South Africa may become the first country to recognize full polyamorous marriage

South Africa has been abuzz for the past month over a government proposal, now out for public comment, to make polyamorous group marriages fully legal and recognized without regard to the members' sexes or genders. 

The proposal grows out of South Africa's existing recognition of traditional polygynous marriage — one man with several wives — which has deep cultural roots in the region. (For instance, the previous South African president Jacob Zuma has four wives.) Now the government is considering, among other marriage reforms to accommodate cultural and religious minorities, a proposal to recognize polyandry, group marriage with more than one man, based on the national principle of gender equality.

The proposal, in the Green Paper on Marriages in South Africa (PDF download), is open for public comment through June 30. Reaction has been intense.

South Africa's small but energetic polyamory community has suddenly found itself the center of media attention, and polyamory spokespeople have been interviewed all over.

Let's start with the thorough article I Do, to You and You Too in the Sunday Tribune, owned by South Africa's largest print-news publisher (May 16):

By Tshego Lepule and Nkululeko Nene

...A proposed change to the country’s marriage laws is flipping the script on patriarchy and proposing that women be allowed to wed more than one partner too.

The possible recognition of polyandrous marriages in South Africa has sparked widespread and vigorous debate.

Last month, the Department of Home Affairs published discussion documents that outline policy proposals to the country’s marriage regime that, if adopted, would see a host of unions that are not currently recognised become legal.

Currently, the country has three marriage laws: the Marriage Act 25 of 1961, that recognises Christian monogamous unions; the Recognition of Customary Marriages of 1998, that deals with cultural marriages; and the Civil Unions Act of 2006, which deals with same-sex marriage.

All three pieces of legislation have been criticised, however, for loopholes that exclude the recognition of Hindu, Muslim and other customary marriages in the Khoi and San communities.

This week, politicians weighed in with their views on the proposals, particularly when it came to recognising polyandrous marriages that allow women to marry more than one husband, as currently the country’s law only recognises polygamy – where a man can have more than one wife.

The paper makes provisions for different options that could be adopted in recognising different marriages. One speaks about religious and cultural neutral marriages, and another that is gender-neutral and allows for all marriages, monogamous or polygamous, to be conducted regardless of sexual orientation, allowing both polygamy and polyandry.

President of the South African National Christian Forum (SANCF) Bishop Marothi Mashashane said: “According to the bible, polyandry is considered a sexual immorality, and so is the marriage between people of the same sex, and we shall by no means bless such relationship as a marriage.

“This proposal is nothing but a disgrace and a mockery to both our religion and our African cultures. We oppose and condemn it in all terms.”

Both Al Jama-ah and the African Christian Democratic Party have also voiced their disapproval of the proposal.

Polygamist [sic] Erich Viedge [of Polyamory South Africa] said despite polygamy being legal in the country, there were still some citizens who could not enter into marriages.

“I have two partners, one of which I’m not allowed to marry because the law says I have to register a traditional marriage, which I cannot as a white, middle-aged man. This means some citizens are allowed privileges that some cannot access, and these are some of the problems this green paper is trying to solve,” he said.

“With polygamy, women have always got the short end of the stick, as they were not always protected under law if their marriages were not recognised. And now, more than ever, women are expressing their sexual selves more as society becomes more equal.

“People don’t need to keep (partners) hidden; they can introduce them to their existing partners, and as consenting adults they can form relationships that suit them. This green paper means if either of them wishes to enter into marriages, they can do so freely. I’m currently living with both partners, but I’m not allowed to marry both of them,” Viedge said.

“Polyandry does exist in this country; the reason we don’t see it as often as we see polygamy, is because of stigma and toxic masculinity where men are threatened by there being more than one penis in the relationship.”

Samantha*, 42, who is polyamorous, says the stigma around females having more than one partner, particularly if they are both male, is still rife.

“I have been married to my husband for 10 years and we have two children together. We have an open marriage where we are free to date other people,” she said.

“Stigma is still a big thing in society around women openly dating more than one partner without being called nasty names. I don’t know if one day this proposal becomes law if I would want to walk down the aisle and take another husband, but it is a step in the right direction.”

Siphiwe Sithole says while much stigma is attached to non-monogamous relationships, a shift in legislation would go a long way in helping change mindsets, particularly in the black communities.

“I support the idea of legally recognising non-monogamous relationships, and in this case, the idea that women, in particular, can marry more than one husband, is a step in the right direction and an indication of a transformative democracy,” he said.

“Polyamory certainly challenges a lot of norms and ideas we all grew up with; this doesn’t, however, necessarily make it wrong. But we lack a platform and safe space as a nation to talk about these issues, hence many people who practice non-monogamous relationships live in hiding, particularly fearing stigmatisation.

