Link: http://www.pbs.org/mormons/
The Mormons is a 4-hour online documentary about the Mormon faith. I have just watched the first 2 hours and I must say it's very fascinating to look into the lives of these people.
It all started when Joseph Smith the founder claimed to have a revelation from God. Of course I am highly skeptical about all this. Anyone can claim to have a revelation from God. Many Americans thought the same. In fact, Mormons for a long time were oppressed by Christians in America. Laws were made forcing them to move from one place to another. They were not allowed to vote and their property was taken away from them.
In the supposed land of freedom, these Mormons were kicked around and bullied by the government. The pressure was so strong that, facing intense pressure, the Mormons had to let go of one of their sacred beliefs, that of polygamy or plural marriage.
Today the Mormon church, also known as Latter Day Saints, seems to have turned against itself. Although the Latter Day Saints have renounced polygamy, many Mormon fundamentalists still practice it.
Showing posts with label polygamy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label polygamy. Show all posts
19 August 2007
Incest and The Libertarian Question
Stanley Kurtz wrote a piece titled The Libertarian Question in which he attacks polygamy, incest, and homosexuality. His title refers to the question that libertarians ask about polygamy, homosexuality, and incest, that if these minority sexual practices are legalized, how does it harm those with normal sexual practices? There is no harm in a physical sense. A gay couple having sex in the house next door does not affect me in the same way that a murderer stabbing me in the chest with a knife does. Even though fringe consensual sex doesn't physically harm other people, Kurtz is still critical of the practices. He begins by looking at incest.
Kurtz says the following: "The reason we need an incest taboo is because there is no effective way for the state to protect children from sexual abuse by family members. Children are essentially at the mercy of the adults who care for them." He is pretty much saying that a ban of incest is needed because if you don't ban sex between children and their parents, they will do it anyway. But if he thinks that a ban on child sex is insufficient to stop parents from abusing their children, what makes him think parents are going to stop having sex with their children after incest is banned?
The rest of the article is very long and he talks about homosexuality, polygamy, as well as many other abnormal sexual practices. But I will restrict this post to the topic of incest.
What annoys me most about this piece is that the author Steven Kurtz is a member of the Hoover Institution, an institution that claims the following in its mission statement: "[T]he Institution itself must constantly and dynamically point the road to peace, to personal freedom, and to the safeguards of the American system."
Personal freedom? Why then does this guy condemn homosexuality, incest, and polygamy?
The deeper problem, of course, is the sexual abuse of children by older family members. The impossibility of real consent, as well as the potential psychological damage in cases of incestuous child abuse, are matters of very serious concern.Even if a libertarian wants to spread freedom, the ability to consent is assumed to come about with sufficient maturity. This means that usually libertarians will not advocate total freedom for children simply because they are too young to make decisions for themselves. Most libertarians then would not advocate sex between children and adults even if both parties consent. However, if it can be argued that child sex does not harm children, as some pedophiles like Lindsay Ashford claim, then things may be different. If a father or mother decides to have consentual sex with his or her daughter or son who is above the age of consent, what is the problem? One argument that can be made is that incest increases the odds of genetic diseases in offspring, which can be seen as harmful to future generations. Kurtz doesn't use this argument though. He claims that if sex between fathers and mature daughters is allowed, this makes sex between adult and children more tempting.
To see the mechanism of our incest taboo at work, imagine a world in which consensual adult incest was legal. Once we see or hear of couples — even a relatively small number — who engage in legal, consensual, adult incestuous relationships, the whole idea of incest with minors becomes thinkable.Pretty much, because you see the act happening around you, you are more likely to do it yourself. But if we are to take this idea and apply it to other aspects, then we would have to ban all violent movies because people might think it's okay to murder. We'd have to ban driving because driving under the speed limit might make it too tempting to drive over the speed limit. We'd have to ban mobile phones because their existence makes it too tempting to use these mobile phones as timing devices in bombs used for terrorist attacks. The list goes on. Any politician can claim this causes that causes this. In this complex world, just about everything causes everything.
