[Disclaimer, none of the following is legal advice. Please seek legal counsel licensed to practice in your jurisdiction if you require assistance]
My opinions on each of the issues brought up:
Spousal support alone will be a nightmare.
Spousal support (with the exception of Rehabilitative Alimony, which obviously has its place in preventing abuse), is honestly a tremendously messed up system, and I don't support it. I don't see why anyone should have to pay for another persons wellbeing after the marriage has ended unless they explicitly agreed to it in a prenup. Even then, I don't see why it couldn't just be balanced the same way it is now, except comparing those still in the marriage with the incoming of the one who isn't. I mean, this is already a complicated calculation with a lot of variables, and I don't particularly see why anyone capable of doing the existing math would be incapable of weighing the additional
The Position in Support of Spousal Support: I can give you the traditional answer scenario: "She spent 25 years raising the kids, has no work history because of that and now you're just gonna toss her for a newer model wife?" <--- Something's not right here. Moreover, spouses have a legal duty to support one another for numerous reasons. First, if you don't support your spouse, then the state might end up doing it and we aren't happy about that prospect, then there's morals, ethics, all that stuff people don't care about....
O but didn't you make a contract to do that:More in line with your view I submit, you made a commitment for life in the contract anyhow,
"til death do us part." Well you're still alive.... Used to be you couldn't get out through divorce at all. Essentially this is you voluntarily leaving a contract and commitment you entered into. In a way you did explicitly agree to form a marital partnership with a person for life expressly by the language "til death do us part." It isn't just ceremonial though we tend to think so today with our 60% divorce rate....
Who is where in the worksheets?As you said, spousal support is already a massively complex thing. The issue isn't the math, it's figuring out how to determine the numbers and operations to use. States differ on determination method too making it extra special fun....Child support is more standardized, because the federal government got sick of picking up the tab for welfare to kids who had deadbeat fathers. So, the federal government said to the states, "standardize all your child support or we won't pay for your welfare or medicaid." The states grudgingly but quickly standardize child care [fakes shock].
First of all, how do you determine the number of dependents and dependents from other marriages and how do you allocate them? This gets extra tricky if you have say 7 people to start with married and then one "leaves." How do they leave: partially or completely? Can they divorce certain members of the group marriage or must they divorce all of them? This is the "interlocking poly rings" problem. Can person one (1) stay married to persons two through six (2-6) but divorce person seven (7)? If so, how the hell do you figure that one out in terms of spousal support? Does only person seven (7) owe spousal support to person one (1) because person (1) is still married to two through six (2-6)? Or not? Or is the spousal support a joint marital debt shared by persons two through seven (2-7).
The equations weren't meant to handle that and I truly doubt they can for several reasons. Sometimes courts take into account if the payor (person who pays) of spousal support (who would be which person here exactly?) has other dependents such as a new spouse or children from a different marriage than the one currently under divorce suit. How do you determine which of these individuals fit into what category? Furthermore, if a court takes other dependents into account then that might mean the alimony/spousal support for the one who leaves is going to be significantly reduced because the payor could get credit for having those other dependents? or should they? [shrugs]
Who is the "dominant spouse?" (who will be paying the spousal support). Is it the one spouse who makes the most money? Is it all the spouses in the group together compared to the one who is leaving? Is it the average amount of money made among them? What happens if all seven (7) of them leave at once and go their separate ways, who owes or receives support then??? ? It matters because you can't move on until you know this and we haven't the foggiest.
It only gets more complex from there and I didn't even really throw out an equation or mention any numbers yet really.
That is to say, we don't even know how to get through the first step...! The old categories won't work with more than two spouses which means we need a complete hard reboot overhaul of the system to make this work.
Then of course you have
division of property which depends if you are in a community property state or or a separate/marital property state and each of these has different problems for polygamy. It is no exaggeration to say this quickly turns into an unworkable, flaming mess. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it doesn't work under the current rules because you can't categorize. The old rules simply fall apart and you can't "just do it like before," because that system doesn't have the capacity for it as it currently stands.
Creditors:
If someone owes you money can you go after their spouse?
You can, but I don't think you should be allowed to unless it was a shared debt.