“Marriage is a construct rooted in patriarchy and this is slowly changing. I, as a black polyamorous person, is in full support of the green paper by the government to re-examine the entire institution of marriage. I believe it is a significant step in not only changing our mindset as a nation around marriage alone, but also a great effort in trying to dismantle patriarchy,” Sithole said.

Cultural activists and religious leaders have rubbished the discussion on polyandry, which sparked a heated debate in Parliament recently. ...

In publishing their Green Paper for public comment, Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said: “This is the beginning of a crucial public discourse that will redefine the concept of marriage in South Africa.”

Motsoaledi said the next step to implementing the marriage policy would include submitting it to the Cabinet for approval by March 31 next year.

This would be followed by submitting the Marriage Bill to the Cabinet for approval by the end of March 2023 and, finally, taking the Marriage Bill to Parliament for approval by March 31, 2024.

Here's just one more article out of a great many: a news piece (with 10-minute audio) on Cape Talk Radio: SA govt considers new marriage law that recognises women with multiple husbands (May 11). An excerpt:

By Qama Qukula

...Elizabeth Retief, a member of PolyamorySA, has welcomed the proposal as a move in the right direction.

According to Retief, the department’s proposals are a step closer towards the acceptance of non-monogamy in South Africa.

However, she explains that the laws are still focused on polyandry and polygyny, which are both forms of polygamous marriages.

Polygamous marriages are primarily based on traditional value systems, cultural beliefs, heteronormativity, and static gender roles, she argues.

Retief says greater advocacy is still needed for polyamorous relationships, which are more fluid, progressive, open, and accepting of different sexualities and gender identities. ...

UPDATE: 'Why is it even a debate?' - South African men dragged over polyandry 'meltdown'

From the homepage FAQ of Polyamory South Africa. Click to enlarge. 

Greenfizzpops, longtime organizer of the older ZAPoly discussion list ("the umbrella mailing list for polyamory in South Africa") and its website, sent us this (May 19):

It has been a week hey. If you do this google search you will see the tip of the iceberg. 

There are some bright lights.... [But] a few thoughts/observations: 

1. The misogyny and sexism brought to light by this debate is pretty sickening. It points out very firmly that we live in a patriarchy and most people don't even realise it.

2. In our legal system, marriage is clearly primarily about property rights.

3.The amount of incoming media requests by journalists who don't know the difference between polyamory and polygamy/polygyny/polyandry is overwhelming.

4. There are opportunities here to benefit polyamorous people. The Department of Home Affairs is inviting comment on their green paper.

Polyamory is hardly new to the South African media and public. For many years Greenfizzpops has been logging South African articles and broadcasts on the website of ZAPoly, where she includes 67 from 2003 to 2019, with links. (Click "media" in the sidebar there.)

Erich Viedge of Polyamory South Africa, a newer group (Facebook page), writes to us,

South Africa has one of the most liberal constitutions in the world. They were the fifth country in the world to legalize same sex marriage when their constitution was adopted.

Or are they?

Marriage law in South Africa is a mess.

The racially-segregated Apartheid regime had one marriage law for Whites and another regime for Blacks. 

After the fall of Apartheid in 1994, the new government was keen to adopt a very liberal constitution which recognised the basic humanity of all people, Black, White, gay, trans and straight as well as differently-abled.

Rather than repeal the racist marriage legislation, the new government quickly patched up the deficiencies as best they could. They introduced the Recognition of Customary Marriages Act which gave legal recognition to the traditional polygamous marriages that indigenous peoples were conducting anyway.

The new government also introduced the Civil Unions act, which was a marriage-in-everything-but-name for gay couples.

But legal marriage remains reserved for one man.

There are lots of legal and practical problems with this.

For instance, if you're trans and married, and transition while you're married, your marriage is no longer recognised. You have to get divorced.

If you belong to an ethnic group whose traditional leaders are not recognised by government, then your marriage to multiple women is not legally recognised. Ironically, this excludes the San and Khoe peoples who were the original inhabitants of the country.

Because Apartheid was conceived as a Christian theocracy, Jewish, Hindu and Muslim marriages are not recognised. This is ironic in a country that recognises polygamy for some people and not for others.

And of course, only Christian clerics can apply to be marriage officers. So if you're gay and want to marry, you need to find a sympathetic church (good luck with that). And if you go to get married at the City Hall, the government officials are allowed to object on grounds of conscience.

Finally the government wants to harmonise this hodge-podge of legislation in line with the principles of the constitution.

They want one marriage regime for gays and straights. They want to recognise marriages conducted in religions outside Christianity (Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Rastafarian among others). 

And they want to keep traditional polygamy on the books, and extend it to other groups who might want it. Think the Khoe and San people, Muslims, and... Well, and polyamorists.

It hardly seems fair that you have to be a man, born into a certain ethnic and linguistic group, before you're allowed to marry more than one woman.

And it hardly seems constitutional that if you're a woman, you don't have the same rights as a man to marry more than one spouse.

