Just thinking out loud here about this case. This is all just my opinions, and some of them are firmer than others, and others are quite squishy.

In general and all other things being equal, how many spouses a person has, and of what gender, is none of the government's business. I'd prefer if the government stayed out of most people's private affairs (no pun intended) most of the time.

We must distinguish between "marriage" as a religious institution, and "marriage" as a civil institution. Whether and how one is "married" in the religious sense is a question for one's religion, and THAT is none of the government's business, per the 1st amendment.

Now as to the civil institution -- if the government decides to recognize a certain condition (call it "marriage" or call it "condition X" -- it matters not) then it certainly can make rules regarding who can file for said condition; however at least in the gender question it is hard for me to see how the government has any interest in defining it one certain way.

Now there are reasons, from the civil point of view, for defining marriage as the union of 2 and exactly 2 persons. For one thing, one purpose of civil marriage is to provide for survivorship/inheritance in the case of the death of one partner.

Conceivably rules could be made for the polygamous cases; but it strikes me as a legal headache and just from a "CYA" point-of-view the government could be expected to not want to deal with the multi-spouse case.

The fact that this particular guy was defrauding the government and not supporting all these "wives" is presumably a problem with this one guy, and not with the institution of polygyny. And the fact that people in these bizarre multiple marriages were wed illegally young, and sometimes against their will, is not necessarily a reason to prohibit the practice for people who are old enough and are, in fact, consenting.

(Indeed a case could be made that legalizing the practice would make preventing abuses easier.)

Anyway just some thoughts.

Alex