The common argument against gay marriage was that it's a slippery slope to legalizing polygamy. Partially, it's correct, since for example in Canada, the anti-polygamy laws were recently challenged in court. It's because one of the common statements said by gay marriage proponents is that "other people's marriage is not your business", and there's no reason not to apply the same thinking to polygamy.

However, people don't live in a vacuum, we are all interdependent and everything other people do affects the world we live in, and therefore, affects us. No intelligent person believes that other people's marriages don't affect them. For example, normalization (which, unlike legalization, means social acceptance) of polygamy would have wide social consequences. Plenty of women would prefer to be one of many wives of an alpha, rather than the only wife of a loser. As a result, we would probably wind up with plenty of sexually frustrated men, which might not be in the best interest of the society - especially if you combine it with delegalization of prostitution, which has already happened in some progressive countries. In short, monogamy might promote a more egalitarian society. The Republican Party in the 1860s claimed that polygamy and slavery are “twin relics of barbarism”.

Of course, we already have plenty of sexually frustrated men - that's the result of women slutting up in their 20s and settling down later in life - but eventually they at least get married to some old hag who has no choice anymore. Normalization of polygamy would significantly decrease their chances at getting sex ever in their lifetimes.

So, do you think that polygamy is beneficial or detrimental to the society? Or do you think it should be accepted because it's a "human right" or some other ideological crap?