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Originally Posted by Bytor Peltor

Does marriage have a definition and if so, does it exclude individuals desiring to practice polygamy?

it depends if you're talking about religious marriage, civil marriage, or what the members of a marriage union define as their endeavor.

religious - depends on the religion. there are many religions and some allow and even encourage polygamy

civil - defined by law, varies from country to country

personal - billions of people on this earth, i'm sure the diversity is enormous

so there isn't "a" definition, there are many.

the definitions of civil marriage have to evolve with society and custom, otherwise the law is dead. in democratic societies, in particular, the laws are created from the bottom up, not from the top down (in theory at least), so what is lawful is always a moving definition-- this is why we no longer have slavery, prohibition, etc. same thing happening with marijuana legalization-- the push from the grassroots is becoming legislation. for a democratic society to operate that way, you realize, a lot of people have to be outside the law a lot of time, otherwise no change would be possible. and we adopt new social norms as we go.