Is Polygamy Legally Permitted in Canada?

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Discussion Overview

The discussion centers around the legal status of polygamy in Canada, with participants exploring various perspectives on marriage, civil unions, and the implications of legal definitions on personal rights and religious beliefs. The conversation touches on the intersection of law, religion, and societal norms, particularly in the context of same-sex marriage and the rights of individuals in unions.

Discussion Character

  • Debate/contested
  • Conceptual clarification
  • Exploratory

Main Points Raised

  • Some participants argue that all unions should be termed "civil unions" to ensure equal rights for all, regardless of sexual orientation, while reserving the term "marriage" for religious contexts.
  • Others contend that using religious definitions for civil matters violates the principle of separation of church and state, suggesting that bans on same-sex marriage infringe on both civil rights and religious freedoms.
  • A participant questions the justification for banning marriages between close relatives, suggesting that the reasoning should focus on procreation rather than the nature of the relationship itself.
  • Concerns are raised about the portrayal of the debate in media and the influence of external funding on public perception and discourse.
  • Some participants highlight the financial motivations behind seeking legal marriage, such as benefits related to health insurance, while questioning the likelihood of same-sex couples having children.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants express a range of views on the definitions and implications of marriage and civil unions, with no clear consensus reached on the appropriateness of religious definitions in legal contexts or the motivations behind marriage rights.

Contextual Notes

There are unresolved assumptions regarding the definitions of marriage and civil unions, as well as the implications of legal recognition on personal rights. The discussion also reflects varying perspectives on the role of religion in defining marriage.

  • #181
Here is a searchable database of the contributors to Prop 8.

http://www.sfgate.com/webdb/prop8/

Plug in the state of Utah and look at the kind of money they spent to meddle with gays in California.

What kind of small minded people in this time of economic stress would be so committed to fund such mischief?

Did the Archangel Moroni put them up to it?
 
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  • #182
CaptainQuasar said:
Most wives were said to be in manus of the husband, which meant something like "in the power of" legally (I'm not sure if that's going to literally mean "in hand" - anybody read Latin?) which was the same term used to describe the relationship of one who is a slave of another.

Chattel.

Those were the good old days of Empire and Dominion for men.

Now that they got the vote ...
 
  • #183
Cap'n, i think some of that crazy sex thought in the church comes from some weird ideas about Mary. catholics, at least, like to think of her as always being chaste and will go out of their way to argue that Jesus' siblings mentioned in the Bible are not his actual blood relatives but cousins or something because Mary actually having relations with Joseph after the birth of Jesus is just WRONG for some reason. i don't get it. but for some reason they can't conceive of her as a flesh and blood human or of sex as pure and God-ordained.

and there is also some teaching by Paul (formerly Saul) about those serving the church being better able to devote themselves to it if they don't have a spouse. but he makes it clear that this is not a requirement from God, just his personal suggestion. and also, Paul has some sort of "thorn in his flesh" and maybe that is what keeps him celibate. we are never told.

also in the new testament, officers in the church (deacons and elders) are restricted to having only one wife. perhaps this is because a man with more than one wife has little time to devote to making sure widows have their bread. one will keep you busy enough. but i don't think it actually says have two wives is bad, or frowned upon, it just excludes you from office. and maybe I'm interpreting the passage wrong, but nowadays "more than one wife" seems to be read as "not divorced and re-married". i like to think it could actually mean two at the same time.

i wouldn't be surprised if Roman rule is the source of monogamy. Christianity did have a hard time in the early days of Rome, but in the end it was a subversive force and soon became the national religion there. and quite a few traditions were absorbed, such as Christmas, that are not part of the original religion. and we still do this today, where the overall culture is absorbed into the religion. a modern example related to this topic might be thinking it is wrong for teenagers to get married.

now, going back to old testament, abraham had two sons, one with a woman that might be considered real chattel. and that woman's son was not considered a legitimate heir.

others did have multiple wives, like Jacob's Rachael and Leah. i can't remember exactly how that turned out except for lots of strife, so it's generally pointed to as an argument against polygamy. and i think David had more than one, but don't remember what happened there. but polygamy was well-established in old times, and, i think, probably at least tolerated in the beginning of the Christian era.
 
  • #184
The 9th circuit is busy finding a way to declare it unconstitutional, as we speak.
 
