Equality & graphs meet polygamy

...In the new issue of the journal Ethics, a researcher argues that traditional forms of polygamy are inherently unequal and therefore morally objectionable.

"In traditional polygamy, only one person may marry multiple spouses. This central spouse divides him or herself among multiple spouses, but each peripheral spouse remains exclusively devoted to the central spouse," writes Gregg Strauss, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. "With this hub-and-spoke structure, even a perfectly virtuous central spouse has more rights and fewer obligations than each peripheral spouse. Moreover, a central spouse has more control over the family than each peripheral spouse."

One potentially equalizing variation is polyfidelity, an arrangement in which each spouse marries every other spouse. This is unlike traditional polygamy, in which the peripheral spouses aren't married to each other, only to the central spouse. Polyfidelity eliminates the central spouse and allows equal sharing of the rights, responsibilities, and benefits of marriage by each spouse.

Another equalizer would be what Strauss terms "molecular marriage." In this arrangement, peripheral spouses are able to enter additional marriages. This permits any peripheral spouse to become a central spouse of another polygamous family, which again, breaks down the unequal hub-and-spoke structure.
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