monogamy in western culture

[lemur]

Usually, when a couple has established a relationship, either would be socially judged for engaging in romantic activity outside the partnership. This is a culture of monogamy. Yet, because there is also a culture of civility, once a person finds a new partner and leaves the old relationship, the social expectation emerges that any infidelity that occurred in the old relationship should be forgotten, the old partner should accept the new partner in the life of the children, etc. In other words, extremist forms of retaliation such as those we hear about in Sharia law, etc. are condemned and all are expected to love and celebrate the new relationship, even if it resulted in a breach of monogamy in the old relationship.

 

Is this serial monogamy reasonable and civil as a way for people to move from one relationship to the next without social dishonor? Or is it a form of hypocrisy that has evolved as the west attempts to develop from a more conservative traditional culture of rigorous monogamy to one of total individual freedom without family and sexual responsibility? How long can we expect to flip from one channel where people are pouncing on their ex-spouse's new partner to the next channel where a therapist calmly tells someone that it is not civil or realistic for them to expect to have people take their side when they were the victim of cheating? Will one or the other culture win, or will they just go on battling to assert the legitimacy of everyone without regard for who may be wrong or right in an ultimate sense?

[Realitycheck]

Where are you? Monogamistic relationships are pretty standard in the West and I don't envision it changing that much. In college and in youth, relationships can be a lot like a revolving door, but monogamy is pretty much the rule. If young people aren't in church, the culture still impresses monogamistic values upon the populace, for the most part. I believe that, for the most part, the status quo will be upheld, though we will probably have expanded splinter groups of gay relationships, single mothers, singles who stay single, and whatever other groups I may have left out as freedom becomes more and more dominant, though monogamy will probably remain dominant.

[Marat]

To respond to the OP, we have to enquire first whether monogamy is itself a valid institution. Since both males and females have a desire for sexual variety, and the lack of a variety of sexual or even romantic partners can destroy the vitally important source of pleasure that sex is, we have to wonder what can justify society insisting on monogamy as a socially organizing principle in the first place? If we could train people from childhood not to be sexually jealous, then it would be possible to give all adults the benefits of sexual freedom with none of the pain associated with sexual possessiveness. This seems a great improvement over current usages.

 

In primitive communities with less well-defined partnership formations, the entire village assumes responsibility for bringing up the children, which may help children grow up to be more sociable, more cooperative, and less afflicted by the specific neuroses of their own biological parents, since they would be free to drift from one member of the community to another, spending more time with those who were more sane and supportive.

 

A vast revision of legal usages would be required, but the final legal structure required to support polygamy need not be any more elaborate, inefficient, or conflict-generating than that now in place to sustain monogamy.

[Moontanman]

To respond to the OP, we have to enquire first whether monogamy is itself a valid institution. Since both males and females have a desire for sexual variety, and the lack of a variety of sexual or even romantic partners can destroy the vitally important source of pleasure that sex is, we have to wonder what can justify society insisting on monogamy as a socially organizing principle in the first place? If we could train people from childhood not to be sexually jealous, then it would be possible to give all adults the benefits of sexual freedom with none of the pain associated with sexual possessiveness. This seems a great improvement over current usages.

 

Oh "Brave New World" ?

 

In primitive communities with less well-defined partnership formations, the entire village assumes responsibility for bringing up the children, which may help children grow up to be more sociable, more cooperative, and less afflicted by the specific neuroses of their own biological parents, since they would be free to drift from one member of the community to another, spending more time with those who were more sane and supportive.

 

I would think this is probably more natural for humans but who decides what is natural depends on the culture and our culture seems to be lurching about as far away from this ideal as we can in recent years.

 

A vast revision of legal usages would be required, but the final legal structure required to support polygamy need not be any more elaborate, inefficient, or conflict-generating than that now in place to sustain monogamy.

 

I do know some polyamorus people, some are in what they term "open" poly relationships and others are in what they call "closed" poly relationships, not sure how this corresponds to polygamy where sex is reserved for the man to have with his women one at a time but in the idea of poly it's everyone having sex with everyone else in the "closed" groups and everyone having sex with anyone they want in the open groups.

