Facebook Wedding Photos Result In Polygamy Arrest In Michigan

An anonymous reader writes "Police in Michigan have arrested 34-year-old Richard Leon Barton Jr. on charges of polygamy, thanks to incriminating wedding photos on Facebook. The man unfriended his first wife on the social network before marrying his second wife, but unsurprisingly that wasn't enough."

Comments

I don't get it

[Nialin]

It makes no sense to me that something like polygamy is an arrestable offense. Aside from the mediocre tax breaks you get from marriage, what are the benefits that you can glean from multiple marriages that would cause it to be inherently illegal?

Re:I don't get it

[snowgirl]

What I find even more interesting, is due to DOMA and the weird way we treat homosexual marriages in this country, it's possible that someone could marry a person of the same sex in Massachusetts, move to Texas, and marry a person of the opposite sex, and Texas could not technically charge the person with polygamy. But then, if the person ever went on vacation (or even just had a layover in a city in a state that recognized both marriages) then they could be arrested in that state for polygamy.

Seriously, this is the whole reason why "full faith and credit" was supposed to be in the Constitution, to keep these sorts of weird ass "am I married in _THIS_ state though?" questions from coming up. Like, there are people in Texas who have been denied a divorce for a legal marriage performed elsewhere, because another state let them get married out of state, but won't allow an out of state divorce, so they have to get divorced in the state they live in, but since Texas doesn't recognize the marriage, it won't grant them a divorce... so they're stuck being married unless they move back to Massachusetts or whatever it was.

Seriously, FULL FAITH AND CREDIT PEOPLE... it causes a lot fewer headaches...

Re:I don't get it

[cpu6502]

Violating a contract is a CIVIL matter, not a criminal one.

Banning polygamy (or same sex marriage) is yet another example, like outlawing smoking marijuana while at home, or blocking teens from drinking with parents' permission, where the State is acting like the Church to enforce their moral values, instead of allowing individuals the Liberty to "pursue happiness" in whatever manner they choose.

Re:I don't get it

[flaming error]

>The reason it is banned is not because of some religion
Citation needed

> it is because polygamy can and historically has put
> women in a "bad contract"
By "polygamy" you refer to "polygyny" - one man, multiple wives. There is another form called "polyandry" where one woman marries multiple men (often brothers, "fraternal polyandry").

So in polyandry, would you say that one woman has more power than her husbands? Or could perhaps the dynamic wind up being that she is a lonely servant to a household of men?

Being outnumbered is not the same as being empowered.

Why is that a crime?

[grumbel]

Ok, why exactly is that a crime in the first place? Has that something to do with tax evasion or whatever or is that just moral code enforced by law?

Re:illegal why?

[muuh-gnu]

> In general, societies enforced monogamy because otherwise men would marry a whole bunch of women

and leave back an army of unmarried angry young man. As to my knowledge the ban of polygamy was primarily to prevent a few wealthy old men marrying dozens of young women off the market and leaving hordes of young men without a way to reproduce, leading to explosive social unrest. The Bible had nothing to do with it, the Old Testament, on which the model of the Mormon practices and scriptures was based, was highly polygamous itself.

Never tired of FB stories

[UBfusion]

Contrary to some comments here, I am all about learning new FB horror stories. These stories provide me useful real-life evidence that I use when advising my friends (and my students) why they shouldn't ever post things that might get used against them. Think 10 times before hitting 'submit'.

Re:More?

[mcgrew]

I agree with the GP and would have voted against the story had I seen it in the firehose. "Man arrested for bigamy after posting news of his second wedding in the dead tree newspaper classifieds".

Informative? No more informative than "Britney Spears in rehab again". It doesn't affect me, nor should it you. Nothing to learn == !informative.

Topical? How? Just another normtard doing something stupid.

Technological? It's a damned web site! Sheesh! Now, "EMC anti-crhacking division crhacked" is informative, topical, and technological. This isn't.

Re:illegal why?

[mwvdlee]

And why is the state even involved in regulating marriage?

Because marriage has legal status and benefits attached to it and stop people from abusing those benefits.
The question is why marriage should have any legal status at all.

Re:Think of the children

[mrchaotica]

Until greed comes along. What gay partners want is not recognition, they are after the pensions and tax benefits that were created for families. It's one thing to give a tax break so you can pay for your kids education, it's a totally different thing to give a tax break so you can sustain a grown man who should be working for himself.

Except the tax breaks aren't for families; married couples without children are eligible for them too. That makes it an issue of fairness, not greed.

Also, by the way, some gays reject the compromise of "civil unions." They, at least, do want recognition.

Re:Think of the children

[mangu]

Except the tax breaks aren't for families; married couples without children are eligible for them too

There's a slippery slop there. Many couples plan on having children, they make decisions based on that. To be fair, a couple that does not intend to have children is cheating on the system.

A totally neutral system would do away with all tax breaks for dependents, but it sucks to be born in a family that cannot sustain itself, so we give children a break. They never asked to be born, did they?

Re:Stable society, perhaps?

[ShakaUVM]

Monogamous relationships seem to be a basic part of stable human societies. Polygamous societies have, by definition, a shortage of suitable mates for young men; young men need to "prove" themselves to have a chance at a mate, which tends to involve violence, aggression, etc. That is oversimplified, but the pattern is clear to see: societies with widespread polygamy tend to be economic disasters with frequent civil wars.

With a broad brush: most of Africa is traditionally polygamous, and most of Africa is a mess. Most of the Middle East is polygamous, and is a mess. Asia is a mixed bag: those countries that are doing well economically are mostly or entirely monogamous (China, Japan, India, etc.); those doing poorly tend to be polygamous (e.g., Bangladesh).

Er, China has a long history of polygamy, and was arguably one of the more stable countries throughout world history. They really only got fucked up under the communists, who were also monogamist-or-die type fellows. The richest guy in Macao (IIRC) has a few wives even still, and in modern Hong Kong the practice remains, though they're simply called mistresses now. It's considered acceptable (by everybody except the Christians) in Hong Kong, though under the don't-ask-don't-tell policy that governs a lot of Chinese public/private life.

To paint a broad brush, every society has always been monogamist for the poor, and polygamous for the rich. Belle Ãpoque France, ancient Israel, whatever. In modern America, we have Tiger Woods, Letterman, and the rest getting money and sleeping around. Not saying it's right, but it is certainly not anything new.