...Predictably, this has caused heads to explode all over this conservative country on the southern tip of Africa. Christians are against polygamy and gay marriage (even though some polygamists justify polygamy on Christian grounds). Muslims are against polyandry -- the idea that women can marry more than one man, on their religious grounds. Traditional leaders are also against empowering women, and of course they make it about "the children." How will the children know who their father is? Culturally, the lineage is important because it ties children to their ancestors. Certain traditional ceremonies require knowing who your ancestors are.

Polyandry is not new to Africa. The Maasai of Kenya practice occasional polyandry, and polyandry is not criminalised in Kenyan law. The Himba and Herero of neighbouring Namibia also practice polyandry, as does Queen Modjadji of the Babedu people, a kingdom of 100 or so villages in northern South Africa.

All this has caused a flurry of media excitement.

Caught up in all this are secular polyamorists who find themselves in a strange situation. Suddenly, after accepting that the relationship escalator is simply not available to the polyamorous community, the South African government has introduced [that possibility]. Just like for monogamous folk, the idea of Love, Marriage and Baby Carriage (in that order) may soon become the law of the land.

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ANNOUNCEMENT:  "Join a Global Live Event hosted by Poly Pages on White Supremacy in Polyamory. Join our facilitator All of El in discussion with Dr Justin Clardy, Michelle Hy and Marjani Lane. This event will run on Juneteenth, 19th June 2021, at 9am Hawaii, 12pm PST, 3pm EST."  Paid online event, modest price, sliding scale. All welcome.

"White Supremacy is everywhere -- polyamorous people and communities are not immune. Academic research excludes and erases the non-monogamous experiences of Black, Indigenous and People of Colour (BIPOC), play parties privilege and protect white experiences at the expense of BIPOC bodies, and media representations of consensual non-monogamy often centre exclusively white relationships. The work deconstructing systemic structures of white supremacy must begin with critical discussion about the ways these structures shape our relationships with others and with ourselves."

ANNOUNCEMENT:  An initiative for a new and better polyamory flag and other symbology. Sarah at PolyamProud writes,

I recently read your article on your distaste for the polyamory pride flag [The Polyamory Flag is a Grim, Confusing Failure. Let's Do Better, July 27, 2020, my most-read post of the last 12 months  --Ed.]. I noticed that you have seen the reddit post by TheGreyBandit and his new ideas on the Polyam flag. I am currently working with him and several other Polyam people who all agree with you. We have collectively formed @PolyamProud, a volunteer coalition dedicated to establishing a definitive and representative visual identity for the polyamorous community.

Have an announcement that might belong here? Write to me at alan7388 (at) gmail.com

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Friday Polyamory News Roundup – Poly domestic partnerships recognized, keeping community during Covid, polyandry for China? And more

Welcome to Friday Polynews Roundup for July 3, 2020.

●  The city of Somerville, Massachusetts, became the first in the US to enact a domestic-partnership ordinance that includes polyamorous partnerships of three or more people. 

The news broke in the local Somerville paper on Wednesday, when I first posted about it. Now the news has gone national, first in the Boston Globe, then the New York Times, CNN, Fox News and elsewhere. And, later, around the globe (for instance Vietnam Times). I've updated that original post accordingly.

The Globe has just followed up with a short feature article quoting some well-known poly community leaders locally and elsewhere: Somerville’s new polyamory-friendly policy a ‘turning point' (July 2):

Somerville City Hall

A new domestic partnership policy in Somerville that recognizes polyamorous relationships is a powerful symbol, advocates and academics said, though the specifics of its protections remain limited.

...“The Somerville ordinance is an exciting turning point for people who are polyamorous or in multipartner families,” said Diana Adams, the executive director of the Chosen Family Law Center in New York. “There has been tremendous momentum and energy and hope for this for many years.”

Adams said the law center hoped to push similar ordinances in other small, progressive cities, in a strategy similar to the one that secured the legalization of same-sex marriage across the country. ...

While it broadens and reframes the idea of who counts as a family, the legal protections conferred by the ordinance seem to be narrow, said Kimberly Rhoten, an attorney and graduate student at Boston University who focuses on how the law relates to gender and sexual minorities.

Any benefit that the city provides to domestic partners — like hospital or prison visits — can now also apply to multiple partners in a domestic partnership. But private employers aren’t required to provide health insurance for domestic partners. So one of the primary concerns that prompted the ordinance, accessing health insurance during the coronavirus pandemic, remains unaddressed, Rhoten said. And the question of how the ordinance might affect state and federal family leave is unclear, she said.

“It’s a signaling boost for this community that the city is recognizing more than two partnerships,” Rhoten said. “However there are legal pitfalls involved with the ordinance. We’ll wait and see what happens.”

...Under the ordinance, people qualify for a domestic partnership if they “consider themselves to be a family” and are “in a relationship of mutual support, caring and commitment and intend to remain in such a relationship.” It does not require that domestic partners be in a romantic relationship.

