Marriage, be it monogamous or polygamous, is an ancient institution that predates the nation-state, to say nothing of the welfare state, by millennium. It arose as a solution for social tensions caused by inheritance concerns, availability of women, and the stable raising of children.
The reason this has evolved into a problem is that the state (which is far too deeply involved in our lives) has gotten far too deeply involved in the business of marriage. There's too much state-derived advantage in getting married to your average homosexual or 4 wived Imam to let it go.
The solution is to leave marriage to the churches (or mosques) or the institutions that invented them, and leave the state out of it. Cultures have generally respected marriage between them, but it's never really cost anyone money before to respect someone's marriage. It does now. If you so much as question it, there's probably some hate crime violation they'll slap you with. That's the problem. With marriage as a state concern, how the state wants you to think becomes a community, social, and very personal concern to every American.
This is the trap that people who favor the state's involvement have wrought. If you feel that the state should be in the marriage business, then you're basically playing a game against people who will keep changing the rules until they win.
The Great Society discouraged marriage through moronic incentives. How’d that work out for liberty, justice and the American way?
We can close the thread now. We have a winner! (Well stated!)