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Brazilian legislator wants to outlaw polygamy

Christiano

New Member
In Brazil, cohabitation is legal nationwide. A man who is legally married to one woman can live with a "second wife" in the same house as the first (official) one. But a man can't be married to two women or more at the same time.

But there have been a few poliaffective unions registered in Brazil. There was one in Tupã (state of São Paulo) between a man and two tomen, A second one was among three women in Rio dee Janeiro. Another six such unions were celebrated. There kind of unions, although unusual in Brazil, are not ilegal.

But a fedral legislator in the country, Vinicius Carvalho (of the Brazilian Repblican Party-PRB, in São Paulo), wants to outlaw these kind of celebrations, which include polygamy and polyamory. He says: "Unions like these are being celebrated in defiance of Brazilian law. Recognizing polygamy in Brazil is an outrage that hurts to death the traditional family in total contradiction with our culture and social values".

He adds: "this practice hurts forcefully the family premise as well as it goes against our social and cultural values”. He makes an exception: As a citizen, I may not agree, but these people will always have my respect".

But polygamy in Brazil are not allowed only when it comes to marriages. But this gay wants to go further, and also outlaw these other forms of contract.

This political parted has strong links to a Brazilian evangelical church called the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, founded Bishop Edir Macedo in 1977, in Rio de Janeiro. This church got famous in Brazil one of its preachers kicked a statue of Our Lady of Aparecida, the patron saint of the country, on national television, during a sermon about idolatry.

They've recently built a replica of the temple of Solomon in the city of São Paulo.

Vinícius Carvalho

The Brazilian Temple of Solomon, owned by the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God

Bishop Edir Macedo, founder of the church

PS: I don't know if I posted in the correct area of the forums. If not, please, movde this thread to the correct area.
 
I am not sure exactly what he is proposing, from this. Can you post a link to his own statements on it?

From what you have said it sounds like Brazil has some form of official recognition of such unions, separate from "marriage", and he wants to remove this paperwork so the State isn't officially approving of polygamy, am I right? if so, I can't see it really affecting anyone, it's best to avoid government paperwork anyway.

If he's actually thinking about banning cohabitation, that would be so difficult to define legally in a way that left flatting, live-in nannies etc legal that I really can't see it being successful.
 
Based on your final link, correct me if I'm wrong, it sounds like the Brazilian government introduced civil partnerships as an alternative to marriage to allow official recognition of same-sex unions, but they worded it poorly and didn't explicitly state that there were supposed to be only two people in each partnership, so a small number of people have registered partnerships with three people in them. These are already legally questionable anyway, as the government never intended to allow them, it just worded the legislation poorly so it didn't explicitly exclude them. All Mr Carvalho wants to do, presumably, is to tidy up the legislation so that it explicitly states that each partnership is to be between only two people.

This doesn't matter to Christian polygamists. Most countries only allow official unions between two people. That doesn't ban polygamy (note that the three lesbians in the article you mention were living together for three years before getting a civil partnership anyway, it was completely legal for them to live together without the partnership agreement, so it would still be completely legal even if they couldn't get the legal partnership).

Furthermore, Christian marriage is always between one man and one woman. Men are just allowed more than one marriage at the same time. A union between three people is not Christian polygyny, so I can't see anyone who studies marriage deeply wanting one anyway (unless there were very specific legal benefits in their individual case).

Don't worry about it. At the end of the day, this is just a politician trying to get media coverage using a populist issue that affects almost nobody but will provoke a strong emotional response from his constituents, so they feel he's doing something useful and will all vote him in again in the next election.
 
There are different kinds of trios that were able to register civil partnerships like the one mentioned in the report written by El País, that I linked in my last message. There's at lest one trio, that registered their patnership in the city of Tupã, that is formed by a man and two women. They are all heterossexual.

I also know of a trio who live in the city of Fortaleza, in the Brazilian northeast, that is formed by a former Baptist pastor and two women. This pastor is married to the firat wife but not to the second one. There are no churches in Brazil that accept plural marriages. I've been talking to this man on Facebook and I've also been exchanging e-mails with him. I intend to move to Fortaleza ASAP, so we can start a church there. I've already come up with a name (Works of God Evangelical Church), but it's not definitive.
 
Christiano said:
There's at lest one trio, that registered their patnership in the city of Tupã, that is formed by a man and two women. They are all heterossexual.
So they registered that the three of them are all joined in a partnership. That is not Biblical marriage. Biblical marriage is always between one man and one woman. Now it may be convenient for legal reasons to register as a trio, so I certainly wouldn't criticise anyone for doing so. But it is not necessary, so being able to or not doesn't affect anyone.
Christiano said:
I also know of a trio who live in the city of Fortaleza, in the Brazilian northeast, that is formed by a former Baptist pastor and two women. This pastor is married to the firat wife but not to the second one.
Good on him. But, if he's married to the first but not the second, that means that he has not registered their relationship as a trio partnership, and has no need to. This law or lack of it doesn't affect him at all, he isn't even using it. Which is my point. Don't worry about it, it doesn't affect anyone much. Probably there isn't a single Christian polygynous family that has even used it (and even if there is, they'll hardly be affected at all if it's declared invalid). Let the politicians do their vote-buying, it's irrelevant to us.
 
Did anyone else find it ironic that this law has links to a church that built a replica of Solomon's temple? The guy with 700 wives?!
 
That is very funny, I had missed that!
"There are none so blind as those who will not see. The most deluded people are those who choose to ignore what they already know" (John Heywood, 1546)
 
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