Polygamy? It makes good tax sense

[emad]

Telegraph
By Mark Steyn
(Filed: 28/12/2004)

When it comes to social progress - hang on, where are my scare quotes? - social "progress" - that's better. Anyway, when it comes to it, Britain and America often wind up at similar destinations but by two very different routes.


In the US, big changes - on abortion, gay marriage - are ushered in by judges claiming to have discovered a hitherto unknown right to them lurking in the "emanations" of the "penumbra" of the constitution: the "right to privacy", for example, under which abortion was legalised coast to coast. In Britain, everything's much more incremental and utilitarian: there was no great constitutional principle or human right attached to the legalisation of abortion; it was just a practical approach to a political problem.

On the whole, I prefer the American way. If someone constructs a great epic principle as the justification for social change - "a woman's right to choose" - it's very easy to respond with a great epic principle of your own - the "right to life". That's one reason why the anti-abortion movement in America is a going concern - and, indeed, year on year winning the argument. In Britain, by contrast, it's very hard to argue a great principle in the absence of any on the other side: "right to life" works well against the "right to choose"; it's less effective when the other chaps are mumbling, "Yes, well, there we are. Difficult question, did the best we could, all in the past now, no point raking everything up again.".................

and......

In Britain, on the other hand, redefining marriage is, like abortion law, much more pragmatic. According to Nicholas Hellen in this weekend's Sunday Times, "The Inland Revenue is considering recognising polygamy for some religious groups for tax purposes. Officials have agreed to examine `family friendly' representations from Muslims who take up to four wives under sharia, the laws derived from the Koran. Existing rules allow only one wife for inheritance tax purposes. The Revenue has been asked to relax this so that a husband's estate can be divided tax-free between several wives."

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POLYGAMY sucks. Taxbreaks for men's multiple partners? Only if women accorded the same priviledges.
Otherwise it's the same age old abuse: sharing your man/human rights in the name of religion....

[sam sarrha]

1. i have one wife i dont have sex with, why have four around that dont have

sex with you... it is a consparicy.

[PaganPreacher]

2. I have polyamorous friends. It's good, and bad.

They would benefit from such tax breaks.

Polyamory between consenting adults makes sense to me. A large family, sharing the burdens between three or more adults, sounds like a great thing.

I don't think most people would be able to live that way, though. My friends have had problems over the years. Sometimes, their "third" was a man, and sometimes a woman. The problems seem evenly split between the sexes: jealousy, feeling left out, or feeling like the low person on the totem pole.

In an equal power dynamic, it seems almost impossible to find the right combination of physical and intellectual attraction, and support of sexual and social polyamory.



The Pagan Preacher
I don't turn the other cheek.

[emad]

4. Re: sharing.....like chlamydia, non-specific uretheritis, candida,

genital herpes, warts, cross-infections etc?

Keeping it all in the family along with those pesky inheritance tax breaks...

[PaganPreacher]

6. Do you have those problems in your monogamous relationship?

In a closed circle, there is no portal to introduce those things.



The Pagan Preacher
I don't turn the other cheek.

[emad]

8. Nope, not yet! But my neighbor used to run a sexual diseases

clinic in Utah and you wouldn't believe the crap that gets passed on in polygamous families - especially from father to daughter.

[Sunny_Sunshine]

5. At a time when it takes 2 incomes

Having a third person in the home sounds great. How many busy women have said "I need a wife." Yes, there are many problems, just as there are many of the same problems in marriage between just two people.

[mistertrickster]

3. Two wives . . . double the nagging, double the pouting and whining.

Yeah, good idea.

[Skittles]

7. if that's how the women in your life treat you

they've probably got good reasons