this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2023
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~~Polygamy~~ Polygyny, in particular, is a largely religious institution. In no small part that’s due to the fact that ~~polygamy~~ polygyny is inherently patriarchal, and nearly all modern religions are too, so it makes sense that it would be found predominantly in religious communities and histories.
Polyamory, however, is neither patriarchal or matriarchal. It is freedom for everyone involved to have relationships in any capacity they want, including women and other non-male gendered people to be with whoever they want. Patriarchal societies will never accept something that gives women that type of freedom and power over their own lives.
Edit: I got some terminology wrong and thought polygamy was one man multiple women, but the term just refers to having multiple spouses. Polygyny is one man multiple women. Which def means I took the conversation down a weird hole.
right, thanks for enlightening me where your opinion comes from. Not that the constant mention of patriarchy in places it has no relevance wasn't already a red flag.
I'd still like to highlight the inherent sexism in excluding a single group, in this case males, from your supposed Polyamorous Utopia. If it really was independent of the "patriarchy" or a "matriarchy" there would be no need to single out any gender or sexual orientation no? To me it seems like you are simply trying to invert a perceived victim status instead of abolishing victims entirely. Inverting your ideals from time to time helps illustrate inherent flaws or discrimination, helped me get out of the feminism-hate section of the internet, might help you get out of the all-men-are-evil section.
@neshura @June good job inventing a perceived victim status as if your target wasn't directly responding to a comment about polygamy
are you gonna apologise for your baseless attack, or just let it lie on the record without addressing any of the issues raised?
so how exactly does that correlate to excluding men from the equation? That was my point. The discussion was about polygamy and they A) brought up the patriarchy pretty much unprompted (I don't see how Polygamy is inherently patriarchal, most patriarchal societies are strictly monogamous and while more lenient on a man in case of an infraction of the monogamous relationship Society still punish them. I see that more as a result of the elevated standing of a man in a patriarchal society than from the alleged inherent polygamy) and then B) proceeded to be just as sexist as the alleged Patriarchy by excluding men from polyamory/suggesting men can already be with however many partners of whatever gender and sexual orientation they want (ask any gay guy: really not the case, having multiple relationships with people is in most countries considered adultery/cheating, so also a no on the "however many")
if what I wrote comes off as an attack focused on a "target" I truly feel sorry for you, must be hard living in a world where everyone is out to get you. If you can't accept people challenging your beliefs without immediately being angered that is cause for serious concern, I've been there I'd know. Just on the opposite of the spectrum where you apparently are right now. Doesn't make the fanaticism any more healthy. If in your life so far everyone truly has been out to get you, you have my condolences and hope that the situation improves for you, in that case I'd suggest getting off the internet or liberally employing blocking instead of entering discussions.
What issues raised? The only "issue" I see raised is the allegation that
1: somehow polygamy is based only in religion because it is patriarchal. I'm not well read on the religion part but polygamy being a patriarchal construct just isn't the case given historic precedent. More likely it's an elitist construct given how it is (when appearing) mostly prevalent in the higher ranks of society and not among the common folk and how among the elite women having affairs was also a thing, that was a lot rarer but still happened.
2: Somehow a patriarchal society will not allow polyamory. Technically part of a patriarchal society but more a byproduct of biology than a construct designed by men to oppress women. Polyamory not being prevalent is down to the same reason why in the past men accused their partner of cheating when the son of the blue eyed man had no blue eyes: There is an inherent biological drive to leave offspring. We might lose that drive some day but for now we're stuck with it. Since men don't have an easy identifier to make sure the kid is theirs (women physically push the child out of their body, pretty strong indicator for who the mother is) they resort to whatever option they have available. That also includes generally, as in not all men do this, (sub-)consciously preferring monogamous relationships over polyamorous ones. Now you could swap out a patriarchy for a matriarchy or any other societal blueprint and it would not change much in that preference. Upbringing can help mold that preference a bit but overall it's still there. So I can't see how blaming the patriarchy helps here, monogamy and patriarchy are correlated, not causally linked. One does not cause the other but where one appears, the other also happens to appear (at the very least in one direction: in patriarchal societies monogamy appears).
