Just to settle an argument. How long have there been allowances for polygamous partners in benefits?

for income support ........... 1987

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld199697/ldhansrd/pdvn/lds06/text/61107w0001.htm#06110758000110

I am sure (from memory) it was also covered in Supplementary Benefit (The Act for that I think was 1976).

Tue 11-Mar-08 11:17 AM by Gareth Morgan

From our CD-Rom

The Social Security and Family Allowances (polygamous Marriages) Regulations 1975

which includes the lovely "...be treated as having the same consequences as a monogamous marriage for any day, but only for any day, throughout which the polygamous marriage is in fact monogamous."

Looking on it at Nelligan the earliest reference I can find shows it's clear that in 1952 there was no provision:

"R(G) 18/52 A claimant for WB had been married to her deceased husband in Sierra Leone according to the native law, which allowed polygamy. It was held by a Tribunal of Commissioners that widow's benefit was not payable on the ground that 'widow', for the purpose of the National Insurance Act, means a woman who was married to her husband by a marriage in the sense of the law of Great Britain; i.e. the voluntary union for life of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others."

Has anyone ever had a case where there was a polygamous relationship rather than marriage? I dealt with one last year and the guidances and regs can be contradictory. It appears that one way of getting out of a LTAHW is to claim another partner, then you're all treated as single.

Deends on which benefit. It is still the case that survivors' benefits cannot be claimed if the marriage was, at the date of death, actually polygamous. It's the means-tsted benefits on the whole that allow additional amounts for second and subsequent spouses in lawfully-contracted (ie out of UK by non-UK domiciled perons in a country where polygamy is lawful) polygamous marriages.

Wed 12-Mar-08 09:36 AM by Gareth Morgan

I was talking about MTBs. Where there is a polygamous relationship but nobody within it is married to another member, monogamously or polygamously, then all members are treated as single.

There is no provision anywhere for polyandrous marriages and, I suspect, the guidance on polygamous relationships is taken to apply to polyandrous relationships as well.

As for same sex groups....

Gareth - I think that the polygamous provisions apply to polyandrous situations as well under s6 of the Interpretation Act 1978.

Thanks.