I just wanted to thank you for doing the work of taking this case to the Supreme Court. I know that change happens slowly in Canada, but at least it happens. I will soon be returning from fifteen years in the US, where change goes far more frequently in the wrong direction. I have often regretted my move.

In 1991, my ex and I held a polyfidelity discussion group in our home in Surrey, and only two people showed up–both from one of the smaller islands. (Which shows that we at least got the word out pretty well, and this was without widespread internet.) (This was less than one year after Morning Glory Zell invented the word polyamory, and we hadn’t yet heard of it.)

I hope you have stamina, and I hope that you have enough support that CPAA will be able to continue this fight until the end.

The parties to the present case don’t agree on exactly what “conjugal union” should be read to mean in S. 293. However, even the narrowest suggested interpretations, which have come from the AGs of Canada and BC, have included relationships which do NOT involve any “claim to a form of legally valid marriage”. The limitations they’ve applied have included “sanction by authority” (but not necessarily any legal authority, just somebody that the people in the relationship think is in authority), and “binding commitment” (but not necessarily legally binding commitment). Most of the other parties have taken broader views of what it should take to have a “conjugal union”.

In fact, S.293 wouldn’t make much sense for its intended purpose if it required people to claim to have a “legal” marriage, since that would make it easy to evade it. That concern can be seen in the original Parliamentary debates on the law. In fact, the text can be read to directly imply that “conjugal union” does not mean a legal form of marriage when it says “any kind of conjugal union with more than one person at the same time, whether or not it is by law recognized as a binding form of marriage”… which makes no sense if there is no such thing as a conjugal union which is not so recognized.

So, although the legal definition of “conjugal union” can’t be said to be completely settled, it’s basically certain that no court is going to take your view.

It would take pages of text to cover all the arguments in detail, and for the purposes of the FAQ we explain “conjugal union” in terms of its common meaning, which is in fact something very close to “living as if you were married”. That was true in 1890, and it’s true now. And in fact it was probably exactly what the legislators intended. People who want to hear more about the possible interpretations should probably read the actual arguments.

I’ve read the minutes of the actual parliamentary debates on polygamy. Nobody mentioned property or spousal support that I saw, although admittedly the debate was sparse to begin with. The legislative history is posted on the Web site if you want to read it.

There were some somewhat related issues in the public consciousness, at least in the US, which was where most of the panic happened. Those took the form of concern about women being abandoned or inadequately supported, more than about defining who owned what, or what might happen after a marriage ended in some “official” way. I don’t see it as too surprising that people weren’t thinking about divorce, since it literally took an act of Parliament to get a divorce in Canada before 1968, and it wasn’t all that much easier in the US.

Even for the public, the concern seems to me to have been more about what we today would call “sex slavery” than about anything to do with property. There were quite a few fairly lurid books about the presumed plight of the Mormon women. It’s hard to say how much was truth and how much was fiction.

Women were monstrously disadvantaged in terms of property at the time, in monogamy as well as in polygamy, and I’m not sure anybody with any power thought that was a problem.

In any case, the things you mention weren’t important enough to the legislators for them to have discussed them specifically. They didn’t even mention inheritance issues.

If you have information we don’t know about, please do share it with us.

The CPAA plans to address the issues you raise more completely in another FAQ section. We wanted to get this one out first, because it’s both the easiest for us to write and the most directly connected to our mission. It takes quite a bit of time to write these; every word is reviewed.

You might want to have a look at the forums on the site. There are drafts of position statements on patriarchal polygyny and child brides. There’s quite a bit of text there. Please feel free to comment on it and explain what you think we should be saying. The more specific, the better.

When we get position statements done, they’ll be the source material for FAQs, similar to this one, on those subjects.

Speaking personally now…

I’m familiar with the Blackmore and Oler cases, although what I know of the actual facts is only what’s in the press.

I wouldn’t object if either Blackmore or Oler were brought before a court for a real offence, such as forcing underaged girls into marriage. Nor would I object to their imprisonment or other punishment if properly convicted of such actions.

However, regardless of what they may have done, neither of the two has been charged, in court, with such a genuine offence. Instead, they were charged under section 293, which says nothing at all about coercion, undue influence, age, or indeed anything directly connected to any actual harm they’re alleged to have caused. They are charged, not with forcing girls into anything, but simply with having multiple conjugal partners.

If they can be imprisoned for that, so can anybody, abuser or not. That’s not acceptable. It’s doubly unacceptable if that also means one can get away with coercing young girls into monogamy. The law needs to address the actual transgression, not a poorly chosen proxy for it.

I think I can safely say that the distinction between multi-person marriages and forced child marriages is very, very clear to the CPAA and the polyamorous community. I also think we’re pretty unanimous on the “forced” and “child” parts being the problem. We believe that the forced polygamous marriage of children is exactly as wrong as the forced monogamous marriage of children, that’s plenty wrong enough.

You have mentioned the issues of child protection law in passing, but I hope that the discernment between polyamourous relationships and/or marriages and the forced marriage of children ( whether between an older adult and girls or forced marriage between girls and boys) is made distinctly. There are many gradations of abuse in marriages; whether in monogamous or polyamorous relationships or marriages. All need to be clearly defined before the courts can make an informed equitable decision allowing and valuing polyamourous relationships and marriages between consenting adults.