At this point I'd highlight something that might help understand why Polygamy isn't inherently linked with the Patriarchy: There is a rough 50/50 split between males and females in the human population (yes I'm ignoring homosexuals and non-binary here, won't matter for the point I'm making, it'd simply change the numbers to 47/47 or whatever the percentages are). Most men have a biological drive to leave offspring (ignoring external factors making them decide against it such as poverty or bad environment) which works out to roughly one possible woman per man to be in a relationship (assuming all men actually manage to get into a relationship by behaving accordingly). If we introduce Polygamy suddenly there is a "lack" of women a man can try to get into a relationship with for sub-average men. Naturally those men will be dissatisfied that one man is "hogging" multiple women for himself, therefore uniting them in the common goal of getting rid of polygamy so they can have a change.
I brought up patriarchy because ~~polygamy~~ polygyny (one man, multiple wives) is inherently patriarchal. Same as ~~polygyny~~ polyandry (one woman many husbands) being matriarchal. While polyamory is genderless and everyone is free to pursue their own relationships.
This isn’t a controversial take. I never excluded men from the equation, I simply pointed out that polyamory is different from ~~polygamy~~ in that women can have more than one partner as well, something that polygamy doesn’t allow.
The rest of your comment here is word salad and idk what you’re getting at. But the basis of your offense is rooted in ~~a~~ my own misunderstanding of the ~~conversation and~~ terms being referred to.
Edit: I got some terminology wrong and thought polygamy was one man multiple women, but the term just refers to having multiple spouses. Polygyny is one man multiple women. Which def means I took the conversation down a weird hole.
@June I'm sorry? but isn't:
polyandry = multiple male partners
polygyny = multiple female partners
polygamy = multiple whatever partners?
Just so that we're on the same page?
(source: quick google search to verify that I'm not crazy)
@neshura
Oh hey, I learned something, thank you. Not sure where I got my definitions from but I’d have sworn i had it right, but polygamy is just the practice of having multiple spouses, you’re right.
I’d done a fair bit of research on it a while ago and either had bad info or bad memory. Thanks for the correction! I’ll go make edits and let that other person know I got the terminology wrong.
@June Happy to help.
right, I can see why we talked past each other. When I hear polygamy I understand that as one person with mutiple partners (imagine the spoke of a wheel) whereas I understand polyamory as a web. I don't differentiate between the genders because frankly it doesn't make a lick of sense to do so imo. If you're gonna be fine with one you should be fine with the other type of deal.
Word salad was mostly me not even knowing how the second person chpping in here got seemingly so offended and trying to overexplain.
Wouldn't really say it was an offense, got offended by the second person accusing me of a "baseless attack" though. Just tired of both extremes so I get pissy when I see either (the "all men pigs" and "women belong to the kitchen" extremes). Definitely should have asked for clarification though.
Got it, yea. The definition here def matters for the conversation.
I agree that if you’re ok with polygamy, you should be ok with the other types of non-monogamy. But, with polygamy in particular being practiced predominantly by religious folks (namely Mormons and Muslims) the philosophy is centered around the man being in charge. Women are not allowed to have multiple partners, even among the wives. The husband is the only partner they’re allowed to have. Hence the commentary on patriarchy and me taking the time to specify that women and non-male gendered folks have a different experience with polyamory.
As a polyamorous person myself, I personally don’t find polygamy or polygyny to be ethical in practice because they both restrict what all but one can do with their bodies.
And to be clear, I don’t think matriarchy is any better than patriarchy. Both result in the oppression of one group of people for the benefit of the other. It just so happens that western society is built on predominantly patriarchal principles, so it gets brought up a lot more.
Apologies for interpreting your reply as offense too. I know where you’re coming from and have a few topics that I feel similarly on. I’ll admit that I do get in on the ‘all men suck’ train when the context and company are on the same page as me but that honestly has more to do with my own gender journey than it has to do with actual men (and the people I’m with in those times understand that). I know a lot of good men, I just don’t want to be lumped in with them anymore.
Hey, just wanted to follow up that you had the definition of polygamy right and I had it wrong. I got polygamy and polygyny melded together in my head, but polygamy is the blanket term for having multiple spouses and polygyny is one man multiple wives. I kinda set us up for this misunderstanding and wanted to own that and make sure you knew.
Got it, yea. The definition here def matters for the conversation.