Kurtz says the following: "The reason we need an incest taboo is because there is no effective way for the state to protect children from sexual abuse by family members. Children are essentially at the mercy of the adults who care for them." He is pretty much saying that a ban of incest is needed because if you don't ban sex between children and their parents, they will do it anyway. But if he thinks that a ban on child sex is insufficient to stop parents from abusing their children, what makes him think parents are going to stop having sex with their children after incest is banned?
[O]nly by building into adults a psychological mechanism of disgust and horror at incest can society protect children from the psychological harm of abuse by close relatives.Why can't a psychological mechanism of disgust and horror at pedophilia be established to protect children from psychological harm? Why attack something more general and therefore forbid harmless and innocent acts? For example, let's take the act of having adult sex in general. Adult sex can be classified as consensual sex or non-consensual sex. Using Kurtz's arguments, I could argue that there needs to be a psychological mechanism of digust and horror at all sex (even consensual sex) so that victims of rape can be protected. Why not just condemn rape specifically in stead of targeting sex in general? By targeting sex in general you forbid both consensual adult sex as well as rape. If nobody can have sex then the human race will be extinct in the long run. Likewise, why forbid all incest when incest between father and mature daughter is harmless and incest between father and immature daughter is assumes to be harmful?
The rest of the article is very long and he talks about homosexuality, polygamy, as well as many other abnormal sexual practices. But I will restrict this post to the topic of incest.
What annoys me most about this piece is that the author Steven Kurtz is a member of the Hoover Institution, an institution that claims the following in its mission statement: "[T]he Institution itself must constantly and dynamically point the road to peace, to personal freedom, and to the safeguards of the American system."
Personal freedom? Why then does this guy condemn homosexuality, incest, and polygamy?
15 August 2007
The Relationship between Inequality and Polygamy
I am going to assume that when women want to marry they only care about how much money a man makes. This may or may not be true.
Some people say polygamy can be good for women because just about all women want to marry a man with lots of money and have babies with him. In a society where there is a huge gap between rich and poor, e.g. Australia under John Howard, this puts a lot of pressure in females to marry the rich men. The females go to huge lengths to compete with other females to marry the rich men before it's too late. If they don't get the rich man by the time they're 30, chances are they will be too old and will have to settle for the poorer guy, the Aussie battler. Why would any woman want to marry a man who both votes for John Howard and complains about him at the same time?
If polygamy were legalized, then rich men would naturally want hundreds of wives each. Women then have a good chance of fulfilling their dream of marrying rich men. The losers from polygamy would be poor men.
Monogamy then can be seen as protectionism by low-income males.
One could argue however that a female would not like to be with a man if she has to share him with hundreds of other females. Suppose a rich man is willing and able to spend $1000 on his wives per week while a poor man is willing and able to spend only $100 on wife per week. If the rich man already has 10 wives and a female is thinking about being his 11th wife, then assuming the $1000 is shared among all wives equally, each wife would get $90.90 (1000/11). That female would have been better off getting the $100 from the poor guy.
Clearly then the degree of polygamy in society will re-equilibrate itself to changes in social inequality. As inequality increases, the female demand for polygamy will increase. As inequality decreases, the female demand for polygamy will decrease.
Suppose a country only allowed monogamy. If all of a sudden there were an inequality shock and all the wealth in the country were put into the hands of one man, then one woman is lucky while every other woman is worse off because she wants to marry that rich man but cannot. We can see monogamy then as a welfare loss for society and women during times of high inequality.
What I would like to do is to collect data on countries around the world where polygamy is legalized and then, for each country, get data on the average number of wives each man has. Then I will see whether there is a statistical relationship between the average number of wives men in that country have and the Gini coefficients.
CRITICISMS OF POLYGAMY
One of the criticisms of polygamy is that poor or ugly men don't get any women to marry because all the alpha males have taken away the women. As I said before, monogamy then is a protectionist policy that protects poor males. If they were not protected then they may go crazy and do silly things. Tyler Cowen in The Economics of Polygamy talks about the problem of "sexually frustrated males who are led to revolt, thus destroying social order."
