Ed West Ed West

Polygamy could be the next sexual liberation campaign

Back in the early 1990s when the kind old 17th Duke of Norfolk was special guest at prize-giving night at our school he remarked that in Islam one was allowed up to four wives.

‘What a nightmare,’ he quipped, ‘imagine having four mothers-in-law’ (or something to that effect). I think back at the joke as indicative of a more innocent age; if he had said that now, some little Pavlik Morozov in the assembly would have tweeted his outrage and by the time the Duke left the building he would have been trending on Twitter, forced to step down as governor and the ‘offensive comments’ would be the subject of an investigation by the police. David Cameron would have probably made a statement condemning him, after a bunch of hysterical eejits had tweeted ‘no, NOT okay #Islamophobia #misogyny’, perhaps with selfies of them wearing a hijab.

But anyway, four mothers-in-law; what a nightmare, and one that could be coming to these islands soon.

Many people have argued in the past that, once same-sex marriage had been passed, then polygamy would be next. I’ve always been highly sceptical, as the argument for gay liberation and ultimately gay marriage is one of equality and acceptance. The same can’t be said about polygamy, which many find offensive and goes against our western notions of the individual (of which gay liberation is a logical product).

But I’m less sceptical now; what is especially noticeable is that, whenever social justice warriors want to make a radical change to society, they first prepare the ground by changing the language, making it difficult to argue against them.

So note how there has been a slight decline in the use of the word polygamy since the mid-1960s and a huge increase in polyamory.

Polygamy strictly speaking means marrying more than one person, while polyamory refers to simply being attracted to or in love with more than one, but clearly the acceptance of the latter makes way for the former.

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