I agree that if you’re ok with polygamy, you should be ok with the other types of non-monogamy. But, with polygamy in particular being practiced predominantly by religious folks (namely Mormons and Muslims) the philosophy is centered around the man being in charge. Women are not allowed to have multiple partners, even among the wives. The husband is the only partner they’re allowed to have. Hence the commentary on patriarchy and me taking the time to specify that women and non-male gendered folks have a different experience with polyamory.
As a polyamorous person myself, I personally don’t find polygamy or polygyny to be ethical in practice because they both restrict what all but one can do with their bodies.
And to be clear, I don’t think matriarchy is any better than patriarchy. Both result in the oppression of one group of people for the benefit of the other. It just so happens that western society is built on predominantly patriarchal principles, so it gets brought up a lot more.
Apologies for interpreting your reply as offense too. I know where you’re coming from and have a few topics that I feel similarly on. I’ll admit that I do get in on the ‘all men suck’ train when the context and company are on the same page as me but that honestly has more to do with my own gender journey than it has to do with actual men (and the people I’m with in those times understand that). I know a lot of good men, I just don’t want to be lumped in with them anymore.
Got it, yea. The definition here def matters for the conversation.
I agree that if you’re ok with polygamy, you should be ok with the other types of non-monogamy. But, with polygamy in particular being practiced predominantly by religious folks (namely Mormons and Muslims) the philosophy is centered around the man being in charge. Women are not allowed to have multiple partners, even among the wives. The husband is the only partner they’re allowed to have. Hence the commentary on patriarchy and me taking the time to specify that women and non-male gendered folks have a different experience with polyamory.
As a polyamorous person myself, I personally don’t find polygamy or polygyny to be ethical in practice because they both restrict what all but one can do with their bodies.
And to be clear, I don’t think matriarchy is any better than patriarchy. Both result in the oppression of one group of people for the benefit of the other. It just so happens that western society is built on predominantly patriarchal principles, so it gets brought up a lot more.
Apologies for interpreting your reply as offense too. I know where you’re coming from and have a few topics that I feel similarly on. I’ll admit that I do get in on the ‘all men suck’ train when the context and company are on the same page as me but that honestly has more to do with my own gender journey than it has to do with actual men (and the people I’m with in those times understand that). I know a lot of good men, I just don’t want to be lumped in with them anymore.
it's funny that you wrote like 5000 words based on a misreading.
they said that polyamory is different from polygamy because non-males have more freedom in polyamory tyan in polygamy.
you misread that to mean only women get that freedom. that is not true. everyone gets the freedom, but in polygamy men already had it, so op omitted it.
try to spend more time understanding and less time ranting and raving. i sincerely mean this, and with empathy: something about this comment thread triggered you, and you might wanna think through it.
If you read my other comment chain with June (which you apparently have) you would know that the accusation of me supposedly attacking June is what triggered me, not June's statement. (As evident by the much calmer tone of that convo) I was annoyed by her statement but not to the point of starting a rant, that only happened after lexi thought it a good idea to add her own toxic soup. The result was a toxic² response from me. Was that a healthy response? Certainly not and I hope I can learn from it for similar situations in the future. Not defending myself here, that rant is pretty sad to look at in hindsight but the cause of it certainly wasn't June's statements.
you are a cool unicorn
@neshura
words. i'm glad they bring you comfort in lieu of meaning
the person who can't see the patriarchy for the polygamy apparently believes monogamy is not about control of property
many years of reflection and cringe ahead of you. good luck with that
Only thing you typed I can agree with but I'm afraid for entirely different reason. I'd say if I look back at my self of a couple years ago and don't cringe at at least some of my choices I went wrong in life. Unfortunately for you I really don't see myself drifting off the deep end as badly as you have, been there once already and don't really plan on visiting again. Was a dark place that.
... you dont think polygamy is patriarchal?? or "the heavenly father"???
I think the word just triggers you. you know men can participate in polyamory too right?
I think by now you read my other comment (the comment chain with June) so it should be cleared up why I didn't associate polygamy with patriarchy.
As for me being triggered by the world patriarchy: you are absolutely correct. It's a habit I've built on less discussion friendly sites that I need to get rid of. Unfortunately for now my immediate assumption upon reading that word (unless in an academic context) is that whoever uttered it has a pretty hardcore disgust of men. Fortunately I have not seen these takes around here much if at all hence my need to lose that habit. It's definitely not healthy and, as seen in this trainwreck of a rant, definitely doesn't contribute to a healthy discussion.