The matter of number has actually been less important than the matter of sex. Polygamy, for example, is historically attested as a practice. But the concept of marriage that polygamy assumes is one of the relationship between different sexes, typically a man and two or more women. So why does the traditional view of the number of parties involved enjoy the status of a normative, rational position while the traditional notion of the sex of the persons involved does not? The answer is surely that the canons of reason that are operative here are determined not by the definition of marriage but
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