And then there is the love of a pimp. You see, a pimp’s love is very different from that of a square.
As for the original question, yes monogamy is probably overrated. But commitment is underrated right now. I mean a real connection to your partner that isn’t about sex per se (though it probably includes sex).
Now THAT’S what I call a good point.
Have you told her that you seriously feel this way? Because if she wants to be married, and you don’t think you ever want to, you’re kinda wasting her time and that’s cruel (but not unusual).
I keep asking extarbags for an exception, like “If I chanced upon Bruce Campbell limping along the side of the road, could I take him home, nurse him and have my way with him - and have it not count as cheating!” He keeps saying no, and I reluctantly abide by his wishes. Or just announce “That guy, he’s my exception!” as we’re watching TV/walking down the street…
Someone upthread was talking about the fact that sex goes away or gets bad in marriage - obviously this is a common complaint, but I’ve come across some studies that show that happy marriages do seem to maintain a decent freak-quency although excitement is harder to measure. Sex going away or getting perfunctory and brief might be a symptom more than inevitable.
I’m so limited that this entire argument is just silly to me. It’s like the humanities crowd trying to tackle thug life for publication in a respected journal. It’s as though they forget what got us here in the first place. I can’t think of too many tribal cultures that wound up building tv sets and saturn boosters.
Unless it turns out that the problem is with him. In which case living with two chicks will just be twice as bad as living with one.
Why is it absurd?
She points to a lot of interesting research - the most interesting to me is the one saying that serial monogamy is more damaging to the kids than just being with a single parent. Ie the damaging part is not splitting up, but mom and dad settling with new partners. Especially if there’s a series of them.
And she does mention the infedelity again in the piece.
These are probably my view on the subject.
If monogamy is natural then I find it weird, that we’re so bad at it. That monogamy worked better in “the old days” in my mind has more to do with religion, laws and discrimination of women making splitting up very hard for at least one partner in the relationship and not some rosy notion of better days.
Maybe people today aren’t willing to work hard enough on their marriages and again maybe they aren’t supposed to. Perhaps working out other ways of being happy and not hurting your kids are more important.
I don’t know of any working open marriages, but on the other hand I know a much larger statistical base of monogamous marriages failing.
So whatever works for you - as long as you’re honest about it and finds your solution as equal partners - ie it has to work for both.
I don’t know what I am talking about, but it seems like pulling off a stable, long-lasting open relationship would take all the chops of monogamy and then some.
I’m going to assume that it’s absurd because if one goes into a relationship with an expectation of monogamy, all the justification after infidelity that monogamy is itself an unnatural and unrealistic expectation is just bullshit rationalizing of ones inability to control ones own behavior.
Open relationships are fine as long as both parties understand that that’s what it is.
If you are in a relationship that was initially intended to be monogamous and your partner believes it still is, but you’ve decided to change the rules, you are in the wrong and trying to offer scientific evidence for why it’s okay doesn’t change that.
Or perhaps someone enters into a relationship with false expectations and when that manifests itself tries to look to science and other people in order to analyze what went wrong?
I’m not saying I agree with her, but I would like a bit more argumentation than just the words ‘douche’ and ‘absurd’.
I think the words ‘douche’ and ‘absurd’ about summed it up for me as well.
Or perhaps someone enters into a relationship with false expectations and when that manifests itself tries to look to science and other people in order to analyze what went wrong?
Still missing the point.
I’m pro-marriage, myself, and I believe that when you make a commitment to someone you are expected to honor it. Personally, I feel like if things get bad, my wife and I obligated to do what it takes to make things work, and I don’t feel like divorce is an option for either of us, but for people who are genuinely “stuck” in marriages “with false expectations,” it’s not like there’s not a door out.
I could never be involved in an open relationship myself, but it’s not my place to judge those who are…as long as everyone’s on the same page about what’s okay and what’s not, more power to you all. BUT, as soon as someone crosses the boundaries of any arrangement, there will always be consequences.
Of course.
And I don’t see her arguing the opposite. She’s picking the door that says splitting up and looking for reasons why monogamy perhaps isn’t easy - I don’t see her saying that she did nothing wrong. Contrary to what Jason says, she mentions what happens later in the article as ‘her infidelity’, which isn’t a neutral or kind term. She isn’t blameless.
My mistake. I sorta just skimmed the article, which I should know better than to do. :-/
That’s my general take on the topic of open relationships and commitment as well. I don’t care what the commitment was, whether it involved monogamy or whose turn it was to pick the kids up at school or a solemn promise to never repeat the stories from the honeymoon, it needs to be honored. If a person has made a commitment to their spouse they are fucking up if they break it.
I myself have no problem with open relationships but I can still easily condemn cheaters and liars.
Just to add to this point, for the longest time, these contracts involved one husband with multiple wives. So not only was marriage a business contract, it was a polygamist business contract. The idea of monogamy based on love is very recent relatively speaking.
I guess I sometimes feel like I may not be wired quite right for monogamy, but I do enjoy the partnership and bond of my marriage. I can’t really imagine a better partner through life, but fulfilling a few fantasies seems like it could be fun as well.
Sure, but the US is pretty far out there in our views compared to others. From Loh’s article:
At least that is the attitudinal yin/yang described by Andrew J. Cherlin in his scrupulously argued [I]Marriage-Go-Round[/I]: compared with our western European counterparts, Americans are far more credulous about marriage. In World Values Surveys taken at the turn of the millennium, fewer Americans agreed with the statement “Marriage is an outdated institution” than citizens of any other Western country surveyed (compare the U.S.’s tiny 10 percent with France’s 36 percent). We are also more religious—more Americans (60 percent) say they attend religious services once a month than do the Vatican-centric Italians (54 percent) or, no surprise, the laissez-faire French (12 percent). At the same time, Americans endure the highest divorce rate in the Western world. In short, although we say we love religion and marriage, Cherlin notes, “religious Americans are more likely to divorce than secular Swedes.”
She cheats on her husband. The next step? Write thousands of words of “analysis” to rationalize why it’s ok! To analogize, if I knocked over a bank it’d be pretty absurd for me to write a book “about my crime” that’s really about the history of inequality, trying hard as possible to convince everyone inequality is stupid in the first place. Calling it “my felony” wouldn’t change what I’m up to.
It’s disappointingly sleazy. I quite liked Depth Takes a Holiday.
Comment on quote in the original post:
As a human being you don’t necessarily have to act like you’re wired. There may be a “war” going on within ourselves but it’s similar to the war between sedantary lifestyles and our built-in fight or flight response. If there’s an advantage to the modern concepts then it’s worth pursuing even if it takes a long time to rewire our brains.
I don’t know if that was his point; maybe he meant that we shouldn’t be shocked about our inner animal who is poorly evolved for modern society, even if we would prefer higher-minded concepts like monogamy for various reasons.
Even better point. :)
Where are you getting this idea from? Monogamy was a pretty important concept since the days of the Roman Empire (which makes this more a Greco-Roman than Judeo-Christian issue); marriages were ways of cementing resources and relations between families. That doesn’t work very well if you’re marrying more than one woman. Now, that doesn’t mean they weren’t tolerant of mistresses et al.
The Bible, for one. Other cultures. And like you mentioned, the ones that did were often more tolerant of affairs. Also, since you mentioned the Roman empire, marriage was basically an agreement between two people that could be just as easily dissolved. It didn’t seem to involve the heavy pressures that I feel modern society and religion put on it.