...Some described it as one piece of a much broader movement for LGBTQ rights.

“I would say that polyamory and consensual non-monogamy in general is riding on the coattails of queer liberation,” said Elisabeth ‘Eli’ Sheff, an international expert on children growing up in polyamorous families and author of the book “The Polyamorists Next Door.” “I definitely see it as a trend towards greater recognition of existing diversity.”

That recognition is one of the crucial parts of the new ordinance, said Jay Sekora, who runs the group Poly Boston, which has about 500 members and hosted dinner outings and discussion group in pre-pandemic times. ...

“I was really excited that a town in my state would recognize the fact that families can’t be defined by government restricting the number of people, or the genders of the people involved, or anything like that,” said Valerie White, the executive director of the Sexual Freedom Legal Defense and Education Fund, which is based in Sharon. White said she has been practicing non-monogamy since the 1960s.

 

●  Polyandry is proposed to solve China's massive gender imbalance. China, like India, has a crisis-level overabundance of men. Both societies traditionally value sons over daughters. Combine that with economic and population pressures to have have small families, plus sex-determination technology for aborting female fetuses, and China now has tens of millions of men who will never be able to marry. "Bare branches" of the family tree, they are called.

In societies everywhere, "excess males" are known to correlate with social instability, crime gangs, private armies on the loose, and countries making war on their neighbors, conveniently keeping the excess males away from home and maybe using them up. The Chinese know they have a problem. 

Now a headline in the Washington Post: Two-husband strategy may be a remedy for China’s one-child policy, professor posits (June 10). 

By Anna Fifield 

Chinese authorities have been trying for three years to reverse the devastating imbalances of their one-child policy and coax couples to have more children. ... None of this has worked. China’s birthrate remains stubbornly low and men greatly outnumber women, creating a demographic crisis....

But now, an economics professor at Fudan University in Shanghai has come up with another — and, unsurprisingly, controversial — solution: Allow women to have multiple husbands, and they will have multiple babies.

“I wouldn’t suggest polyandry if the gender ratio was not so severely imbalanced,” Yew-Kwang Ng, who is Malaysian, wrote in his regular column on a Chinese business website this month. The headline asked: “Is polyandry really a ridiculous idea?” ...

The Post got the news from the China-watchers' site SupChina:  Should Chinese women have multiple husbands? (June 3):

Yew-Kwang Ng offers his proposal

The controversial article (in Chinese) was published on June 2 by NetEase Finance, a website dedicated to business news. Titled “Is polyandry really a ridiculous idea?” the piece is part of a weekly column written by [Ng]. In the latest installment of the series, [Ng, sometimes given as "Huang"] said that in China, where the sex ratio was 117 men to 100 women, the severe gender imbalance has caused a fierce competition among males looking for wives, leaving millions of bachelors struggling to “have their psychological and physical needs satisfied.”

Huang then [proposed] decriminalizing sex work and allowing women to have several husbands.

...“Polyandry has a long history and a scope of application. The practice also exists in modern times,” Huang wrote, citing an example of Tibet, where polyandry became illegal after China’s annexation in 1950.

...Some people opposed his idea because polyandry defied their traditional views about marriage. But more people, mostly women, criticized Huang for his misogynist attitude toward women, saying that he saw women as nothing more than reproductive tools and objects to fulfill men’s sexual needs. ...

The polyandry solution has been floated in China before. The fact that government censors allow this discussion suggests that the government is not opposed in principle.

A wider culture of modern, gender-egalitarian polyamory might make the idea a little more plausible — especially from the women's point of view. We've already seen stirrings of modern polyamory in China and Hong Kong, but it's got a very long way to go.

The real answer, of course, is to dump a whole tangle of bad culture overboard and start valuing girls as much as boys.  

 
● Plenty of poly-in-the-time-of-Covid articles have appeared in mainstream media; scroll through the last three months here. Most of them are fairly alike.

But here's one from inside the poly world's Neo-Pagan wing, a source of our being that goes back more than 30 years through the originators of the word itself. So the article is more interesting than most, despite a bland headline. It speaks of the damage not just to private poly relationships but to our wider communal sensibility. And it makes the encouraging point that this is hitting us nowhere near like AIDS hit the gay community, and look how strong they came back.    

The Wild Hunt is a Pagan community news site that has been running since at least 2000. Pagan and poly during COVID-19 (June 29). 

By Manny Tejeda-Moreno

Sam can’t begin to tell how many changes COVID-19 has forced on his relationships. “I don’t know,” he says. “I’ve lost count.

Sam... has a wife and a boyfriend who live apart from one another. His wife was planning a vacation to Spain while Sam and his boyfriend, Manny, were planning to visit Chile. “All plans have been canceled,” Sam says. “But that’s not the hard part. Our relationships are on hold.”... Sam has only seen his partners online since March – they video chat daily.