  • #185
Phrak said:
The 9th circuit is busy finding a way to declare it unconstitutional, as we speak.

And so we should pray.
 
  • #186
CaptainQuasar said:
"Marriage" leads back to the Latin word maritatus which is usually translated as "husband", whereas the Latin word "matrimonium", one of the words for something like marriage, derives from mater, mother.

Most wives were said to be in manus of the husband, which meant something like "in the power of" legally (I'm not sure if that's going to literally mean "in hand" - anybody read Latin?) which was the same term used to describe the relationship of one who is a slave of another.

I have maritatus 'married', the past participle of maritatre 'to marry'. I don't know how that could be translated husband; as I recall, classical Latin had vir for both 'man' and 'husband'. French does have a similar form, though: mari 'husband'.

Your source is correct that wives are under the manus of the pater familias 'father of the family'/'head of household'/'patriarch'. But this says less about the wife than the husband, as the same power was applied to (say) adult children. All of the household was under the protection and authority of the pater familias.

Even if children married and moved out, they were still under the authority (sub manu, which is as you suggested 'under the hand') of the pater familias until his death.
 
  • #187
That book mentions vir as a word for "man" also. But the Online Etymological Dictionary agrees with the association of maritus to "marriage" and gives a Sanskrit cognate as well:
Online Etymological Dictionary entry for "marry" said:
1297, from O.Fr. marier, from L. maritare "to wed, marry, give in marriage," from maritus "married man, husband," of uncertain origin, perhaps ult. from "provided with a *mari," a young woman, from PIE base *meri- "young wife," akin to *meryo- "young man" (cf. Skt. marya- "young man, suitor").

In Googling around I found another word that may be related maryannu in an ancient language Hurro-Urartian, which I have never heard of before. Maryannu originally meant "charioteer" evidently and later came to refer to the men of the nobility of some ancient nation.

[EDIT] Oops, it looks like I spelled maritus wrong in that first post. Sorry, my familiarity with Latin is tangential.
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  • #188
Proton Soup said:
Cap'n, i think some of that crazy sex thought in the church comes from some weird ideas about Mary. catholics, at least, like to think of her as always being chaste and will go out of their way to argue that Jesus' siblings mentioned in the Bible are not his actual blood relatives but cousins or something because Mary actually having relations with Joseph after the birth of Jesus is just WRONG for some reason. i don't get it. but for some reason they can't conceive of her as a flesh and blood human or of sex as pure and God-ordained.

I think the Catholic belief stems from this tradition in the Gospel of James (not a part of the Bible), which asserts that Mary was dedicated to the temple (and that Joseph was a much older widower). Google dragged this up for me:
"And the priest said to Joseph, You have been chosen by lot to take into your keeping the virgin of the Lord. But Joseph refused, saying: I have children, and I am an old man, and she is a young girl. I am afraid lest I become a laughing-stock..."

This would be a tradition, like the Nazarenes, that put strong restrictions on their members that would not apply to Jewish society at large. The claim that Mary remained a virgin would then be related to the claim that she stayed true to the life she had been promised to.

I am unaware of any scholarship regarding the existence of such a tradition, the historic content of the Gospel of James, or the like. But this is the historical reason behind the claim, not a belief in the badness of sex or the like. (That became popular about a thousand years later.) Captain Quasar is correct in his reading of Augustine, but that view was not in the majority for hundreds of years, and my personal understanding is that it was a reaction to Augustine's earlier days as a playboy.
 
  • #189
CaptainQuasar said:
That book mentions vir as a word for "man" also. But the Online Etymological Dictionary agrees with the association of maritus to "marriage" and gives a Sanskrit cognate as well:

I don't disagree with any of that. Maritus is a root of marriage, and it's not surprising that Sanskrit also has a reflex from their common root. I just didn't think that it was related to a Latin word for 'husband'.

CaptainQuasar said:
In Googling around I found another word that may be related maryannu in an ancient language Hurro-Urartian, which I have never heard of before. Maryannu originally meant "charioteer" evidently and later came to refer to the men of the nobility of some ancient nation.

