Glenn thinks that a lot of the current concern about polygamy is an offshoot of the gay marriage debate. I think that's right, but we need to clarify terms here:

There's a pretty good argument that polygamy is usually bad for the societies it appears in, producing a large surplus of sullen, unmarriageable young men.

Polygamy per se (a marriage of more than two individuals) doesn't result in frustrated young men--that would be polygyny (the specific case in which it is one man married to multiple women). It could be balanced out with polyandry (in which one woman has several husbands). Judging by the fact that males are...ummmmm...orgasm challenged relative to healthy females, and the prevalence of porn fantasies (and perhaps real incidents, though I have no personal experience) about one woman satisfying a number of men, and all enjoying it, at least at the time, could in fact be popular if it weren't for that pesky male imperative to know whether or not your kids are really yours.

But I'm not aware of many societies that have general polygamy--it seems to be one or the other, with polygyny dominating for fairly obvious evolutionary-psychological reasons.

With the recent rulings about federalism saying that family law is a province of the states, Utah could pass a law allowing polygamy. I think that it would be hard for the US to revoke statehood (the original carrot causing them to ban it).

They could, but Mormons never believed in polygamy. They were (and some of the surviving sects in the smaller towns of southern Utah and northern Arizona are) polygynists.

There just isn't an argument that can be made for gay marriage under the law that wouldn't allow for polygamy. In fact, there is probably better arguments for polygamy (at least polygyny) due to the natural resultant offspring, then for gay marriage.

Part of the trick of polygyny is that it is a pyramid scheme. If men married at 45, women at 15, then every man could marry 77 virgins assuming an average of 8.5 children per women. :-)

It is extremely unlikely that any man (starting at 45) can keep 77 women pregnant often enough that each can average over 8 children. It is certain that most cannot.

What supprises me is how a conservative like Stanley Kurtz is more hung up about polyamory than polygamy. I would think it would be the other way around. In polygamy, one man has more than one wife. This increases sexual competition between hetrosexual men and increases the resultant male jealousy. Given that male jealousy is the most destructive of all human emotions, anything that reduces its prevailence would seem, at least to me, to be a good thing.

Stanley Kurtz, for inexplicable reasons, disagrees with me. He correctly understands that polyamory is not the same as polygamy. He also makes it clear (between the lines) in his screed "Beyond Gay Marriage" that he understands that polyamory will not lead to the same intense male competition (and male jealousy) that polygamy does. And yet, he believes that polyamory is actually worse for society than polygamy, whereas I believe exactly the opposite.

Perhaps someone can enlighten me as to where he is coming from.

Kurt --

First, I have to correct your terminology. "Polyamory" does not mean "one woman with multuple men". The term for that is "polyandry" -- literally "many men", just like "polyginy" mean "many women". "Polyamory" means ANY sexual combination with more than two partners. Thus polyginy and polyandry are both subsets of polyamory, as are group marriages, gay triples, etc.

Second, I read Kurtz's screed, and my understanding is that he is concerned little with "intense male competition" or not at all. His objection to ALL forms of polyamory (and he uses the term correctly) is that they make adultery more likely. He points out widespread male cheating in polyginous Nigeria -- especially among men who only have one wife ("I am supposed to have more, dammit!"). And he thinks that overall polyamory is worse because with legal polyginy only men feel entitled to cheat; with polyamory both men and women feel that way. IOW, when multiple-partner, any-combination marriages are legal and socially acceptable, ALL marriages are less stable. (That's Kurtz's claim -- I do not necessarily agree with it.)

That was my point Llya. The reason why adultery and why, indeed, any concept of sexual morality makes sense is that it reduces male competition and, therefor, male jealousy. As we all know well, jealousy is the most powerful and destructive of all human emotions. Sexual morality evolved as a counter balance to reduce male jealousy.

Since Stanley Kurtz does not seem to recognize intense male competition as the root of all the problems of unrestrained sexuality, he undermines his case for a concept of sexual morality.