I am here to discuss the polygamy question.

To be sure, it is a question no one is asking. Nor should they be — marital arrangements consisting of more than two individuals don’t seem very appealing to Americans.

Sure, polygamy has made great gains recently; Gallup registers a 9 percentage point increase in support within the past 15 years. What that statistic leaves out is that polygamy went from receiving 7 percent support in 2001 to a whopping 16 percent in 2015. To put those numbers in perspective, more Americans approve of suicide (19%) than polygamy (16%).

Yet what makes this question interesting to me is that it provides an opportunity to explore the character of our public reasoning. In short, if the same reasons which have led to the acceptance of same-sex marriage also support polygamous arrangements, yet one is embraced and the other resisted, then that says a lot.

In the lead up to and in the aftermath of Obergefell v. Hodges, many raised the polygamy question.

“If same-sex marriage is accepted, what’s to stop us from allowing polygamous marriage next?”

Some who asked this question were genuinely interested in probing the internal logic of same-sex marriage acceptance. They wondered: If we approve this expansion, would that pave the way for other, non-traditional marriage arrangements to also become legal?

Others, however, raised the polygamy question not so much as a genuine line of inquiry but rather as a rhetorical strategy. Same-sex marriage was no longer deeply unpopular with the American people, which meant its opponents, in order to sink it, would need to marry it (pun!) to something with far less support. The idea would be to conceptually link same-sex marriage and polygamy in hopes that the latter’s unpopularity would erase some of the former’s.

Now, in a safely post-Obergefell America, the polygamy question reappears, not as a polemical strategy but as a legitimate inquiry.

Indeed: Why not polygamy? Is there any reason not to further expand marriage to accommodate group arrangements? I don’t think so. Not based on the reasoning given for approving same-sex marriage, that is.

One problem is that past forms of polygamy — as well as current ones — have led to socially undesirable consequences for its most vulnerable participants: women and children. Indeed, according to Soshana Grossbard, polygamy is “anathema to women’s economic, social and emotional well-being,” and according to Libby Copeland, it “discourages parental investment.”

What are we to make of these assessments?

One thing we can note is that history is a reliable guide here only to the extent that the conditions characterizing historical cases are more or less continuous with our own. In less technical language, Why should we think that how polygamy was practiced back then is how it would be practiced today?

The same goes for contemporary examples. The reality is that there are many versions of polygamy, both from history and from our contemporary world today, that fall afoul of our commitment to liberalism. The only way for the arguments above to succeed is for them to be able to conclusively show that these illiberal or harmful features are inherent or intrinsic to polygamy. If the features are inessential, however, then they can be ameliorated through carefully constructed legislation.

On that note, the philosopher Martha Nussbaum asks:

What about…a practice of plural contractual marriages, by mutual consent, among adult, informed parties, all of whom have equal legal rights to contract such plural marriages? What interest might the state have that would justify refusing recognition of such marriages?

Nussbaum’s suggestion is that group marriage, fashioned along liberal and egalitarian lines, makes sense for Americans to accept. She acknowledges that “as traditionally practiced, polygamy is one-sided” because “men have [had] rights that women do not.” Nussbaum is at pains to emphasize that by accepting polygamy, the state does not thereby commit to accepting all variations.

In a piece for Politico, Jonathan Rauch disagrees, suggesting it might not be possible to eliminate these inegalitarian elements from polygamy.

Rauch has two main critiques, one charging polygamy with inegalitarianism, the other charging it with producing socially harmful consequences. His first contention is that if polygamy is accepted, “low-status” men will have inferior options in what is now a diminished marriage market. This would generate inequalities of marital opportunity. His second critique is that this will drive these “low-status” men to crime and violence, thus generating negative social effects.

Rauch supports his second critique by citing the rampant displacement of marriageable men in a Northern Arizona Mormon sect. But this example has little value as a cautionary tale since the description it offers of the sect’s treatment of its men is not indicative of wider cultural norms. The sect itself is highly irregular relative to the rest of America, and its marriage norms are far different relative to how the marriage market operates in society more broadly. The form of polygamy that led to this result would either be disallowed (if we follow Nussbaum) or the features that gave rise to the displacement of these men would be eliminated through a more efficient marriage market, which we should expect to follow when polygamy is no longer the exclusive province of fundamentalist communities.

But even more curious than the above is Rauch’s support for his first critique. Here’s what’s strange about it: he focuses exclusively on the inegalitarian outcomes for men and not the equality-enhancing outcomes for women. Notice that Rauch cites the plight of the “low-status” men; what about the gains that women make from having their marriage market expanded? Previously, when a “high-status” man was taken off the market, this represented a loss for every woman in the community other than the one the man married. Not so anymore. The market has expanded for women, and not just quantitatively, but qualitatively. There are greater opportunities to marry a “high-status” man under this system, an outcome Rauch ignores.

Let’s move beyond Rauch and consider the architecture of society more broadly. In a society in which individual autonomy is the chief good, the state’s preoccupation becomes protecting each person’s capacity for self-definition. When two or more persons are involved, consent becomes all-important, which is why Fredrik DeBoer made it the lynchpin of his argument for polygamy legalization in his piece for Politico.

Not all “self-definitions” are equally enlightened, apparently. This will shock no one, but sometimes the government is inconsistent. Witness the lip service paid to the right of bodily autonomy: an abortion is fine, but doing drugs is not? How can this be?

The response might be that doing drugs fails to amount to true self-definition. The state sees this kind of behavior as obstructing self-actualization, not promoting it.

Yet this can’t be a legitimate response since all sorts of behaviors inimical to personal flourishing are allowed; eating fatty foods, driving sports cars, tobacco and alcohol consumption, to name just a few.

Does it then all just come down to popularity? Interests groups are not exactly storming city hall on this issue. If enough Americans supported conceptually expanding “marriage” to accommodate polygamous arrangements, wouldn’t they become legal in no time?

For many, there’s no doubt that if same-sex marriage passes the test, so does polygamy. This came up within the Supreme Court’s evaluation of Obergefell. Chief Justice John Roberts writes in his dissenting opinion: “It is striking how much of the majority’s reasoning would apply with equal force to the claim of a fundamental right to plural marriage.” Chief Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote the majority opinion, attempts to block such a maneuver, but as The Washington Post’s Ilya Somin points out, although Kennedy tries to close this avenue off, “it may not be by the logic of his reasoning.” At the Hoover Institution, Richard A. Epstein wonders why Kennedy never explains why his emphases on “dignity and autonomy do not require the Supreme Court to revisit its 1878 decision in Reynolds upholding criminal punishment for polygamy, which is still on the books.”

The things we justify. The things we dismiss. It’s all a bit funny sometimes, isn’t it?