It's hard for me to believe that those are related. The Hurro-Urartian family isn't even Indo-European! Even if they were related, it would be only by an early borrowing from the Anatolian branch of Indo-European [edit: because the rest of the early IE languages were far from Turkey where the Hurro-Urartian languages were spoken]. And for a borrowing that old, I'd be surprised if the forms were that similar...
 
  • #190
CRGreathouse said:
I am unaware of any scholarship regarding the existence of such a tradition, the historic content of the Gospel of James, or the like. But this is the historical reason behind the claim, not a belief in the badness of sex or the like. (That became popular about a thousand years later.)

maybe badness isn't exactly it, but I'm given the impression by a catholic friend that Mary is considered to have been born without sin (because God/Jesus and sin cannot exist together) and never did sin. and though they deny the deity of Mary, this kind of perfection places her in the same class of deity as Jesus himself, and they constantly refer to her as the Mother of God. and deities don't have sex, they are chaste, like... Jesus and Mary. while this doesn't explicitly claim that sex is bad, it does give the impression that chastity gets one closer to deity, while sex pushes you away from deity.
 
  • #191
You can't help feeling that christianity would have been better if Paul had got laid more.
 
  • #192
CRGreathouse said:
It's hard for me to believe that those are related. The Hurro-Urartian family isn't even Indo-European!

Certainly, I forgot to mention that - it would have to be a loan word instead of a cognate. But I came across a couple of different scholars suggesting the relationship (though not stating it with iron-clad certainty.)
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  • #193
CRGreathouse said:
Captain Quasar is correct in his reading of Augustine, but that view was not in the majority for hundreds of years, and my personal understanding is that it was a reaction to Augustine's earlier days as a playboy.

Regardless of the cause of it (although some scholars are skeptical that Augustine was really ever that much of a playboy by Roman standards) the reason why the negative view of sexuality came to loom large in Christian culture and theology was the same reason other doctrines of his - just war, original sin, the Church as a supernatural entity with existence beyond the physical, Mariological assertions that Mary was free from temporal sin, etc. - were adopted whole-heartedly by many people who probably didn't even know they originated with him; because he became the theologian of highest repute. It's some of his personal neuroses written large upon history.

Many of his doctrines, such as views on the anointed authority of the Church, were there in large part because he was personally involved in the conflict with and extermination of the Donatist Christian sect in North Africa. And unfortunately this also set a precedent and tradition for how the Roman Church dealt with groups of Christians who wished to be independent.
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  • #194
Proton Soup said:
maybe badness isn't exactly it, but I'm given the impression by a catholic friend that Mary is considered to have been born without sin (because God/Jesus and sin cannot exist together) and never did sin. and though they deny the deity of Mary, this kind of perfection places her in the same class of deity as Jesus himself, and they constantly refer to her as the Mother of God. and deities don't have sex, they are chaste, like... Jesus and Mary. while this doesn't explicitly claim that sex is bad, it does give the impression that chastity gets one closer to deity, while sex pushes you away from deity.

Ah. That's a different issue.

Catholics have an unusual notion of 'original sin', that is, inborn sin. (I'm not entirely familiar with the nuances of the doctrine, but I trust they're not required.) Mary is claimed to have been born without this original sin, and to have not sinned herself. This ostensibly made her an appropriate receptacle for Jesus.

That Mary was sinless is an important point in Christian/Catholic theology and has been taught since before the Schism. That Mary was a virgin is less important, and in fact was not official Catholic teaching until relatively recently. (Sorry, no reference handy, but past the middle ages as I recall.)

Similarly, the Eastern Orthodox churches views Mary's sinlessness as official doctrine, while does not attach the same level of belief to her status as a perpetual virgin. (This belief is still held in those churches.)
 
  • #195
What I don't understand is why the Mormons would undertake to push such an initiative?

Are they feeling so politically impotent after Romney's rejection that they just had to try and mug California to impose their narrow faith based view on Californians?
 
  • #196
CaptainQuasar said:
Many of his doctrines, such as views on the anointed authority of the Church, were there in large part because he was personally involved in the conflict with and extermination of the Donatist Christian sect in North Africa. And unfortunately this also set a precedent and tradition for how the Roman Church dealt with groups of Christians who wished to be independent.

