To preface: It's always fun to decry others for "thinking" for others, but the fact remains that we live within legal structures that do such "thinking" for us all the time. To critically engage those structures--I'll rename them discourses--we have to put forth an alternate discourse which is what we're doing here. Not all alternate discourses are millenarian thinking and by my reckoning an attempt to seriously discuss them definitely isn't. Now I'll post my contrarian idea. I can see an argument for continuing a legal regime that privileges monogamy for the simple reason that there are regressive forces that support polygamy as a means to subjegate women. That has been the historical use of polygamy in most cases we know. I know it isn't *necessarily* so - modern polyamory is envisioned as equal opportunity - but I have no faith, given the play of power in the wider social field, that poly wouldn't be turned to predominantly regressive uses. I realize that the monogamy-based legal regime hasn't been good for women for much of history but the legal protections of monogamy have been important in establishing protections and providing foundations of equality that are still being sought. Does legal polyamory undermine or support those advances? A few areas to think about: economic domination, paternity/maternity rights, health care provision, dispute resolution and property rights. These are areas that women routinely get short-changed and a poly-centered legal regime would have to deal with them. In short, it's still a misogynistic culture. Do you think poly would help solve that problem, or exacerbate it?
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RC McCloud also writes at The Safe Word