Economists argue that the wretchedness of losers is no excuse for protectionism. Instead, they recommend that it's better to allow free trade and then set up a redistributive system to transfer wealth from winners to losers. For example, some people believe that capitalism as opposed to communism is evil because not everyone is talented enough to make money. Some people are going to be poor because they are not skilled enough. Under communism it is each according to his needs, each according to his abilities, etc. However, economists recommend there be free trade so that wealth can be generated in the first place. Once the wealth is generated, then taxes take away money from the rich and gives it to the poor in the form of welfare. This is arguably better than the communist system because the communist system usually doesn't work and no wealth is generated, meaning the poor can't eat anyway.
Applying the same concept to the marriage market, what should be done then is that money is taken away from rich and given to poor. Then women will not be so willing to marry the richest men as much.
Even if each man has two wives, it is clear that many men will lose out. But this is not all horrible because if there is equality for males and females then not only will men be able to have multiple wives but women will be able to have multiple husbands. If we assume that women want money then it follows that women will want to collect multiple husbands as well.
Some people say polygamy can be good for women because just about all women want to marry a man with lots of money and have babies with him. In a society where there is a huge gap between rich and poor, e.g. Australia under John Howard, this puts a lot of pressure in females to marry the rich men. The females go to huge lengths to compete with other females to marry the rich men before it's too late. If they don't get the rich man by the time they're 30, chances are they will be too old and will have to settle for the poorer guy, the Aussie battler. Why would any woman want to marry a man who both votes for John Howard and complains about him at the same time?
If polygamy were legalized, then rich men would naturally want hundreds of wives each. Women then have a good chance of fulfilling their dream of marrying rich men. The losers from polygamy would be poor men.
Monogamy then can be seen as protectionism by low-income males.
One could argue however that a female would not like to be with a man if she has to share him with hundreds of other females. Suppose a rich man is willing and able to spend $1000 on his wives per week while a poor man is willing and able to spend only $100 on wife per week. If the rich man already has 10 wives and a female is thinking about being his 11th wife, then assuming the $1000 is shared among all wives equally, each wife would get $90.90 (1000/11). That female would have been better off getting the $100 from the poor guy.
Clearly then the degree of polygamy in society will re-equilibrate itself to changes in social inequality. As inequality increases, the female demand for polygamy will increase. As inequality decreases, the female demand for polygamy will decrease.
Suppose a country only allowed monogamy. If all of a sudden there were an inequality shock and all the wealth in the country were put into the hands of one man, then one woman is lucky while every other woman is worse off because she wants to marry that rich man but cannot. We can see monogamy then as a welfare loss for society and women during times of high inequality.
What I would like to do is to collect data on countries around the world where polygamy is legalized and then, for each country, get data on the average number of wives each man has. Then I will see whether there is a statistical relationship between the average number of wives men in that country have and the Gini coefficients.
CRITICISMS OF POLYGAMY
One of the criticisms of polygamy is that poor or ugly men don't get any women to marry because all the alpha males have taken away the women. As I said before, monogamy then is a protectionist policy that protects poor males. If they were not protected then they may go crazy and do silly things. Tyler Cowen in The Economics of Polygamy talks about the problem of "sexually frustrated males who are led to revolt, thus destroying social order."
Economists argue that the wretchedness of losers is no excuse for protectionism. Instead, they recommend that it's better to allow free trade and then set up a redistributive system to transfer wealth from winners to losers. For example, some people believe that capitalism as opposed to communism is evil because not everyone is talented enough to make money. Some people are going to be poor because they are not skilled enough. Under communism it is each according to his needs, each according to his abilities, etc. However, economists recommend there be free trade so that wealth can be generated in the first place. Once the wealth is generated, then taxes take away money from the rich and gives it to the poor in the form of welfare. This is arguably better than the communist system because the communist system usually doesn't work and no wealth is generated, meaning the poor can't eat anyway.
Applying the same concept to the marriage market, what should be done then is that money is taken away from rich and given to poor. Then women will not be so willing to marry the richest men as much.
Even if each man has two wives, it is clear that many men will lose out. But this is not all horrible because if there is equality for males and females then not only will men be able to have multiple wives but women will be able to have multiple husbands. If we assume that women want money then it follows that women will want to collect multiple husbands as well.
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