Ask Lemmy

Because the concept of "Marriage" was created to cement political, fiducial, and martial alliances between families of Aristos. Multiple entities complicates those agreements.

For some reason, monogamy was the default in Europe, and that default goes back thousands of years. There were times when men could have second or more partners, but they were never on the same level as wife and any children born from these unions weren't entitled to inherit anything from the father. It is just a cultural signifier that goes back before Christianity; Romans were monogamous.

To add to this, Western peoples have slowly redefined marriage over the past century to go from a man and his wife to the union of two people. This has given women more power in marriage while also allowing for same gender marriages, since gender is no longer a defining characteristic of marriage in a Western society. I would see same gender marriages being harder in a polygamous society as gender is hard coded into the rules.

As for the Western aversion to polygamy, you've seen a lot of people here describe polygamy as "less civilized". That belief has been around for centuries, so it isn't tied to marriage equality For instance, the statehood of Utah was delayed until the Mormon church gave up polygamy.

I think polyamory happens a lot more than we realize. My old roommate had two committed partners for years, one of whom was married to someone else. Everyone knew about each other.

I knew a thruple who were unofficially married and lived together.

They have groups on social media for discussion and support, where I learned anything more than a thruple is "Polycule."

The frowning upon is religion based values. On the other hand multipe wives and no other husbands allowed is also religion based.
Next question would be why is same sex marriage frowned upon?

There is a reason why ancient societies were matriarchy based. It was always easy to tell who the mother was. And because of that the wealth was tied to the mother's bloodline instead of the father's.
If you want a real - future proof inheritance system: leave everything to the mother than as she dies the children get everything.

One on one pairing is more fair with big numbers. You no longer have to take your brother's widow as a wife, you do not need to marry to make sure you have one extra goat to milk ar having a maid and incubator for the next generation.
Humans generally speaking do not need to make more than 2 kids. Your bloodline won't die out because of modern medicine. Nobody's bloodline worth anything anyway. Your genes are not that superior.

So there is no logical reason to support a one sided marriage system.
Now open polyamory where everyone is on board, equal, open about it and can leave any time - go ahead that totally green light from me.

Because religion. Christianity stipulated monogamous marriage and while most of the West now finds it stupid to let religion dictate how we live our lives it's still the norm.

OP your nativity is something to be cherished. I hope you never lose your innocence.

As said, most probably Christian heritage. Even in secular countries like France it is forbidden.

To be precise about France, only polygamous weddings are forbidden but being polygamous without being wedded is not illegal. I think it has historically something to do with central Africa immigration from the former colonies.

You could migrate to France and ask for family reunion to have your wife and kids legally come, but I guess they wanted to put some limits so it was decided that wedding means one partner only. Those laws were made by old right wing parties so it is kind of logical that they wanted to limit African immigration to 2 adults + kids instead of 4 adults + kids.

Would it be frowned upon? Maybe, mostly by older folks and more traditional peoples but the larger part of the population would just not care. The problem is with legal status, without a wedding you can have child care and heritage problems in case of death.

Because Christianity. That’s really it

Except for some extreme forms of Mormonism of course