Why do we think monogamy is the right thing?

[ginplz]

NC for obvious reasons.

So just that really. Is it because we have all been brought up in a world where being faithful and loyal is the only way to be? And doing the opposite is condemned? Does it make you a bad person to seek more than one partner be it sexual or otherwise?

Surely we aren't ignorant to the fact there MUST be others in this world we are compatible with? Is it a case of finding someone that eventually you fall in love with and sticking with that person for life?

Has anyone ever went against society and never been strictly monogamous? Did/does this work for you?

Really interested to see people's honesty on this topic.

Not all cultures expect monogamous females.

The vast, vast majority do.

Citing a few 'tribes' in remote regions basically proves the point.

Blue i have read about this polyandry with brothers in the past too. It is a slightly altered model, but crucially the woman’s sexuality is still controlled by men. She’s not choosing her partners; she’s sexually committed to a whole set of brothers, however repulsive she may find each individual. And having sexual relationships outside the marriage would still not be permitted.

IcedPurple have you got any links to articles or anything you've read from an anthropological viewpoint?

It's circus skills. Lotta hippies.

I would be very interested in book or article recommendations on this subject too (not expecting you to necessarily provide them IcedPurple, just anyone who might be able to!). It’s something I have thought about a lot recently - monogamy, its origins, and other possible ways of being.

Try "Sex at Dawn" by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá.

It's a book, not an article, but should be available fairly cheaply on Amazon. Goes into some detail on why neither men or woman are 'naturally' monogamous and how female sexuality, contrary to what we're told, is not best served by monogamy. It kind of lets itself down with a widely criticised final chapter about how women should 'let' their husbands sleep around (no mention of the reverse) but all in all it's a good, though controversial, read.

LOL namechanger i honestly could have guessed that! What is the connection between circus skills and polyamory?!

Thanks Iced. I’ll look into that (but may skip the chapter you mention, for the sake of my blood pressure)

Every time I hear someone saying monogamy is unnatural and seemingly happily married people aren't really, I wonder how they would explain the ongoing devestation felt by widows and widowers? And the fact that after the death of a spouse, we tend to either commit to another monogamous relationship quite quickly, or never have another romantic relationship again.

Yeah the author even mentions in the preface that he got a very negative reaction to the 'Philandering Phil' chapter. Totally goes against the tone of the rest of the book, but adds nothing to it - so feel free to skip!

Every time I hear someone saying monogamy is unnatural and seemingly happily married people aren't really, I wonder how they would explain the ongoing devestation felt by widows and widowers?

I don’t think the argument is that people are necessarily faking happiness in their marriages, just that the majority of people DO feel at least occasional attraction to people outside their relationship and DO crave “newness”, whether or not this makes them unhappy in any sustained way.

Forming very close bonds with other humans is clearly a huge part of the human experience. Widows/widowers miss their partners so much because they were very close to that person for a long time. That doesn’t mean sexual monogamy is the right choice for everyone, or even for the species in general. It just means forming close bonds, including sexual bonds, is highly rewarding for most people, and losing those bonds is deeply upsetting.

Philandering Phil!

If polygamy was more natural to humans than monogamy, then we obviously would live in a polygamist society now. But we don't. I think there are way more downsides to polygamy than to monogamy. I can't imagine true happiness and intimacy shared between many lovers. None of them would be special because there's so many of them.
And raising kids would be a nightmare in polygamous relationships, especially if every grown up involved had a different idea about raising kids. What if one is overly liberal, the second one is old-school and a disciplinarian...there would be serious clashes between these grown ups about how to raise the kids.
Monogamy shouldn't be a problem if people were more careful about choosing a lifetime partner. I know some will say they were careful and yet they ended up cheating or being cheated on but it speaks for itself then.

You just have to visit the relationships board here to discover that monogamy doesn't work for a fair section of the population.
I'm divorced and unlikely to ever get in a monogamous relationship again, I'm just not wired that way. Lots of other people aren't either, but society hasn't caught up.

If polygamy was more natural to humans than monogamy, then we obviously would live in a polygamist society now. But we don't.

No. But we did - or at least most experts believe that we did - for the vast majority of our history as a species. Almost no animals, including our closest primate relatives, are monogamous, at least not for life.

Anyway, I find the whole 'natural' argument specious. Most of what we do is not 'natural' and that's a very good thing. It's natural to shit whenever you feel the urge. It's natural to be eaten by mammoths. It's natural to get pregnant at 14. It's natural to die in childbirth. And so on and so forth.