Many polyamorous people are experiencing similar situations.... One person, who requested not to be identified, said that her community and relationships had fallen apart because of social distancing. She lives in Spain, and the pandemic hit so forcefully and so completely there that her community has barely begun to process the trauma. Even now, she says, many will not see each other because of the risks it poses to their community.

Allie Phelan, the Polyamorous Librarian, agrees. While Phelan is not Pagan, she is an active advocate and educator on polyamory.

“Just a few months ago,” says Phelan, “we were a thriving community. There’s a polyamory holiday called Metamour Day, sponsored by the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, where people honor their partners’ partners, and a group of about two dozen of us got together and had a potluck. It was an incredible way of celebrating how connected we all are. Some of us were meeting for the first time, and some of us had been friends long before the people involved had gotten together, so it was a great mix that showed a lot of different facets of what polyamory is all about.

“Now we don’t know when we could do something like that again, and almost none of us have seen each other anywhere but Zoom since then.”

Rayna Templebee, who lives in South Florida, identifies as a queer Pagan woman and is part of polyamorous relationships. She said her partners have talked about COVID-19, but her experience is a little different.

Rayna Templebee

“I think what we learned during the HIV pandemic hasn’t really been in play as much for poly people during the COVID pandemic since this isn’t a sexually transmitted disease,” says Templebee. “The conversations that poly people have all the time about their partners’ sexual status and health have made conversations about COVID and quarantine easier. I think there is just an acceptance within most of the poly world that our health is all inter-related and that’s important and worth careful attention.”

Some of this is well-trodden ground for the poly community. Manny, Sam’s partner, remembers HIV and the conversations around the pandemic when no cure was available. He mentioned to Sam that, although COVID-19 is not the same as the AIDS crisis, the negotiations seem the same. ...

...“Do I keep visiting my partner who lives three hours away or not?” she says, giving one example. “I live in a town that had a curfew at one point, that was a consideration in traveling to see him. I had conversations with him and my nesting partner about all our mutual risk exposure levels, and whether we were able to decide to be one biome for the quarantine. Since all three of us were working from home, we decided it was safe enough to continue visits and that we would maintain the boundaries of our biome – which also includes my adult kid who lives at home and goes nowhere. He is much more strict than the three of us. But then my partner’s daughter and her two moms – they live in another town, what to do about the monthly visits to see her?”

Many polyamorous individuals we contacted... confirmed the scope of emotional stress.

“Guilt is a big one around here,” says Phelan, “especially in regards to class issues. ... In a scenario like this one, you have people who can work from home who can much more safely ‘pod up’ than essential workers, leaving people isolated.”

“Podding up” is a form of the quarantine bubble... Pods require boundaries, dialogue, and negotiation – the strengths of the poly community noted earlier by Templebee.

Templebee said there are many in her community who are “deciding to create biomes like ours.” At the same time, she noted she has seen “lots of poly people putting any new dating completely on hold and hanging out in Zoom meetups instead – online gaming has been really popular in our poly meetup and I think a few people who have been gaming together may end up dating once they are comfortable with face to face interaction again.”

Not everyone in the polyamorous community is podding up, though, or even living with a partner. ...

 
●  Meanwhile Huffpost, in its series Risky Business: Love And Sex In A Germaphobic World, tags the poly/CNM base with a nice story: What It's Like To Be In An Open Relationship During COVID-19  (June 29). You may remember the first polyfamily it interviews, Summer, Jimmy, and Chacha Silva, from the tabloids:

Chacha, Jimmy, and Summer

Summer Rain, Chacha, and Jimmy Silva live together in Los Angeles as a triad.... The trio “wed” last year, after Jimmy proposed with rings made from the same stone, for symbolism’s sake. ...

Their relationship is also an open one: “We see other people, together,” Jimmy explained.

It’s a complicated arrangement that works perfectly for them. But now ... the last few months have been considerably more complicated for the trio.

“The pandemic has affected our travel plans, which we had arranged to see a date of ours,” Jimmy, who works in the cannabis industry, told HuffPost. “I think everyone has been less inclined to hang out and see other people.”

To compensate, the throuple has had a lot of virtual dates with new matches on Facetime.

...Once they do meet a [potential] sexual partner in person, they’re not going to take any risks; they care too much about each other to put each other’s safety on the line for sex, Jimmy said.

--------------------------------

...Chloe, a digital creative worker in New York City, has been in an open relationship with her boyfriend for eight months. Since COVID, their mutually agreed-upon arrangement has morphed to fit the times.

Now, the couple each has a designated “safe” person they’re allowed to hang out with in an indoor setting. Everyone else is off-limits.

... “We trust that the two additional people we are spending time with indoors, without masks on, are being honest about their exposure to others too,” she said. “Of course, this comes with a risk, but we have set up precautions around it.”

