Maunderings From The Home Planet

[kiya]

The Dope has thrown up another polygamy-legalisation thread, which has some reasonably productive conversation in it, aside from what I shall term the golddigging whore problem.

Specifically: a couple of people expressed that if polygamy were legal, the wealthy, powerful men would collect sufficiently all of the women that the poorer people would be deprived of spouses.

I just responded to one of the bits of sexism -- the standard presumption that it's only men who are interested in multiple relationships.

I'm finding myself completely boggled by the impending golddigging whore shortage that these people are worried about. I mean, setting aside the fact that the actors, politicians, and other denizens of the supermarket tabloid world don't seem to have any problems collecting as many MOTAS as strike their fancy right now, and this doesn't seem to deprive the rest of the world of a reasonably adequate dating pool.

But there's the whole ... okay, you're upset that someone who's primarily interested in being an adjunct to power and money may be going somewhere far, far away from you? Leaving behind all the normal people who are interested in finding partners that they love and care about, or at least can shag satisfactorily?

It's one of those things that leaves me wondering what the hell alternate dimension people are writing from. There was the guy who posted that he expected that most women were in the golddigging whore category, and I just wonder which one of us is the space alien. I've met maybe one person in my life who might qualify, and since we were in school at the time and thus nobody we associated with had significant money in the first place it's hard to tell whether or not she grew into one. I can't imagine my sample size is all that damn weird.

[ Must change the music to what's playing now, hah. ]

It's one of those places where -- if it wasn't so fucking bizarre -- would leave me wondering, again, how I wound up on this planet. Here I'm pretty sure those other people are the ones who recently stepped through the transdimensional portal without noticing the transition.

It was nonetheless nice to see queenofhalves link bitchphd, who mentioned Crittenden's book, which is, alas, about the universe I grew up in, more's the pity, but it at least reminds me that I'm not alone.

Comments

[chabas.livejournal.com]

Well, if you're a space alien, so am I. I can't think of *any* gold diggers around me, ever.

[labrys6.livejournal.com]

It always kind of boggles my mind how many people spend so damned much energy trying to legislate what the hell other folks do in their bedrooms...and, actually, when it comes to it....in their own HEADS. Perhaps they think legalized polygamy/andry would be on the offshoot Mormon model only? Every nasty old man snapping up all the young women while they "excommunicate" marriageable young men? Imagine if multiple marriages were actually completely VOLUNTARY instead? Doesn't seem to be in their universe, as you note. But I really DO wish I could think of a way to insert that wonderful phrase "impending golddigging whore shortage" into commonplace conversation in some manner cause, damn...just daaaaamn.

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

I believe that, in the Arab world, polygamy has, in fact, tended to make it harder for younger men to marry. In those scary surviving LDS cult groups, there is a similar problem. These are a grossly sexist cultures, of course, and sometimes in those cultures daughters are as much sold as married. Still, polygamy in a sexist context can go wrong, and I wonder if we have any human culture that is egalitarian enough to make it work, except occasionally.

[mindways]

...

...

Even aside from everything else you've said (which I agree with)... there's another fundamental problem with the logic.

 * Darker puts on his games-theory hat

If a person's second+ marriage were to require permission from their first spouse, the first golddigger present presumably wouldn't give that permission.

If that second+ marriage were to not require permission from the first spouse[1], any and all golddiggers would have to contend with the fact that their 'free lunch' could marry someone else with whom they'd have to split the fortune. Many other someone elses, in fact.

Now, even if there is some vast untapped pool of golddiggers out there, one presumes that they remain unattached purely because the weath-by-marriage opportunities available to them are not sufficiently tempting[2]. While polymarriage would undoubtedly permit a few to find opportunities with those wealthy enough to split their fortunes and still be 'worth hooking', the average expected value of any given 'catch' would decrease, providing a disincentive to golddigging on all those whose fortunes wouldn't be worth it if split many ways - who, demographically, outnumber the superrich by a substantial margin.

Or, more succinctly: Golddigging would be made both less profitable and less reliable by the fact that it would become easier. The increased opportunity is balanced by decreased exclusivity.

[1] = Or were to theoretically require permission, but not prevent maneuvers such as "give me permission or I'll disinherit you" which might force a golddigger's hand.

[2] = Or they're fundamentally undesirable, but that brings us back to your "...but then why on earth do you care that they're making themselves unavailable?" point.

 * Darker picks up his jester's cap

And heck - assume that all of the wealthiest 0.01% of the population each married a hundred other people. That's still only a 1-in-100 decrease in the pool of people one might marry. And - assuming anything like an equitable inheritance, without which that golddigging incentive just isn't there - it'd massively redistribute the wealth of our society, splitting billion-dollar fortunes into ten-million dollar ones and ten-million dollar fortunes into more modest nest-eggs of $100,000. While I don't know whether I'd adopt such a position myself, I could well imagine someone arguing that this would be a very good thing from a social standpoint.

 * Darker sets his games-theory hat back in the box, and puts the jester's cap back on

Wonder what the guy's really looking for ...

[(Anonymous)]

Whenever I hear things like "but if poly marriages were legal, other people would get all the golddigging women" makes me wonder just what kind of women these guys think they're worth.

It always strikes me as more a statement of their own worth than anything about the actual issue. Women with worth want nothing to do with person X, ergo, the only people they can get are the golddigging whore types. Which would make a shortage very bad for them.

As far as regular poly relationships, again, they're only seeing it from their own perspective. "Oooh, lots of women, lots of sex!" Totally forgetting that every relationship is work, because they can't GET into a real relationship in the first place.

In other words, whenever I see those comments, I consider them a statement on the person making them. He sees himself as worthless and is mad because the worthless women can get better catches and he can't get hot two-women sex. *eyeroll*

Maunderings From The Home Planet

[(Anonymous)]

'allo from N'awlins!

taking a few moments to grab some online time...

I dunno, I've just got to wonder who would really miss the "Golddigging Whores" (tm)...I mean, really, if the "Wealthy, Powerful Men" (tm) have them, fine, I've got no issues there. At least it keeps them off the streets.

and, honestly, I just can't imagine wy anyone would really miss them...

But maybe my opinions don't representthe norm. I like to think that the *other* people stepped through the transdimensional portal, because I don't want to beLIEve that they'd represent the norm, but OTOH, it could serve as yet another example of my beLIEf that I live in a different world than most other people.

"guy who posted that he expected that most women were in the golddigging whore category, and I just wonder which one of us is the space alien"

I'd like to say him, because I find the alternative too shuddersome to contemplate...

Io Phanes,
Tzeenj