DOMA and Prop 8. Both History.

[FireIceTalon]

Bolty's post is pretty right on.

It may not seem apparent at first, but the context of polygamy is very much related to class and gender. But there are many contradictions, for example in American society, when a guy sleeps around with multiple women, he is patted on the back for it (at least by other guys, maybe not so much by women). But if a woman does the same thing, she is considered a whore (by both men and other women). It's a unfair double standard created as a result of the patriarchal functioning in American culture, or the dominance of male culture in general. But that's just the gender line. Of course to a lesser extent, guys who don't sleep around with many women may also suffer from stereotypes that extend across other lines in society ("he hasn't slept with many women, he must either be a closet homosexual, or he's a sissy").

There is a class element also as Bolty mentioned. If you notice, most women in the upper class do not participate in prostitution, for the simple reason they do not have to. It is much more common among working class women (especially single mothers) who are trying to make ends meet. And of course due to cultural hegemony, they are demonized for it, as the poor are for many things. In a classless society, there would be no such thing as "sluts" or "whores" - these are terms created under capitalism, designed to dehumanize, degrade, and stereotype women, who are seen as the lesser gender. You cannot have capitalism without male domination, prostitution and degradation of women, or racism - these things are REQUIRED for the system to work, because divisions of labor are necessary to keep class structures intact, which in turn, is necessary for the accumulation of profits. It is hard to say if polygamy would exist under a communist organization of society or not, or how it would function if it did. But I see no reason why it wouldn't be able to, since there would be no dominant culture projected onto the rest of society by a ruling class, to which the rest of us must conform to or risk being marginalized and being considered "fringe". Women would certainly no longer be forced into objectification and prostitution while at the same time being scrutinized and dehumanized for it, since male hegemony would cease to exist, and degrading labels like "whore" would be completely obsolete under these circumstances. Ah, the joys of Cultural Marxism. It's a shame many leftists (including many tendencies within Marxism) like to denounce it, but I find an invaluable tool. Can't always focus strictly on the economic, though it certainly starts there.