Edited May 5, 2011 by Moontanman

[Realitycheck]

You ever see that old movie, Dr. Strangelove? You kind of remind me of him, no offense intended. People and animals have been practicing monogamy for a very long time. Questioning its validity is like trying to say that the standard model is all rubbish.

 

Who says that spouses cannot responsibly control their id? If a couple does not truly love each other, then why do they marry. We have breast augmentation, nose jobs, and tanning spray, all done safely, for those who it matters to. Why more than one?

Edited May 5, 2011 by Realitycheck

[imatfaal]

We have also been practising the suppression of women, the maltreatment of children, and the violent exploitation of races and creeds that are not our own; that we have been doing something for a long time is only really proof that we have been doing it for a long time. the standard model is founded on theory and experimentation, it is predictive and logically sound; on the other hand the monogamous nuclear family is not the only existing answer to the problem, is far from common outside our own species and is a societal construct rather than a logical one.

[Marat]

When it is asked, 'Why can't couples control their id?' the response has to be, 'Why adopt an institution that requires people to do anything so contrary to their spontaneous impulses that they have to suppress them?' While monogamy seems to have been the predominant arrangement in society for a long time, this need not establish that it is the best system.

 

It may just have arisen from the ancient form of society in which each person was assigned a highly specific role and required to remain within it: a serf could never ride a horse in battle, a noble could never sell his land, a priest could never do manual labor, etc. Thus women and men were also strictly segregated into separate roles, and since men and women were not generally allowed to interact outside their families, within which marriage was forbidden because of incest rules, people could only form sexual partnerships with one specially and elaborately selected person from the other gender group. But now that the sexes freely intermix all the time, pair formation doesn't have to be so difficult and ritualized, so monogamy has lost its former cultural basis.

 

There are tribes in Southern India which have practised polyandry, with one woman having several husbands, and in the Islamic world men have been allowed to have four wives or even more in special circumstances, depending on their ability to afford to support them all financially. Most animals are also not monogamous, including our closest primate relatives.

 

The general rule of a positivist ethos has to be that if something is difficult or frustrating, we should demand that it rigorously demonstrate sufficient utility to outweigh its costs before we decide to continue the practise. Monogamy seems to create a huge happiness deficit in society, both among those who observe it and suffer lives of sexual frustration, and in partnerships where the ideal is violated with emotionally disturbing consequences. It seems likely that it would be easier to train people not to develop a disposition toward sexual jealousy than it is to preserve monogamy.

[lemur]

Who says that spouses cannot responsibly control their id? If a couple does not truly love each other, then why do they marry. We have breast augmentation, nose jobs, and tanning spray, all done safely, for those who it matters to. Why more than one?

There's an ironic factor that contradicts both yours and Marat's position: monogamy and the restrictions/boundaries it creates actually increases the allure of polyamory. In other words, monogamy creates a forbidden-fruit effect that renders "the grass always greener." If monogamy were replaced with polygamy, perhaps grass would still appear greener among other people's relationships or virgins, same-sex relationships, or whatever else was perceived as "off-limits." Maybe the only way to completely release people from sexual tension and titillation is to allow total sexual freedom by eliminating rape laws and taboos. In fact, if sexual advances were considered an imperative social nicety and resistance of such advances was deemed offensively aggressive, people might actually start to fantasize about resisting sex. Of course, this would be quite odd if hierarcy/status was also eliminated as a basis for sexual restriction since that would allow employees to rape managers/owners, children to rape adults, inmates prison guards, suspects police, defendants judges, homosexuals heterosexuals, etc. which could destabilize other patterns of social power and control.

Edited May 8, 2011 by lemur

[random]

well i would have to speculate that monogamy is an invention of the church, When women needed a male to support them it would be unacceptable for a woman to be forced into homelessness or whatever because she was past her prime and could not find a new man to take care of her. So divorce and infidelity was shunned as less than honorable even though biologically we want variety, If somthing violates our bodies natural response / instinct I think it is reasonably safe to assume it is an invention of man brought about for some social purpose.

