You'd think that the Catholic Church would consider celibate, virginal men as the ideal family structure. Or you'd think that the Catholic Church would be all for polyagmy... the Bible's full of it. Have you read Genesis? Abraham, Jacob, Solomon, King ****ing David ---- all had multiple wives. Abraham, the foundation of Christianity, Judaism and Islam (and therefore, the founding figure of the religions of most of the people in the world) was not monogamous. King David had at least five wives. God directly instructed several biblical figures to take multiple wives, if the Old Testament is to be taken literally. I think your thesis about religion itself causing this situation is incorrect. Something else has come up since to cause the current situation.

Quote Originally Posted by LaqHead
Adultery was now a sin, not just a small sin, but one of the 10 ****ing commandments
Adultery is having sex outside of marriage. If you marry multiple people and have sex with all of them (even at the same time), you are not being adulterous. Ergo, polygamy in itself isn't the grave sin you say it is. Again, it's not religion itself, it's something else.

I don't know where the idea of monogamy has come from, or how it got so powerful. However I think maybe its status in modern law has more to do with taxation and path dependence than anything else. Inheritance issues are difficult as it is, but how do you determine who inherits a patriarch or matriarch's wealth when they have multiple partners, and multiple children to each partner? Who inherits their land? Does a legal union exist between each partner separately, or only between two at one time? This latter issue is important. If I have one wife, and we buy a house together but have no children, and then I take a second wife and have a children with her--while living in the house Wife A and I own---and then I die... do wife B and my child get to live in the house? Wife A and Wife B have no legal union. These situations are immeasurably complex. It is simpler for everyone involved to restrict marriage to two consenting, adult partners.

I have no issue with people being attracted to multiple people and if they consent, they can have as much or as little sex with as many or as few people as they like. I've demonstrated that the major religions don't or shouldn't care.

But I think the state cares.