In a certain country, it eventually came to pass, that women gained equal rights to men.
Every man was still allowed up to 4 wives, but now each woman was also allowed up to 4 husbands.
This led to some complex situations arising and a few additional rules had to be introduced.
Marriage was defined as between men and women. Men could not be wives and women were not eligible as husbands. Same-sex relationships were perfectly acceptable but did not constitute a formal marriage.
In each marriage the parties had to be designated in hierarchy (first wife, second husband, third husband, fourth wife and so on). Spousal points were introduced. Being first spouse gave 4 points to the partner, being second spouse loaded the partner with 3 points, being third gave 2 points and being a fourth spouse gave 1 point. No person could have more than 4 spouses and no person could accrue more than 10 spousal points. A person’s spouses took their spousal hierarchies in sequence. (A person could not take a third spouse without first taking spouses one and two). No person could have two partners having the same spousal hierarchy (having two first husbands or two third wives was not permitted). But a man could be first husband to two different women and fourth husband to two others. Similarly, a wife could be first wife to two different men but then could not be greater than a third wife to just one other husband or a fourth wife to two more. A man could be second husband to three women or, third or fourth husband to four women, if he (and they) so chose.
Monogamous relationships were permitted but considered mildly anti-social. Generally having two spouses or less was considered a sign of eccentricity or social failure.
On the demise of a spouse, changes to the hierarchy of the surviving spouses was permitted – provided there was consent from all affected parties. In practice, such consent was impossible to obtain and hierarchy changes rarely took place. For example, suppose that a first husband to one woman died or was divorced. In theory she could then elevate her second husband (or fourth, for that matter) to be her new first husband. However, such an elevation could (would), in turn, affect the hierarchy of that husband’s wives and their husbands. Such elevations could lead to the spousal points exceeding ten. Exceeding the 10 spousal-point rule required the shedding (by divorce) of a spouse (also by consent of all affected parties) for compliance. The lowest ranked spouse usually had to be shed first but this was not obligatory. Shedding by murder was not permitted.
Divorce was, of course, permitted as the right of every person on demand and whenever spouse-shedding had to be exercised.
A household was required to be registered to an individual (joint ownership was not permitted). However while every individual could only be responsible for one household, he or she could also belong to a household registered to his or her spouse. Each person’s assets or liabilities devolved first to surviving spouses in proportion to their spousal points (a death then leaving 40% of assets or liabilities to the first spouse, 30% to the second spouse and so on) and to surviving offspring only if no spouses were surviving and in the very rare cases they could be unambiguously identified.
While the mothers of children could generally be identified, determining the father was a little more difficult. All children were therefor made wards of the State and were transferred to State custody at the age of 12 months. Naming of children after their parents or relatives became impossible so the State allocated numbers to all people. This was a simple 16 digit, unique identification number (an 8 digit gene-scan id and 8 digits for the date of birth).
Inherited wealth virtually disappeared.
It soon became established practice for young people to begin married life as the third or fourth spouse of a much older partner and progress, with experience, to be higher ranked spouses of other partners.