Legally doesn't matter:
http://www.bcsalliance.com/y_debtFAQ_olddebt.html"Q: I am married but have a credit card that is in my name only, which I have recently defaulted on. Can a creditor or debt collector go after my spouse for repayment of this debt even though his name isn't listed on the credit card?
A: Yes, marriage is like a partnership with each of you jointly liable for any debts incurred during the marriage. It doesn't matter if your spouse is or isn't listed on the card as a joint accountholder, he or she can still be sued, have his wages garnished, etc., just as if he incurred the debt."
Marriage is a partnership; each is liable for the other's debt. In the US, they will sue you if your spouse goes into debt and defaults. It doesn't matter whose name is one what....
Can you go after their poly spouse?
I'd assume this would work the same as above.
I dunno. That's the question isn't it? Marital partnership is different from other forms of partnership like a business partnership and those differences were put their traditionally because it was a "deep personal relationship of the couple." The law has traditionally treated business partnerships a little differently from marital partnerships and I'm really not sure which of these would win out given that the number increase would open the door to saying those differences would be abolished, because the traditional notions supporting them are at least eroded or even gone.
Can you go after their poly spouse if they divorced them, or only part of the group marriage?
Whose names are on the debt? You can go after them. You shouldn't be going after anyone else.
See above, you can go after spouses for most debts.
Can you only go after those remaining in the marriage for debt or should you have to attempt to collect the debt from them first and then go after spouses who have left via divorce? Should you just be able to straight up collect.
As to the rest of this: How is it handled in a regular marriage? Why couldn't it be handled exactly the same way?
It really does depend on the state you are in and debt collection is a huge area of law with variances by state but generally.... In a normal marriage you're "jointly liable" instead of "jointly and severally liable" and this is one of those many differences between a business partnership and a marital partnership. Jointly liable means you are also liable on debt. Jointly and severally liable means you are also liable on the entire debt instead of just your share and this only makes sense to do if you have more than two people.
Jointly and severally liability is a good thing for creditors and a bad thing for debtors. If you are jointly and severally liable (as opposed to just jointly) that means the creditor can come after you for the whole amount instead of going after your business partner too. They can then take the whole amount from you and then you have to worry about chasing your business partner down to make them pay their share IF.... IF they have anything to pay you with.... If your business partner doesn't have the money to pay their share, then practically speaking you're screwed for that amount.
The credit card companies have such a powerful lobby that they rewrote the whole damn bankruptcy code in 2005. They will change this if they can if/when polygamy happens if they can manage it....
Then of course there are medical decisions.
This is already an issue with parents, siblings, spouses, and in numerous other situations. Yet we manage to figure it out. The easy solution is to declare one person, whoever, your conservator is what its commonly called when a judge appoints them, but I think people should be able to appoint them on their own, who would make decisions in situations like this - a role that I DON'T think should be limited to or automatically included as a function of marriage. I love my fiance, but I'm not entirely sure she'd be the first one I'd trust with important medical decisions... And anyways, being married doesn't automatically make you conservator as is.
The difference is the spouse usually wins over parents and others. They are deemed closer in terms of "next of kin."
Even if I take your argument as 100% valid, (which I respectfully don't). Here's the problem, there has to be a default for people who don't make those arrangements. About 1/2 of all Americans don't have wills. This means when they die their stuff gets passed down through the default system of intestacy that the state sets up by statute.
People procrastinate like hell. They won't make these Power of Attorney/"person who makes the choice if I'm under" document things in advance or at least a big enough portion of them won't that it'll be a massive problem. It will be that last thing on the to do list that keeps getting pushed down and never gets done if they even know they have to do it at all. Until, of course, someone gets hit by a bus or whatever, they've never made all those lovely documents and now that decision needs to be made. The spouses need to figure that stuff out and in the absence of a document made beforehand appointing a POA. How is that gonna work if they disagree?
It isn't that you can't get around it, it is that there must be a default system for people who don't take the time to get around it with the proper documents beforehand (remember 1/2 of all Americans don't have wills....)
Capacity to contract
This is already handled by the poly families who basically form LLCs for this purpose since marriage is illegal for them. I don't see why a similar setup couldn't be maintained.