[Marat]

I agree that polygamy would ultimately prove as frustrating as monogamy, since everyone would then start going around grumbling over being stuck with the "same old four" rather than with the "same old one" all the time. I have heard of Islamic men regarding with amusement the envy of Western men for four wives, since they feel that the ultimate significance of four mates is just more responsibility for taking care of a larger family. As a thought-experiment, imagine having married your last four girlfriends and now having them all as wives. When you think of it that way, there seems nothing especially titillating about having four wives.

 

So the point has to be the ultimate abandoment of any restrictions to the expression of any instinct, whether it be drinking water, sleeping, sunbathing, sex, or dancing to music, unless some clearly objective, positivistic measure can justify its restriction -- i.e., the musice is too loud for this time of night, too much sunbathing causes skin cancer, there's a shortage of water and so we all have to go without, etc. The Kalahari Bushmen somehow manage to get by with complete promiscuity, so it doesn't seem that sexual restrictions are necessary for social organization.

[Realitycheck]

Ultimate abandonment, total free-for-all, what a concept. Notice how many motherly figures are supporting this concept. Males don't have to endure such a responsibility. All they care about is getting their rocks off, but hello, the stone ages are long gone. Rape is no longer an option. Sure, you'll find a bunch of eighteen year olds interested in your plan, but we live in a totally different age now, though I agree that everybody is different, free-for-all sex is a really small demographic confined by our culture. Most responsible women are more interested in cerebral love than physical lust. They are innately still more attracted to a man's ability to support a family than his ability to sexually satisfy a harem. Stability and responsibility wins out over wanton orgies of lust.

[random]

Ultimate abandonment, total free-for-all, what a concept. Notice how many motherly figures are supporting this concept. Males don't have to endure such a responsibility. All they care about is getting their rocks off, but hello, the stone ages are long gone. Rape is no longer an option. Sure, you'll find a bunch of eighteen year olds interested in your plan, but we live in a totally different age now, though I agree that everybody is different, free-for-all sex is a really small demographic confined by our culture. Most responsible women are more interested in cerebral love than physical lust. They are innately still more attracted to a man's ability to support a family than his ability to sexually satisfy a harem. Stability and responsibility wins out over wanton orgies of lust.

 

 

Again this is brought about by a social need, not so much our basic instincts, I believe it takes a long time to evolve and so if you look at it from the perspective of say.....animal lust the rest is history........to effect, biblical history, however this is slightly off topic and somewhat irrelevant to the topic at hand.

 

Monogamous relationships are beneficial ........currently, as women regain social status and economic power as equals i believe the humble man will be nothing more than a sperm donor used for his attractive physical properties as well as desired emotional properties and when it becomes too much of a "headache" for the female he'll be free to go impregnate the next young lass.

So long as he retains his attractiveness. Currently IMO alot of relationships are "marriages of convenience" wherein financial obligations are the main reason for enduring the loss of freedom that comes from having to compromise with a significant other.

 

But.....I am after all a man out of a long term relationship and am pursuing my career as a gigolo so what do I really know?

So far all i get is free drinks and a bed for the night but it's coming!!!!

[Realitycheck]

Right, of course, it just depends on where you hang out, as there are very few absolutes in relationships.

[Marat]

It is important not to assess the pluses and minuses of monogamy from a perspective within current society, with all its ritualized assumptions that the price males should pay for intercourse is that they have to 'take responsibility' for the women they have sex with and support them. These notions take from an era when birth control was unavailable or difficult to secure, and they have no practical value now. There also seems to be an odd assumption that sexual freedom would somehow negate the possibility of significant mental and emotional relationships between men and women. But on the contrary, sexual freedom might well encourage significant male-female interactions on a 'higher' level (the term already presupposes the prude's view of sex), since women would no longer be commodified as the scarce resource needed for heterosexual satisfaction, but would instead resume their true character as people, since the whole unnecessary 'sex economy' would be gone with no artificial partner shortages to sustain it.