Hmm... I don't know that I can agree with that. I think Christianity has fragmented more freely and more frequently than most religions. First the Oriental Orthodoxy, then the Eastern Orthodox; not much bad blood, and no more conflict that would be usual between nations. The various Protestant schisms did lead to conflict, but most of that also seemed like ordinary nationalist struggles reinterpreted in a religious conflict. And today's near-total cessation of violence (the last gasps of the IRA notwithstanding) brings the total years of conflict to about 500. Compare that to the 1350+ years of bloodshed between the Sunni and the Shi'a! And there have been serious movements toward reconciliation (of varying degrees) between different Christian churches in the last 30 years.
 
  • #198
CRGreathouse said:
The LDS Church states its views here:
http://www.newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/commentary/the-divine-institution-of-marriage

I'm not going to slog through it myself, but if someone would like to leave a summary that might be useful.

Thanks for the link. I guess I should have looked there before asking.
LDS said:
And in some important areas, religious freedom may be diminished.

I grapple with understanding this still. The thinking is rather convoluted insofar as there is a presumption that restricting the rights of others can be justified by as yet no demonstrable diminishment of their own rights.

It's tantamount to suggesting they don't like it and they aren't going to let others do it, as though it's their business in the first place.
 
  • #199
CRGreathouse said:
Hmm... I don't know that I can agree with that. I think Christianity has fragmented more freely and more frequently than most religions. First the Oriental Orthodoxy, then the Eastern Orthodox; not much bad blood, and no more conflict that would be usual between nations. The various Protestant schisms did lead to conflict, but most of that also seemed like ordinary nationalist struggles reinterpreted in a religious conflict. And today's near-total cessation of violence (the last gasps of the IRA notwithstanding) brings the total years of conflict to about 500. Compare that to the 1350+ years of bloodshed between the Sunni and the Shi'a! And there have been serious movements toward reconciliation (of varying degrees) between different Christian churches in the last 30 years.

There's definitely a lot of sectarian conflict in all religions and much of it is really terrible. But before Augustine's time heretical sects simply got exiled beyond the bounds of the Empire, they were put under an interdiction order like the Nestorians. Afterwards, however, there were many cases of heretical groups being eradicated (or the attempt made) by the dominant Christian culture like with the Bogomils, Albigensians, Waldensians, Montanists, et cetera.
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  • #200
LowlyPion said:
Thanks for the link. I guess I should have looked there before asking.


I grapple with understanding this still. The thinking is rather convoluted insofar as there is a presumption that restricting the rights of others can be justified by as yet no demonstrable diminishment of their own rights.

It's tantamount to suggesting they don't like it and they aren't going to let others do it, as though it's their business in the first place.

read the section on "Tolerance,..."
 
  • #201
Proton Soup said:
read the section on "Tolerance,..."

I read the whole thing and it folds in on itself apparently justifying their brand of tolerance which is apparently not to be tolerant of others.

I think they should be ashamed for trying to meddle with things that actually don't affect them in any other way than that they don't approve.
 
  • #202
Regardless of how USA states deal with same sex marriage, it makes little difference at the USA federal level. The USA congress passed the defense of marriage act as a law back in 1996. No state (or other political subdivision within the United States) need treat a relationship between persons of the same sex as a marriage, even if the relationship is considered a marriage in another state. The Federal Government may not treat same-sex relationships as marriages for any purpose, even if concluded or recognized by one of the states.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_Marriage_Act

Regarding "separation of church and state" in the USA, these words don't exist in the constitution. Instead it's an interpretation of the first amendment which applied to the federal legislator and not individual states at the time it was written. The words "wall of separation between church and state" were included in letters written by Roger Williams and later Thomas Jefferson in reference to the first amendment. This leter and later court decisions also distinguished between opinions (beliefs) as opposed to actions (behaviors). The point here being that Congress was deprived of all legislative power over mere opinion, but was left free to reach actions which were in violation of social duties or subversive of good order

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_church_and_state_in_the_United_States

Regarding religion versus homosexuality, note that communist China had no history of an Abrahamic religion, but homosexuality was illegal and persecuted until 1997:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_laws_of_the_world

Regarding homosexuality being innate ("born that way") or fixed (note some individuals sexual orientation does change over their lifetimes): Researchers have looked into a variety of possible causes for a homosexual orientation, including biological influences, prenatal hormones, prenatal stress, fraternal birth order, and environmental influences. The American Psychiatric Association has stated "some people believe that sexual orientation is innate and fixed; however, sexual orientation develops across a person’s lifetime." However, the American Psychological Association has stated "most people experience little or no sense of choice about their sexual orientation."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality
 
  • #203
Jeff Reid said:
No state (or other political subdivision within the United States) need treat a relationship between persons of the same sex as a marriage, even if the relationship is considered a marriage in another state. The Federal Government may not treat same-sex relationships as marriages for any purpose, even if concluded or recognized by one of the states.

