My understanding is that most polyamorous relationship aren’t 3+ person groups where each partner is equally married to each other partner. Some are one person married to 2 (or more) people, and some are more like a married pair, where each partner (or just one partner) has secondary relationships. Polyamorous relationships can become pretty complex, and it seems like it might make more sense for polyamorous people to work out their contracts on an ad hoc basis, especially since polyamory (as opposed to cheating) seems to be extremely rare.
One estimate* put the number of polyamorous people in the Bay Area as 2000. Since there are ~7 million people in the Bay Area , that puts the prevalence at about 1 in 3500. I’m going to go ahead and assume that there is a much greater concentration of polyamorous people in the Bay Area than in any given U.S. state or national polity. I think a 1 in 10,000 ratio seems plausible for the US as a whole.
That would give us an estimate of 31,000 polyamorous people in the US who might be interested in some kind of poly contract. Some of them won’t be interested in marriage. The remainder will be spread out in huge numbers of permutations and different arrangements. It doesn’t seem like a standard boilerplate contract makes sense for polyamorous people.
*An estimate from a leader of a Bay Area polyamorous organization called “Loving More”. It could be an underestimate, but do people underestimate or overestimate when talking up their niche interest? Also, the tone of the post (by a pro-polyamory blogger) seems impressed by the number of polyamorous folks in the Bay Area.
My understanding is that most polyamorous relationship aren’t 3+ person groups where each partner is equally married to each other partner. Some are one person married to 2 (or more) people, and some are more like a married pair, where each partner (or just one partner) has secondary relationships. Polyamorous relationships can become pretty complex, and it seems like it might make more sense for polyamorous people to work out their contracts on an ad hoc basis, especially since polyamory (as opposed to cheating) seems to be extremely rare.
One estimate* put the number of polyamorous people in the Bay Area as 2000. Since there are ~7 million people in the Bay Area , that puts the prevalence at about 1 in 3500. I’m going to go ahead and assume that there is a much greater concentration of polyamorous people in the Bay Area than in any given U.S. state or national polity. I think a 1 in 10,000 ratio seems plausible for the US as a whole.
That would give us an estimate of 31,000 polyamorous people in the US who might be interested in some kind of poly contract. Some of them won’t be interested in marriage. The remainder will be spread out in huge numbers of permutations and different arrangements. It doesn’t seem like a standard boilerplate contract makes sense for polyamorous people.
*An estimate from a leader of a Bay Area polyamorous organization called “Loving More”. It could be an underestimate, but do people underestimate or overestimate when talking up their niche interest? Also, the tone of the post (by a pro-polyamory blogger) seems impressed by the number of polyamorous folks in the Bay Area.