--------------------------------

...Many couples said they’re used to having candid conversations; strong open relationships tend to be transparent, with clear-cut rules that are renegotiated when necessary. Talking about the virus and what’s tentatively off-limits now is relatively easy, they said.

“The great thing about being in an open relationship is that we’ve become very comfortable and confident having conversations about sexual health and safety with our intimate partners, so for us with this pandemic it just means we are adding a few more questions to that list,” Lucie said.

The Silvas, meanwhile, said that making sure each person feels safe, secure and prioritized remains at the top of their minds. ... if [Jimmy] and his wives are seeing anyone new, they’re doing so because they have a baseline trust in that person, he said. And they’d certainly wait for that person to get tested or quarantine for 14 days.... “We communicate deeply and often with our partners. We’d normally know someone for the 14-day grace period prior before engaging in sex anyway.”

●  Batting away a different source of trouble, Polyamorous throuple hits back at cruel trolls, in Yahoo Lifestyle, June 29. 

By Kristine Tarbert

This polyamorous throuple is hitting back after cruel trolls told them they were ‘going to hell’.

Shayla Oliphant first met James Bolden in high school.... [In 2015] the couple decided to switch things up and spoke about extending their relationship. That’s when the pair, now 26 and 28, met Shantay Nelson, 30, and the group began their life as a throuple in 2019.

“Everything changed when Shantay joined us,” Shayla, from Arizona, said.

“James and I were able to watch each other fall in love with her, which extended our own relationship with each other. From the beginning, we all just clicked. ...

“Polyamory is something that has to be experienced to be fully understood. It’s about communication, commitment, and love. 

The trio has never been happier, yet navigating a polyamorous relationship isn’t without its struggles. ...

“Once after posting a picture of us all on Instagram, someone commented telling us how we were ‘disrespecting the Lord,’ and would ‘go to hell’ for what we were doing,” [Shayla] revealed.

[But closer to home,] “Everyone has been more than accepting to all of us. Shantay’s sister was hesitant at first but she realised how truly happy Shantay was. Likewise, my mother was confused but has warmed to the idea since then,” Shayla said.

“Thousands of people listen to our podcast, 3lationship Goals, and send messages of love and support - whether they are polyamorous or not. ...” 

●  And while we're going on with profiles of MFF triads, this one's making the rounds of the Murdochs' News Corp. empire: Colorado ‘throuple’ expecting first child, wants girlfriend to breastfeed. We first saw it on the site of the New York Post (July 1).

Jess Woodstock, Lo and Mike Taylor (@wearethr33_/Mercury Press)

By Jackie Salo

And baby makes four!

...Though Lo Taylor is carrying the baby, she and her husband, Mike Taylor, want to give their girlfriend, Jess Woodstock, a more hands-on role raising the little one, News.com.au reported.

“I wanted Jess to be in this baby as much as possible because it will look like me and Mike, so we want as much of her DNA as we can get too,” Lo told the outlet.

The Taylors were already married when they had a threesome with Woodstock in July 2018 that quickly progressed to something more serious.

“I remember the day after we met Jess we were at her house and we both agreed we wanted to see more of this girl, we both just loved being around her, it was organic like any normal relationship,” Lo said.

...Woodstock said she plans to sync up her cycle and hormones with Lo to stimulate her body’s milk production, the outlet reported.

...“Not a lot of women can say, ‘I’m going to take this shift off and let my girlfriend breastfeed tonight,'” Woodstock said. ...

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"Economist Says Polyamory Can Solve China’s Gender Imbalance. Chinese Internet Explodes."

China announced today the end of its one-child policy, which has been in effect for the last 35 years. Just days earlier, the nation had an uproar over an economist's proposal for coping with the enormous gender imbalance that the policy has helped to create.

An official cartoon in the People's Daily announcing China's
new two-child policy. Will the picture make room for two husbands? 

For decades, China has been raising a lot more more boys than girls. Last year the birth ratio was 116 to 100. Traditional Chinese culture values sons over daughters, and the one-child policy, with its heavy sanctions, gave most parents just one chance. Early sex testing enables selective abortion of female fetuses (illegal but common), and many girl babies were put in orphanages to be adopted overseas. Or they quietly died at birth, with no inquiries as to how.

Chinese authorities estimate that by 2020, there will be 33.8 million excess males unable to find wives. By 2050 these unwilling bachelors — guang gun, "bare branches" — may amount to at least 20% of all Chinese men.

Throughout history and around the world, when a society has a large pool of excess males who will never find mates, they find family in criminal gangs and freelance armies. To preempt this, governments have often recruited them into real armies and gone to war to keep them occupied. US intelligence analysts worry about this.

Western polyfolks have long suggested that in China, polyandry — one wife marrying two or more husbands — is likely to arise here and there and ease the situation slightly. It is already said to happening informally a bit.

