CMV: If two consenting adults want to marry, governments shouldn't preclude polyamorous (group) marriages.

EDIT: Holy cow this thread went off while I was at work. I've been to a couple of meetings, and am now on a conference call. I'll jump in when I get a chance.<br><br>EDIT II: I typed the below last night, but want to update here first. I've read ~500 comments now and I still have ~1500 left to go. I have already been convinced by a couple of you, and I'm going to put this together later this week. I'll list the top ~7-10 as I see it, and what you said that resonated. Until then:<br><br>I am very, very sensitive to power imbalance arguments. The female experiencing the role reversal mentioned it very succinctly; you're always worried that there was some pre-wedding coercion that couldn't be proven. I'm also very sensitive to the argument that 2 consenting adults don't have a right to marriage when there are legal hurdles, such as immigration, that prevent them from being together without marriage.<br><br>A couple of people have suggested requiring court trials to prove consent, but the most cogent comment (and my personal experience in a multi-member poly relationship) is that it's not possible to expunge every last remnant of coercion. I think there is a female VP at a startup who recently quit and called out the CEO for the length of her skirts, for example. Everything looked totally fine, but it was still happening.<br><br>Secondly, I think there are at least 2 proposals that might actually work (and that would be better for society than poly marriage), and that is legalizing relationship rights. For one person, such rights would be identical to marriage. If you are poly (or if your spouse has a friend who is a medical proxy), then you could assign rights to multiple people, similar to how you can have multiple executors of an estate.<br><br>Lastly, the argument that marriage was originally a religiously owned concept and that the government relationship should be cut seems the only argument that's really bulletproof to me. I had a few questions that people didn't get to, but I think it's clear that if we went to a more civil union-esque legal framework (i.e. not always a 2-party agreement, but whatever the state could engineer), a lot of the problems go away.<br><br>I'm still going to read the rest of the comments, I'm still going to put out the list. But I wanted to go ahead and acknowledge all the ground I've already conceded so far.<br><br>Happy Independence Day from Portland, OR. A bit weird so far without fireworks.<br><br>--<br><br>Marriage is a fundamental right of people in the United States. Although society has slowly evolved what constitutes a valid marriage, by and large, the government has always considered it a contract between 2 people. There are sound historical, economic, legal, social, and emotional reasons why government should continue to preclude polyamorous marriages.<br><br>I'll be honest, if a bunch of consenting adults want to get together and privately call it a marriage, that's their right. But when it comes to government services, it's really not fair to ask the government to cater to that lifestyle choice, as it is not in the best interest of society.<br><br>I think I can convince people of this, because it's relatively obvious.<br><br>&#x200B;