Rodney

It's not for me, but I have no problem with it as long as everybody goes in as a consenting adult.

In the case of the Utah Mormon-derived cults, the husbands were actually given power over their wives in excess of what is normally deemed acceptable. The women weren't considered equal. Moreover, one of the cult-leaders was arranging a marriage between his 14-year-old daughter and his 45-year-old friend. She had no say in it.

That said, anything that works between consenting adults and makes them happy and healthy is okay by me. I don't think that monogamy or polygamy are in themselves more or less selfish than one another. Selfish of whom? About what?

The major advantage of legal, monogamous marriage in our culture is that, as a legal institution, it comes with a package of rights and protections that are denied to other types of marriage, even male/female relationships in which no ceremony or piece of paper has been proferred.

For a non-legal marriage, you can build your own safety net out of legal agreements, powers of attorney, and trusts. But you really have to make sure that you have all the bases covered, and even then a vengeful relative can always try to throw a monkey wrench into the works in case of serious illness or accident (take guardianship of the injured party away from the partner, etc.)