Wow... it's amazing that such a bill was passed. I mean, how can people not cringe when reading the text?

Let's see if Obama repeals this.
 
  • #204
siddharth said:
Let's see if Obama repeals this.

Of course the President doesn't have the power to do that, it would take an act of Congress.
 
  • #205
CRGreathouse said:
Of course the President doesn't have the power to do that, it would take an act of Congress.

No but he can introduce legislation and he can sign it if passed.
Support Full Civil Unions and Federal Rights for LGBT Couples Barack Obama supports full civil unions that give same-sex couples equal legal rights and privileges as married couples, including the right to assist their loved ones in times of emergency as well as equal health insurance, employment benefits, and property and adoption rights. Obama also believes we need to fully repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and enact legislation that would ensure that the 1,100+ federal legal rights and benefits currently provided on the basis of marital status are extended to same-sex couples in civil unions and other legally-recognized unions.

Oppose a Constitutional Ban on Same-Sex Marriage
Obama voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment, which would have defined marriage as between a man and a woman and prevented judicial extension of marriage-like rights to same-sex or other unmarried couples.
http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/lgbt.pdf
 
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  • #206
Jeff Reid said:
Regarding religion versus homosexuality, note that communist China had no history of an Abrahamic religion, but homosexuality was illegal and persecuted until 1997:

This seems not a useful argument. Merely because others have chosen through history not to take enlightened approaches is not exactly a valid precedent within the context of a republic founded on equality in terms of application of the law to all.

If it were then we would still have emperors and harems and slaves and the people of the US would be paying taxes on tea to the Parliament in Britain wouldn't they?
 
  • #207
I'm in favour of same sex couples enjoying the same legal rights as heterosexual couples in terms of inheritance and tax but I am decidedly queasy about them having the same rights in terms of adoption and fostering as I see this as (rightly or wrongly) having a detrimental effect on the children involved. Saying this shouldn't effect children is fine, in a utopian world. but it's like saying as there shouldn't be any crime why have policemen. The reality is never as the ideal.
 
  • #208
Hmmm... have you known any children raised by same sex couples? As the usual rejoinder goes, I have seen children raised by hetero couples come out lots worse.

I think someone chimed in earlier in the thread who said they'd been raised by a same sex couple.
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  • #209
CaptainQuasar said:
Hmmm... have you known any children raised by same sex couples? As the usual rejoinder goes, I have seen children raised by hetero couples come out lots worse.

I think someone chimed in earlier in the thread who said they'd been raised by a same sex couple.
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I'm open to changing my mind to which end I'd be interested to read any statistics or case studies on the subject you could reference.
 
  • #210
Art said:
Saying this shouldn't effect children is fine, in a utopian world. but it's like saying as there shouldn't be any crime why have policemen.

Except that there is ample evidence that same-sex adoption does not negatively affect children, and also that policing is necessary to check crime. If some compelling evidence is discovered that same-sex parentage has some deleterious effect on child development, then you might have a point. But to date, the experts are not convinced (the American Psychological Association, Child Welfare League of America and American Academy of Pediatrics all hold that same-sex adoptive parents are as fit as opposite-sex adoptive parents, for example). To compare same-sex parents with criminals, and same-sex adoption with anarchy, it a disgusting tactic.

And then there's the practical issue: if you reduce the pool of potential adoptive parents by excluding same-sex couples, you necessarily condemn more orphan children to grow up in foster care, orphanages, or single-parents homes, all of which have been conclusively shown to have negative effects on childhood development (unlike same-sex parentage). Which is to say that your stance amounts to inflicting certain damage on disadvantaged children in order to avoid some hypothesized (and scientifically unsupported) negative effects of same-sex adoptions. So please spare us the "save the children!" polemics: it's people like you, who place their own prejudices above the science of child welfare, that they need saving from.