I'm not going to make any suggestions on policy. It occurs to me that the reason the ancients [pre 2000] used the policy of monogamy for marriage is technology related. That is, in order to keep an accurate record of parentage, monogamy is the easiest way to get a reasonable predictability on someone's heritage. Now that we're ridding ourselves of the need for hereditary records . . . of course we're not, we've just got technology now that allows us to track heredity [Jenny Jones, et al].
The technology opens up the way for concurrent polygamy as a viable societal alternative, though I haven't even begun to map out the implications that would have on marriage or religion. >From a geneticists standpoint, polygamy would be an ideal way to ensure diversity in the gene pool, as one could mix and match partners as one desired, and still retain the safety of a limited number of sexual partners. I don't think there's an inherent difference in a man's or a woman's desire to have multiple sexual partners. There are various legal and social conventions that are based on monogamy, so caution is required when moving away from monogamy. The American culture is quite polygamous already. Though we don't recognize bastards anymore, our adoption and inheritance laws are flexible enough so that it makes little difference if a child is born in or out of wedlock, as in the case of my nephew whose mother is my cousin, and whose actual parents are my cousins [brother and sister] and my uncle and aunt. My cousin might have another child from another partner [I think she's planning on it, but I haven't asked her]. While this isn't concurrent polygamy, it is serial polygamy, and it seems to be allowed [I have no problems with it, I plan on having another child God willing]. I say this only because of communique set two, someone seems to think it is important to mention, that we keep the option of polygamy open. I suspect that, perhaps thousands of years from now, it will be necessary to have concurrent polygamy. Thus the need for a method to amend scripture and amend laws, should it be necessary.
