“It Makes Economic Sense for a Woman to Have More Than One Husband,” Judith Warner writes in Time magazine. (Link safe; goes to Daniel Halper in the Weekly Standard:
Left-leaning poverty experts are all in a tizzy this week about conservative arguments that the answer to poverty is marriage — to “stay in school, get married and have children—in that order,” as Ari Fleischer, a former press secretary for President George W. Bush, most recently put it.
They’re arguing that the best ways to combat the multi-generational cycle of poverty and near-poverty that now traps one in three American women, and 28 million children are education, decently-paid jobs with benefits, high quality childcare and work supports like paid family leave.
These ideas aren’t new. They’re not sexy or exciting. And they’re certainly not likely to get any meaningful traction in our current Congress.
That’s why I’ve come up with a hot new idea.
“It’ll boost the marriage rate, combat child poverty, and, very likely, promote no-cost family planning among the poor – all without any new burden on taxpayers. It’s polyandry, Warner goes on to write. “We have to face reality. If low-wage men don’t present women with much of a good deal, why not double, or triple, or quadruple them up? Pool resources, boost household income, and promote family values at the same time?”
Of course, perhaps Warner simply wishes to have the option to pursue an earlier fantasy, from a column she wrote for the New York Times in February of 2009, the apogee of the heady days of Hopenchange:
The other night I dreamt of Barack Obama. He was taking a shower right when I needed to get into the bathroom to shave my legs, and then he was being yelled at by my husband, Max, for smoking in the house. It was not clear whether Max was feeling protective of the president’s health or jealous because of the cigarette.
Warner is the author of a book titled Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety. I think she could have simply stopped at the second word in the title, based on these two columns. She’s also a senior fellow for the leftwing Center for American Progress, whose chairman is renowned UFO researcher and Obama advisor John Podesta. Also linking to Warner’s latest column for Time-Warner-CNN-HBO, the Washington Free Beacon notes, “Comcast and Walmart, two of the think tank’s corporate supporters, did not respond to requests for comment on whether they support efforts by activists employed by the think tank they fund to legalize polyandry.”
Neither could Jim Jones, come to think of it.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member