Earlier this week, Chinese authorities officially allowed the idea onto the table for public debate.

Economist Xie Zuoshi suggested that two men be allowed to marry a woman jointly, with full legal rights and privileges. The official People's Daily (circulation about 300 million in all editions) reported his ideas, indicating government approval for the question to go public. Was it a trial balloon?

Chinese social media erupted, mostly in condemnation.

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First, here's the People's Daily article in its entirety (English edition):

Professor Sparks Anger Proposing Polygamy and Gay Marriage for China’s Millions of Bachelors

Professor Xie Zuoshi (Photo: People's Daily)

The birth ratio of boys compared with girls in China has been rising steadily, peaking in 2009 before dropping to 1.16 in 2014. Studies anticipated that at least 20 percent of men will be unable to marry in mid-21 century. By 2020, China will see 30 million unmarried men.

An economics professor has a unique, economic perspective: Chinese bachelors shall be allowed to share wives and marry each other.

Xie Zuoshi, an economics professor at Zhejiang University of Finance and Economics, said, “In terms of supply and demand, the rising number of bachelors has deepened the scarcity of women, whose value is increased consequently. Men with high incomes find wives first because they can afford to take care of their women. For those who are earning less, one option is to share a wife with another man,” Xie wrote on his blogpost. He also proposed that China shall make polygamy and gay marriage legal, or encourage men marrying women from other countries.

Xie’s comment immediately sparked heated debate online. Many netizens were offended and raised questions on his moral standard.

Here's the original (October 23, 2015).


● Next up, in the New York Times China blog The Sinosphere:

Not Enough Women in China? Let Men Share a Wife, an Economist Suggests

Men playing checkers in Beijing. By 2020,
China will have an estimated 30 million bachelors.

By Didi Kirsten Tatlow

One wife, many husbands.

That’s the solution to China’s huge surplus of single men, says Xie Zuoshi, an economics professor at the Zhejiang University of Finance and Economics, whose recent proposal to allow polyandry has gone viral.

Legalizing marriage between two men would also be a good idea, Mr. Xie wrote in a post that has since been removed from his blogs. (He has at least three blogs, and his Sina blog alone has more than 2.6 million followers.)

...Though some could perhaps detect a touch of Jonathan Swift in the proposal, Mr. Xie wrote that he was approaching the problem from a purely economic point of view.

Many men, especially poor ones, he noted, are unable to find a wife and have children, and are condemned to living and dying without offspring to support them in old age, as children are required to do by law in China. But he believes there is a solution.

A shortage raises the price of goods — in this case, women, he explained. Rich men can afford them, but poor men are priced out. This can be solved by having two men share the same woman.

...He added: “That’s not just my weird idea. In some remote, poor places, brothers already marry the same woman, and they have a full and happy life.” [He may have in mind China's Mosuo.]

Polyandry has been practiced before in China, particularly in impoverished areas, as a way to pool resources and avoid the breakup of property.

Yet much of the online response to Mr. Xie’s proposal has been outrage.

“Is this a human being speaking?” a user with the handle dihuihui wrote on Weibo.

“Trash-talking professor, many single guys want to ask, ‘Where’s your wife?’ ” a user who identified as Shanyu jinxiang1887003537 wrote.

...On Sunday, he published an indignant rebuttal on one of his blogs, accusing his critics of being driven by empty notions of traditional morality that are impractical and selfish — even hypocritical.

“Because I promoted the idea that we should allow poor men to marry the same woman to solve the problem of 30 million guanggun, I’ve been endlessly abused,” he wrote. “People have even telephoned my university to harass me. These people have groundlessly accused me of promoting immoral and unethical ideas.

“If you can’t find a solution that doesn’t violate traditional morality,” he continued, “then why do you criticize me for violating traditional morality? You are in favor of a couple made up of one man, one woman. But your morality will lead to 30 million guanggun with no hope of finding a wife. Is that your so-called morality?”

In addition to provoking guardians of traditional morality, the proposal has been pilloried by feminists and gay rights advocates.

“Men are publicly debating how to allocate women, as though women were commodities like houses or cars, in order to realize some grand political ideal originating from either the patriarchal left or the patriarchal right,” Zheng Churan, one of five women’s rights activists detained in March, wrote in an essay for a WeChat group called Groundbreaking.

...Mr. Xie also has supporters. On his Sina blog, he posted a comment from a student at Nanchang Hangkong University. “You are standing alongside the poorest working-class people,” the student wrote. “When there’s no better way, why don’t we get rid of so-called morality and solve society’s problems?”

Read the whole article (Oct. 26). Xie Zuoshi eventually reached the New York Times and responded (Oct. 27).


● From semi-independent Hong Kong, in the Hong Kong Free Press:

Let several men share one wife: Chinese professor’s answer to looming bachelor crisis

Xie's provocative blog post.