 

The vital first step is to de-sacralize sex and regard it just as a normal biological need which should be fulfilled so that people are not frustrated unnecessarily by artificial scarcities of opportunities for satisfaction. If you could only eat after you had satisfied some woman that you were in love with her and that she should love you as well, we would live in a world of misery and starvation for nothing. So why make that a precondition of being able to enjoy sexual satisfaction, with all the attendant suffering that that unnecessarily causes? Of course, this system makes women extremely socially powerful, but the problem is that it allows them to be socially powerful without their having to be kind, courteous, intelligent, or sophisticated. They are important just as a scarce heterosexual cooperation commodity, which encourages them not to develop more truly human ways to appeal to people, especially if their appearance makes them naturally powerful in the artificial sex economy. This economy is thus a tragedy for both men and women, since it involves them both in a subhuman commodification game where they could have interacted in a more sophisticated and human way. And monogamy is a lynchpin of this economy, since all economic systems have to rely on exclusivity of 'property.'

[lemur]

Marat, if you had social power that didn't require you to be "kind, courteous, intelligent, or sophisticated," would you want to give it up and risk having less or no social power? Also, as far as sexual scarcity being a problem, do you think that people would ever be equally interested in having sex with someone they don't find attractive as they are with doing it with someone they do find attractive? Monogamy could become a taboo and people would still exclude others because of attractiveness/interest, I think.

[Marat]

I quite agree that people would still decline to have sex with people they found unattractive, but no doubt they would be significantly less picky since sex would no longer have its currently inflated, metaphysical status as somethng you are not supposed to have with anyone unless the circumstances are nearly magical so that it can be 'excused' or 'washed clean' by the romance. Sex could become more like conversation, hand-shaking, spontaneous side-walk sports games among teenagers, group singing, answering questions for a survey, accepting a new brand of food from someone offering it to you in a supermarket, etc. You might not have been especially interested in doing any of these things on that particular day with the people who presented themselves seeking your participation in their little group activity, but just out of human sociability you went along with it, since it was no big deal.

 

I don't think that women would want to surrender their currently privileged status a governors of the sex economy, deciding who is favored for how many gifts, how much flattery, how much social status, and how much attention, and who isn't. But if they understood that the scarcity of sexual partners was the cause of the commodification of women, which could be cleared away once they were no longer scarce partners but instead just normal people, they might be willing to opt for people equal people with men rather than a cartel of capitalists in control of a scarce resource.

[lemur]

I quite agree that people would still decline to have sex with people they found unattractive, but no doubt they would be significantly less picky since sex would no longer have its currently inflated, metaphysical status as somethng you are not supposed to have with anyone unless the circumstances are nearly magical so that it can be 'excused' or 'washed clean' by the romance. Sex could become more like conversation, hand-shaking, spontaneous side-walk sports games among teenagers, group singing, answering questions for a survey, accepting a new brand of food from someone offering it to you in a supermarket, etc. You might not have been especially interested in doing any of these things on that particular day with the people who presented themselves seeking your participation in their little group activity, but just out of human sociability you went along with it, since it was no big deal.

 

I don't think that women would want to surrender their currently privileged status a governors of the sex economy, deciding who is favored for how many gifts, how much flattery, how much social status, and how much attention, and who isn't. But if they understood that the scarcity of sexual partners was the cause of the commodification of women, which could be cleared away once they were no longer scarce partners but instead just normal people, they might be willing to opt for people equal people with men rather than a cartel of capitalists in control of a scarce resource.

Nice examples of low-gatekeeping social interactions. But what about the post-coital feelings that go along with sex, like thinking about the person, feeling nervous about encountering them again, etc.? Are all those things just byproducts of the current psychological construction of sex? If sex was a casual everyday social interaction without taboos, would there be no sense of longing to encounter the person again and develop a relationship, or to avoid doing so because of the possibility that the other person would regard you in a more intimate way that you want?