Remember how married couples are on the hook for spousal debts? Well, one criticism of that is, "what if my spouse does out, does something stupid, wracks up $10,000 in credit card debt in one night, and I specifically told him/her not to." Is it fair to hold that person liable? With your earlier statements of asking whose name is the card in, would you say no it isn't fair to hold that objecting spouse liable?
Yeah, that x7.... or however many poly spouses you have.
Moreover, again, this really is an "interlocking poly chain" problem like from the spousal support section above. What if you have the same seven people and person 1 divorces person 7 but stays hitched to persons 2-6? How do you apportion debt in this scenario? Does the same rule apply before and after person 1 gets divorced/leaves? Does it matter who signed for the debt in this scenario? Should it (it wouldn't in a "normal marriage." What if the debt in question came from person 7 whom person 1 had divorced while remaining married to persons 2-6? Even if the divorce (partial) cleared person 1 from direct liability to debt from person 7, could they be held liable nonetheless due to their marital debt from persons 2-6 to whom they are still married? Who knows?
Childcare decisions both during and after marriage
Does everyone who gets married have kids? Does every couple raise their kids the same way? It might be a bit more complicated, but there are pretty obvious benefits here as well, as far as child-raising is concerned. It's easier for a parent or parents to be dedicated to raising the kids, the families total income would likely be higher per person despite that, meaning children could be sent to better schools and stuff like that. This is an issue people would have to work out on their own, just like disagreements in a regular marriage.
Ok, yeah, you could have operational benefits from having essentially one parent in the poly group be the "daycare/childcare person" and at least possibly have higher combined income from a greater number of wage earners in the family.
The question is how do you conclusively make decisions. All of those additional people, who contribute more money overall and division of labor/child watching, will want a say. What do you do when they can't agree? Ideally it is something these people would work out on their own, but the point is that adding more decision makers makes making a decision harder, because they can all have different conflicting views. How do you resolve that when/if they won't budge. Now that's just when they are all happily married. Imagine the contested divorce situation where they can't agree on anything and the courts are involved..... Yeah....
Wills Estates and Trusts
I'm pretty sure people should be and are able to do whatever they want in their will. And I fail to see how this makes it any more complicated than having more children, yet I've never seriously heard this as an argument against that. In all honesty, yeah, there will likely be increased complexity. But if people are able to handle that... why stop them?
It also means their loved ones (all their loved ones), get to see them in the hospital if they are sick. It would allow them to create family partnerships and better share resources. Taking leave if one of the people you love are sick. Filing for adoption, and not needing to keep any third party outside the relationship...
Eh, it starts with testamentary freedom (doing what you wanna with your will) but there are restrictions and for good reason. It varies by state, but you can't disinherit a spouse and if you try, they can try to invalidate the will, claim spousal elective share, or dower. More spouses means more restrictions on what you can do with your stuff in your will. Traditionally in French Common Law (followed by LA State and many parts of Europe) they have child elective shares too....
Furthermore, there is per stirpes,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Per_stirpes. This part wouldn't be unworkable, just made more complex.
Then of course let's not forget life insurance, pension benefits, SSI, joint spousal property benefits, and the whole slew of other estate planning/elderly/retirement instruments that have a lot do to with spouses. The insurance company isn't going to pay out a dime it doesn't have to, neither is SSI or anyone else. Frankly that's a whole 'nother ball of wax and I've already made this too long....
I'm not saying this would break the laws of Wills Estates and Trusts I'm saying it could complicate it a lot and that could end up with unforeseen complications. It might be workable, but we can't ignore it and should plan for/take it into account to be responsible. We haven't yet....
The thing is, poly relationships happen. They are happening, right now. Committed poly relationships, even. All this would do is give them the same rights and benefits that a normal couple who loves each other receive. Would it require tweaking some laws? Yes. Does it have potential complications? Yes, though they seem to be different only in strength, not in type. And the benefits could arguably be worth the risk.
Its obviously not for everyone. And obviously abuse is a possibility, just like in any relationship. But I don't think the fact that some people, even most people, get it wrong is a reason to deny it to those who get it right. Especially since most one on one marriages seem to get it wrong nowadays anyways (and have, traditionally).
Again, not saying it is unworkable, but it does need work--a lot of it. Until and unless someone puts in that work, we would be irresponsible to do it willy nilly and just.... throw it out there praying it works.
Meh, I'm tired....
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