LAST EDITED ON Sep-22-13 AT 11:45 PM (EDT)
 
>If I were to put my overthinking cap on,

... it comes off? :)

>I would imagine that rather
>than a formal review board, social services keeps a very close eye on
>any polygamous arrangement that goes above four and seems to have a
>very, very lopsided gender ratio, in order to keep a lid on religious
>whackjobs or to let the IPO know that they think they've got a
>sentient trafficking organization on their hands.

You're probably right about that part, though.

Mind you, there are almost certainly species for which that kind of thing is the norm, but they tend to be sort of more... eusocial than anything else. For lifeforms with more numerically limited reproductive biology, one expects it's a very delicate politico-legal balancing act between keeping people from getting hurt and not screwing with the lives they want. Politico-legal systems are not historically, um, gifted in this regard? But since that's exactly the sort of thing I don't want to spend a lot of time on, I prefer to believe that the Republic of Zeta Cygni's gotten pretty good at it. For one thing, the legal machinery of the republic is capable of doing a lot more reasoned, measured case-by-case consideration of such matters than real life's logistically obligatory lowest-common-denominator approach.

The "review board" thing is a common Avalonian joke, though. I thought of it here because it's probably going to get made in one of the conversations in TbS3.

--G.
"Oh, so, we're still in the clear, then."
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
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