By Vivienne Zeng

...Xie Zuoshi... caused a storm in the Chinese media by saying poor men who cannot find wives should “bundle up to get one to share between themselves.”

Xie wrote several men sharing one wife is not a wild fantasy, but an idea which has been put into practice in China.

...If the 30 million extra single men cannot find women, they will turn into criminals and cause social instability, he said.

...In an ongoing poll on Weibo, 66.5% of the 7,700 respondents have said they don’t agree with polyandry.

Which suggests that a third do. The whole article (Oct. 23).


● As covered at Slate:

Economist Says Polyamory Can Solve China’s Gender Imbalance. Chinese Internet Explodes.

By Joshua Keating

...The proposal has provoked a furious backlash from readers who accuse him of “violating traditional morality,” forcing a fed-up Xie to clarify that he was not proposing that plural marriage be mandatory.

Xie, like economists everywhere in the world, was guilty mainly of not understanding that people don’t always respond well to utilitarian arguments for upending social convention. But the controversy also reveals some unfortunate sexist assumptions about the consequences of China’s gender imbalance.

...While China's one-child policy gets much of the blame, it should be noted that India, which doesn’t have similar laws, has a similar gender imbalance....

Much of the commentary on China’s imbalance has focused on the consequences of having so many men: It’s been blamed for the country’s rising crime rates, while young Chinese bachelors saving money in long-shot bids to attract wives have been blamed for imbalances in the global economy. But it would be a mistake to assume that the imbalance benefits women who their pick of an abundance of potential mates. Gender imbalances in China and throughout Asia have been blamed for an increase in sex trafficking and forced marriages.

...It was a bias against women that created this problem, but women seem to be disproportionately expected to deal with it. That used to mean pressure to find a husband as quickly as possible. Now, Xie suggests, they should have to find more than one.

The whole article (Oct. 26).

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Meanwhile, China has a glimmer of its own modern polyamory movement. In relatively free-wheeling Shanghai, an article titled "All About Polyamory" appeared last spring in City Weekend, a chain of alternative-style magazines published in English in five cities. "Our team is comprised of locals and foreigners who love everything about the cities we call home," its staff writes.

The article is intermittently available at its original site (May 15, 2015), but you can also find it at another (May 19):

LGBeaT: All About Polyamory

Our latest series of columns has explored individual sexual and gender identities that are often hidden in the shadows. This time, we seek to expand your view of what relationships can look like.

For example: Regular three-way sex. A partner who leaves home to date multiple other people a week. A couple that shares two other lovers separately under the same roof.

What do these scenarios sound like to you? Your wildest fantasy? Cheating? Open relationships? Polygamy? Swingers?

Most monogamously minded people might choose one of the above descriptions. For others, they could all be examples of romantic relationships that occur outside of the conventional bounds of monogamy -- in other words, polyamorous relationships.

What Is Polyamory?

...Those who identify this way have consensual romantic and sexual relationships that are not exclusive to two people. Beautifully described by the Polyamory Society as the “non-possessive, honest, responsible and ethical philosophy and practice of loving multiple people simultaneously,” poly is also known as consensual, intentional, ethical or responsible “non-monogamy.”

So before you write off poly as just another way to get out of having a “real” relationship, let’s be clear: poly isn’t about sleeping around behind your partner’s back or racking up noncommittal fuck buddies. People who identify as poly are neither players, cheaters, nor hypersexual, at least not any more so than people who choose monogamous relationships. In fact, poly people can be just as deeply committed to their relationships with multiple people at a time.

What Does Polyamory Look Like?

Polyfidelity, one of the most popular forms of polyamory [sic], describes a closed group of three or more partners who consider themselves married or seriously committed, who are sexually exclusive and who often live together. Other polyamorous individuals have what they call primary and secondary relationships: They configure their relationships around a primary partner, with whom they share the deepest bond, while having one or more secondary relationships at the same time.

Still others allow for “open marriages” with varying degrees of romantic and sexual relationships outside of their life partners. Three people in a relationship are often called a triad, while four are a quad, but poly configurations can look like anything and everything.

Most poly people swear by communication as the key to their relationships. Within poly relationships, partners are in a constant process of negotiating and renegotiating boundaries and looking after each other’s emotional health -- basically, alllll the feels. An exhausting process, yes, but one that is also meaningful and necessary -- for any relationship form, really.

Recognizing Polyamory

So why is polyamory still invisible in many communities? Our society is built on norms that dictate loving only one person at a time and thatlegally and socially recognize monogamous, married, heterosexual couples to the exclusion of other relationship types.

But poly folks have meaningful connections; they have loving, stable relationships; they have families -- and they have the courage to subvert these restrictive norms by pushing the boundaries that define how we connect with and love one another.

Intentional non-monogamy isn’t for everyone; in fact, it isn’t for most people. But let’s be intentional about allowing people to love differently, intimately and openly.

City Weekend staff

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