Reply #76: What's the alternative?

[wickerwoman]

My dad is a veteran with a service related disability. His spouse is entitled to free tuition benefits and health care which adds up to tens of thousands a year. If he was allowed to marry as many people as he wanted, what would stop him marrying hundreds of women on paper and letting them collect his disability benefits while he takes a cut?

Likewise, if I was allowed to marry as many men as I wanted, I would put up an ad through some friends of mine in China offering spousal green cards for $10,000 a pop. I could turn a pretty tidy profit that way and retire next year.

There are major, major financial ramifications of offering state recognized partnership benefits for plural marriages.

I have no problem with whatever extra-legal arrangements people want to make (i.e. husband A is my husband on paper but he agrees informally to split his benefits with husband B) and I certain don't think plural marriage should be criminalized but I don't see any practical way to extend benefits to an infinite number of spouses per person without leading to massive fraud and abuse and bankrupting the insurance and healthcare industries as well as the government.