[Marat]

My guess is that all the complex entanglements you mention would probably be very much reduced in a world where sex was not artificially made into something sacred and thus necessarily scarce. No doubt the entanglement effect of interactions would be variable, just as it is now with chance conversations with strangers. For example, I found myself sitting on a London bus next to a World War II veteran who was there for the D-Day 50th Anniversary Memorial Services on June 6, 1994. He sat there wearing his blue blazer covered with medals and his military beret jauntily tilted to one side, garrulously going on about storming the beaches into a hail of machinegun bullets, and I had the distinct feeling that after the conversation our relationship was not going anywhere. On the other hand, I was on a trolley going to the Countway Medical Library one afternoon and fell into a fasinating conversation about life and death with a young chemotherapy nurse, and I became sufficiently interested in her to ask her out, until I noticed that everyone else on the trolley was avidly listening to the developing soap opera and so I shrank back in embarrassment.

[kitkat]

Living in western culture where monogamy is preached as the norm is completely inaccurate. The partners in most (not less) marriages are not monogamous, they all cheat, maybe not continuously throughout a marriage but they do cheat. This country is in so much denial over their sexual behavior and they do their best to keep their secrets behind closed doors, it is a joke.

 

I tend to see it this way, men are wired to think of sex 90% or more of the time. The reason I believe this is that many woman do not care about sex. Whether it is cultural bias of woman from religious reasons or our society making woman deny that they have sexual desires as much as men since women who do act on it they are labeled as sluts and so on. The environment acts on these cues and has to compensate it by making men always in the mood for sex for if the opportunity arises, they can grab it.

 

In nature in other mammals, the male is also designed to be ready when a female is in season for mating. The male reproductive system is programmed to desire sex and it has no conscious if a willing female that is open to having sex. The media, television, ads, etc are all centered around sexual appeal that works to constantly stimulate the libido for desiring sex. Being married is not a deterent for cheating. It never has and it never will so I wish our society would lose this taboo attitude about sex when they do the opposite in the bedroom.

[Ophiolite]

There are more absolutes in that post than you can poke an erect penis at. I disagree with what you have written for that single reason.

 

Serial monogamy is largely natural. Now, there is a good correlation between the extent of monogamy and sexual dimorphism. The minor dimorphism in humans reflects the minor deviations from serial monogamy. It doesn't make much difference whether it's a 'good' thing, any exploration of changing it needs to recognise it is natural.

[jeskill]

It is important not to assess the pluses and minuses of monogamy from a perspective within current society, with all its ritualized assumptions that the price males should pay for intercourse is that they have to 'take responsibility' for the women they have sex with and support them. These notions take from an era when birth control was unavailable or difficult to secure, and they have no practical value now. There also seems to be an odd assumption that sexual freedom would somehow negate the possibility of significant mental and emotional relationships between men and women. But on the contrary, sexual freedom might well encourage significant male-female interactions on a 'higher' level (the term already presupposes the prude's view of sex), since women would no longer be commodified as the scarce resource needed for heterosexual satisfaction, but would instead resume their true character as people, since the whole unnecessary 'sex economy' would be gone with no artificial partner shortages to sustain it.

 

I think that this over-generalizes the interaction between men and women. IMO, monogamy has less to do with the man supporting the woman, and more to do with the man supporting the children of the woman. This is totally anecdotal, but it seems like both males and females tend to work for a living in childless relationships. Men do not seem to be supporting women when children are not present. This balance shifts when children are involved because child-rearing is so darn economically expensive and time-consuming. In a society that values the proper growth and education of children, yet doesn't have strong community interactions (at a local level), I'm not sure unfettered sexual freedom would make sense, because it might increase the economic and emotional burden of child-rearing on the women. If the man doesn't know for sure that it's his kid, why bother taking care of it?

[jeskill]

Some statistics to back this opinion up, from Wikipedia ...

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childfree#Statistics_and_research

Overall, researchers have observed childfree couples to be more educated, more likely to be employed in professional and management occupations, more likely for both spouses to earn relatively high incomes, to live in urban areas, to be less religious, to subscribe to less traditional gender roles, and to be less conventional.^[10]Economist David Foot of the University of Toronto concluded that the female's education is the most important determinant of the likelihood of her reproducing. The higher the education, the less likely she is to bear children.

 

(italics and bolded are mine)