Since nobody else has done this yet...
Previous threads on the same topic:
Alternative (RAW-defined) ReproductionPolygamyRawifying RelationshipsSame gender coupling (marriage) and other cultural taboosGender DifferentiationEthic Tag Brainstorming ThreadArgument FOR Controversial ElementsThe other battlegrounds (politics, religion, and love)Randomized Civ TraitsRelationship breakupsI'm also clipping out the homosexuality threads where polygamy was a minor side note. (Incidentally, Toady, thanks for finally implementing that, if only to stop more of those threads from popping up... Now I just wish human ethics of commitment issues wasn't applied to dogs... I've seriously seen
more people get banned on that topic than anything else, at least , in the upper threads...)
I booted the "Alternative RAW-Defined" thread to the front since I probably made the most arguments in that one, but generally speaking, I would very much like to see polygamy play a part in DF, if only for most of these animal-people civs, as they become more prominent.
DF is a game with multiple different organisms modeled, and forcing human reproduction strategies upon all nature is ridiculous. This is ESPECIALLY true when you consider that the whole concept of monogamy is
actually only common in the Judeo-Christian context. (So we're projecting Christianity onto all of humanity, and then onto all of nature, as well...)
It is, for example, ridiculous to believe that a Queen Beewoman would choose to only mate with one of her drones.
And yes, this does play into what game we have now, as we have, as I already mentioned, dogs that choose not to mate with other dogs because they have commitment issues. The idea that they need to be interested enough in other dogs to be willing to marry them before they hump is frankly not a standard dogs live up to.
Likewise, at the very least, serial monogamy among elves is called for, and goblins should probably have little if any concept of marriage at all, what with their "might makes right" morality largely making the strong simply capable of functionally just claiming a few mates, regardless of gender.
With all that said, I have trouble believing that Toady isn't going to implement all this, eventually. While all those arguments about homosexuality were taking place, it became pretty clear that Toady was, for a long time before he did, and during a lot of those heated arguments, going to add homosexuality, he just was putting it off because it was a lower priority. I suspect polygamy as a cultural feature is like that, as well.
I know for a start, he doesn't want to make elves never remarry, but it's just harder to build a legends mode that tracks all that stuff if there is constant remarriage. (Keep in mind, if a character is transformed into a night creature in the current system, and you look it up in an engraving, it will say that a "Night hag's mate rose to become the king", when in fact, a dwarf became king, and was kidnapped by a night hag later... When all that is revisited, I'm guessing he'll add in some cultural raw values that let the game have more flexible concepts of sexually exclusive (or non-exclusive) relationships other than marriage.