Re: [UUPoly-L] Whoops, Overreaching there Dave.

[<catdeville@cox.net>]

 Darlene Pagano <dpagano@igc.org> wrote: 
<<(by 
definition <which you don't want us to get into, I do understand> Polygamy means 
multiple wives <always defined as women> for one man, never multiple partners 
for women <nor male partners for men>)>>

I have to jump in here everytime someone misdefines this word.  No, Darlene, poly_gamy_ means multiple *spouses*.  There are three types of polygamy.  Group marriage (multiple spouses of both genders, rare in any society and without any more definative name than polygamy), poly_andry_ (one wife, multiple husbands) and poly_gyny_ (one husband, multiple wives.) 

People commonly mean polygyny when they say polygamy, and religious polygamists in the Yahweh religions (Mormons, Muslims, (historically) Jews and (a few sects of) Christians) are inevitably polygynous, not polygamous, but there are other religious faiths out there which support poly_gamy_ in all it's forms, as long as it's consensual.  I have been a polygamist (more specifically of the polyandrous type), so it really irks me when folks ignore the fact that the definition f polygamy is "The condition or practice of having more than one spouse at one time. "  The whole idea that polygamy=polygyny is entirely a cultural, sexist redefinition of the word.

What we need to do is to separate the idea of who is marrying whom or how many of what gender(s) and simply enforce the modern idea that marriage must be consensual.