[Itse]

Originally Posted by Snuffleupagus

history says the consenting adults you speak of turn into the exploitation of woman,young girls and sexual abuse

As someone who's heavily into social history, that's a really anachronistic reading of history.

First of all, it's not like exploitation of women and young girls, and sexual abuse are gone without polygamy. In fact I think it would be tough to prove that polygamy has a significant effect of this sort. (Which is not to say that there's no connection, just that it's hard to say how significant it really is.)

More importantly though, when people are considering the possibilities of legalizing polygamy these days, it's without exception for both genders, which immediately changes the power dynamic.

There are also now laws protecting women from sexual abuse even in marriage and laws prohibiting marrying minors. There are also social norms prohibiting sexual relationships in situations of inbalanced power (such as sex between a teacher and a student) and shunning huge age differences in relationships.

Besides, the law didn't stop Winston Blackmore and James Oler as linked above. They were at it for over a quarter of a century. A-holes cult leaders are gonna be a-hole cult leaders.

how would a judge rule if the man had 5 wife's? give her 10% and kiss on the cheek?

Maybe? It's already legal to make such agreements when entering marriage.

What you're talking about is setting new default settings for divorce, but it's not really otherwise that new.

I can't imagine it being a good thing for children’s mental health either.

First of all, let's remember that polygamy is simply about the legal situations. People are already perfectly free to live an essentially polygamous life if they can find people to do it with. What legal marriage brings into the equation is mostly a lot of rights to both parties and essentially stability. Stability is generally considered good for children.

Second, as someone who has lived in a polyamourous situation with a child, and who knows several families who have some arrangements of this sort, I would say the children have zero problems with this stuff. The biggest deal is having to explain to them at some point that how their parents live isn't considered normal by most, so they should probably think twice before talking about some things to, say, friends.

The legal status of a childs biological parents and the other partners of those parents have little impact on the well-being of the child one way or the other.

What does matter is the problem that if something happens to the biological parents, the childs other significant adults suddenly have no relationship to the child according to law.

Besides, it's not like monogamous marriage has much to do with responsible parenting. The law let's parents get money and meeting rights to the child from each other by force if necessary. While I'm not against it, I would argue those rights are created for the benefit of the parents, and have very little to do with the wellbeing of children.