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ALL Islam allows polygamy under a strict set of circumstances that include:

Agreement of existing partner(s)
Guaranteed equality of treatment of wives
Ability to support additional cost burden


It'd be more precise to say that ALL Islam allows polygyny under those circumstances, yes? Multiple husbands to one wife is, IIRC, strictly forbidden. That in and of itself smacks of misogyny to me, and though I'm sure Muslims have an explanation as to why it's not (such as "Muslim women would never want such a relationship because of X Y Z in the Qu'ran") I think there's an inherent inequality there that can't be justified by religious doctrine.

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My parents families who are largely small scale farmers in rural Pakistan do not practise polygamy, within their communities it's an extremely rare (and declining) occurrence, I believe this to be the case in Islamic societies worldwide (even in ultra conservative countries like Saudi).


To be clear, I brought Islam into the mix simply because I needed another widely known example of polygamy. I didn't say that polygamy was the normal state of Islamic countries, just as it is not the normal state of today's Mormon church. But it is accepted to an extent, and I needed examples of that in order to form the rest of my argument.

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As regards misogyny there's plenty of that and other ills in the Islamic world, to a greater extent than the rest of the developing world?


You've completely misappropriated my words. I said that fundamentalist Islam is full of misogyny, not that there's more misogyny in Muslim countries than there is in the west. Certainly, the misogyny in Saudi Arabia, Iran, etc. are much more overt (clothing, womens' access to education, etc.) but I made no comparison between cultures. Again, my statement on Islam was just one parenthetical phrase, cited as an example of polygamy, and not any attempt to criticize the religion or the cultures which practice it.

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I'm not trying to defend polygamy, just saying I can't see a case for government involvement in interpersonal relationships.


You and I are in total agreement that "the state" shouldn't be involved in these things, but they are. In the U.S., "the state" can refer to actual states, or the federal government, which in the case of a Constitutional amendment, would supersede the states. My argument, put simply, is that states ought to have a right to regulate marriage however they see fit, and while I don't agree with polygamy as an acceptable practice, I would not want the federal government legislating that. I would have no problem, however, allowing certain states to do that, and that's probably the one detail where you and I differ.
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