Monogamy works for some people, not for others. Whether or not it's 'natural' is beside the point.

I’m not arguing there are not plenty of downsides to polyamory, and I’m in a monogamous relationship myself. But this is a bit naive: If polygamy was more natural to humans than monogamy, then we obviously would live in a polygamist society now. But we don't.

Societies are not only built around what is “natural”; they are also built around what suits whoever is in charge. Men have been pretty consistently in charge of society, so it’s fair to say female monogamy suits them pretty well. The fact female monogamy has always been so much more harshly enforced than male monogamy should tell you something.

My theory is that’s it’s all to do with the move from a hunter-gatherer way of life to a sedentary agrarian one where individual families started to build up grain stores, capital and property that needed passing on.

Men saw women as a labour and reproductive resource and wanted to ensure the passing on of their goods to their own genes. Paternity started to matter.

Fierce competition amongst men for ownership of females who were no longer permitted to be promiscuous led to violence between men. Monogamy was seen as a way of brokering the peace and sharing out resources fairly so you didn’t end up with an Incel situation which might lead to violence. Even today societies with more single men are more violent.

A more violent society means more danger for women which means it makes sense for a woman to promise exclusivity to one man in return for protection from other men. Woman in Berlin is a perfect example of this.

So monogamy is essentially an agreement amongst men to share out women to avoid societal conflict.

Restricting women’s economic and sexual freedoms as well as the underlying threat of violence has made women need monogamy but essentially marriage benefits men more because well, don’t we all need a wife?

Hence women are usually the ones to initiate divorce.

The fact female monogamy has always been so much more harshly enforced than male monogamy should tell you something.

Well indeed. In ancient Rome and other societies, men had the right to kill an unfaithful wife, but I have never heard of any society in history where the reverse is true.

Male infidelity wasn't even considered grounds for divorce in the Anglican church until the last century, though of course men always had the right to divorce a cheating wife.

Though there has always been a more or less tacit acknowledgement that women will have sex outside their santioned relationships, too. Plenty of ballads and jokes about the old men with the young wives who 'suddenly' have kids when they couldn't before, and it being due to the wife having sex with a man nearer her own age as the old husband wasn't fertile.
If monogamy was natural for human beings, it wouldn't be so brutally enforced.

Iced there is an article I remember reading about the brothers. I'll see if I can find it. I'm sure the article was about how polyandry was good for women. I must admit it might be fun.

I don’t think the argument is that people are necessarily faking happiness in their marriages, just that the majority of people DO feel at least occasional attraction to people outside their relationship...
I wouldn't argue against that - most (all?) people feel attracted to people outside their relationship, of course. But extrapolating from there, that therefore we're more suited for polygamy or whatever doesn't make any sense to me. Eating every item of food we fancy wouldn't be good for individuals or greater society, and neither would everyone shagging whoever they fancy - higher rate of pregnancies, STI's etc... for the vast amount of human history before we understood about safe sex and had developed the technologies. Now the fact we can have relatively s safe sex with multiple partners means that some people don't bother with monogamy. But even then, when emotions are involved people tend to choose to have partners in sequence rather than multiples at the same time.

Basically, I think that feeling attraction to other people is natural, but that self-control is important and that we need to choose not to act on every urge.

Here it is. I'd saved it on fb as I thought it was interesting.
www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/02/when-taking-multiple-husbands-makes-sense/272726/

By monogamy? Trust, security, stability, shared history and future, equality, comfort. It’s certainly well researched that a stable, loving marriage provides the best foundation for children - which may be the people capable of maintaining a stable marriage are good parents, could be the enduring consistency that marriage based families provide, could be the core values of people likely to enter marriage viewing it as lifelong.
It’s financially better. It limits number of children to a reasonable number. It gives a strong sense of identity to children. It’s often socially easier as people age.

As a PP said, it's probably to do with blood lines.
I have no objection to polyamory, as long as A) all parties involved are aware and comfortable with the arrangement and B) the polyamory goes both ways, i.e. not where the woman is allowed lots of men but the man isn't or vica versa. What I object to is cheating.

Thanks for that, MadCap. Very interesting at least in terms of challenging certain male assumptions. But still sounds like an absolute nightmare for women. In all the situations described it’s clear the women have no autonomy. One brother assigning his wife to another brother while he’s away? Christ.

I think it’s safe to say that societies that practice this type of model are unlikely to recognise marital rape as a crime - or indeed any rape, provided the rapist has the permission of the woman’s husband.