition that is only of import to heterosexuals trying to claim their jealousies and exhaustions are some natural or supernatural order that must be imposed... Or... What? More separate spouses to call a 'PITA?'

Real life, as usual, is often both simpler and harder to define.

---------- Post added 07-14-10 at 02:59 PM ----------

I mean, too, I'm *really* tired of these 'slippery slope' arguments, cause it's simply nowhere near the same 'slope.' Certainly not in terms of the laws at hand, any more than it was when they said interracial marriage would lead to polygamy and all kinds of 'other depravities,' but if you and your wife, George, both loved someone and really wanted to live together, any of you, do you really think it would 'defend your marriage' for the government to force you all to choose?

It's amusing, cause sometimes I hear the *self-righteous ritualized jealousy* on TV or something and want to say, 'Oh, why don't you all just get a room.'

Really.

All that tension and flipping out at each other is supposed to be some kind of virtue. I'm not seeing the virtue. I think the reason it's the religious conservatives that *actually* have the biggest divorce and domestic and child abuse rates in the nation is in fact because what some like to claim is 'Natural Law' would in fact be pretty hard to *out-custom-design to explode if you tried.*

Maybe that's why you're so scared of anyone else getting a fair shake, I really dunno.