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Monogamy, What is it Good For?—Frank Soto
I increasingly see my role on Ricochet as consuming as much of the liberal media as I can so that the rest of you don’t have to. While perusing the intellectual wastelands, I invariably come across articles that confidently assert that the way human beings have been doing something for several millennia is totally wrong.
It seems the New Republic is beginning to question this whole monogamy thing.
The current model of lifelong, cohabiting monogamous partnership has never been such an outdated ideal
Now that is a hook. Any article that endeavors to refute an institution such as monogamous marriage in less than 1,200 words is guaranteed gold.
Liberal social attitudes mean monogamy for the sake of it is but a moral trinket. Fine if you’re in the early throes of romantic love and only have eyes for each other. I’ve been there many times and what a wonderful feeling it is. But it’s no secret that romantic infatuation doesn’t last.
Could it be possible that people engage in cohabiting, monogamous partnerships for reasons aside from their feelings? Is it conceivable that this particular arrangement has existed throughout human history because it offers discrete benefits?
Since the entire biological drive for procreation aims at passing down your DNA, I suspect few men would work to support a family if they ran a significant risk of the children their wife gave birth to not being their own. Similarly, how many women are comfortable having a man’s child without a commitment from him that he won’t abandon her at some future date for a younger woman?
Of course, these concerns are minimal for the wealthy, who possess the means to cope with the negative consequences of terrible decision making. Most of us are not rich however, and cannot easily afford the costs. The advice of Hollywood actresses and wealthy authors is of questionable value to the average person. Someone should write a book on this topic.
No matter how rich you are though, some consequences cannot be mitigated. Studies estimate that 110 million Americans have a sexually transmitted disease. You run approximately 1 in 3 odds of your next partner bringing a little something extra into the bedroom with you. Now, you could demand all prospective lovers supply you with negative test results before coitus commences, but it is a bit of mood killer.
Alternatively, you could find a single partner, remain faithful to them, and run no risk of infections. What an outdated concept.
There are other assumed rules of commitment applied blindly. What, for example, is the obsession with living under the same roof?
I’m just spitballing here, but I’d guess it’s the cost of multiple roofs.
If you think life-long commitment is still needed to start a family, a replacement for that has been found too. Earlier this month it was reported that the number of single women seeking artificial insemination with a sperm donor has doubled in five years. This is more significant if you consider that as late as the 1950s single motherhood was deplored so much that they could be locked away in a mental asylum.
Can the author not posit any possible reason it was deplored? Perhaps the tripled risk of ending up in jail that children raised in single-parent homes are exposed to? Or the fact that being raised by married parents reduces the risk of living in poverty by 82%? Do liberals really believe that moral preening is the only reason societies have structured themselves around monogamous relationships?
None of us think a lifelong commitment is needed to start a family. Many of us, however, recognize the wisdom of doing it that way.
It is telling that the author’s only reference to children in her idealized anti-monogamy world is to point out that they can still be created. How they will be raised above the poverty line and effectively educated when commitment is shunned is left to the imagination. Perhaps all children will be shipped off to government boarding schools at the age of six so that their parents can relive their college glory days forever.
I’m obviously not suggesting that we treat life like one big Club 18-30’s holiday with a new lover for every change of bed linen. Life would be anarchical, board meetings would be in danger of turning into orgies..
Well now you’ve lost me completely. Board room orgies was about the only thing this plan had going for it.
We will continue to fall in love and to believe the feeling will last forever. But it is time to modernize the rules and expectations. That means casting away the fairytale and facing up to the fact that a life partner—should we choose to have one—fulfills only one corner of our emotional, romantic and sexual needs. The belief that we can find one person to meet all of them is one which is very likely to be considered radical in the future.
For propriety’s sake, I will avoid openly pondering which corners of your sexual needs a second or third partner can fill while your life partner is filling another.
Personally, a world where relationships mirror a game of musical chairs sounds like a hell that could only have been devised by the proprietor of a dating website who was looking for a never ending parade of clients. Wait a minute…
Published in GeneralHelen Croydon is the author of Screw The Fairytale: A Modern Guide to Sex and Love. She is also the founder of the dating website parttimelove.co.uk
Virtue, in general, is a hard sell. Because virtue ain’t easy and vice can be oh so appealing.
In this case, though, we run up against two competing impulses. Indeed the desire for the Johnny Appleseed approach is strong, but so is the desire for love, respect, companionship, partnership, etc. What seems to be missing in the article is recognition that indulging one impulse tends to counteract the other. We can’t have it both ways – that’s just not the way that we’re built (most of us anyway). Even if one is bohemian enough to accept an open relationship as less than an act of betrayal, the physical and emotional practicalities mean that time spent cultivating a casual orgasm is time not spent cultivating deeper bonds with someone else.
Lack of depth in our relationships is what we risk when we choose the pleasures of strangers over the fulfillment (and ultimately the greater pleasure) that comes from deep bonds.
Dunno. Never really dated. Asked my wife to marry me 4 days after we met. We were 19.
Most people are nuts. But who says sanity is better?
I find nutters much more interesting. Especially educated and stubborn nutters like myself.
I don’t think I ever dated someone I didn’t learn from. Some girls I was happy to move on from, but most had an aspect or two that were pretty wonderful. There’s no comparison to being married (I don’t think I know someone who has met her and others that hasn’t noted the magnitude of my upgrade, and marriage would be better even if the upgrade was slight), but I thought dating was a lot more fun than my previous position of not dating.
Can I go on the record as deploring the new practice of adding the author’s name to the title of the post? It makes it look like the answer to “what is monogamy good for?” is Frank Soto.
Well, Frank? Is it?
Maybe it’s because I stopped “dating” and became committed to my future wife when I was pretty young, but I don’t recall this as holding up for me. Dating was only interesting if it was going….somewhere. Back then that primarily meant transient carnal pleasure; eventually it meant finding someone to build a life with. Otherwise is it really dating, or is it just hanging out? If it’s just hanging out then I prefer the company of men – no question about it. In high school and beyond, I certainly would have preferred some action to none at all, but otherwise I was more than content to spend my time pursuing my interests with my guy friends; girls tended to muck that up more than they added flavor.
100% agreement, Ed.
I learned the most from my most disastrous choice. Like how not to be a doormat. And how guys can sincerely trick themselves into thinking they want you when they’re really just looking for an easy mark.
It’s good for the rest of you, as it keeps me in check, thus giving the rest of you a chance.
It could’ve been you. Some people have a knack for crazy-making behavior. Gaslighting doesn’t have to be intentional, after all ;-)
Gotta admire confidence.
And his taste in women. Choosing between two raven-haired beauties is tough.
But what’s with the white shag carpeting?
Meh.
It’s not that tough. The one on the right for sure.
How did my sarcastic post about sex degenerate into this? I fear I am partly responsible.
Historically movements like this pop up regularly. Free love was the 19th century version. Remember communes in the 60s? Such movements don’t take hold because they are inherently unstable. Of course, Mormons really did practice polygamy as part of their belief system in the 19th century. Mormon polygamy was nothing like free love. It has been called “Puritan polygamy” because it was so tightly regulated by the church. Church leaders even preached that sex during pregnancy was bad for mother and child!
Mormon polygamy more or less “worked” because the community kept a tight hand on it, but there were nevertheless abuses and my research indicates that it wasn’t very emotionally satisfying for men or women. Still, since Mormon communities were very tight-knit, it was easier to keep an eye on abuses within polygamy and provide for children who didn’t have much access to their fathers. In other words, strong community helped mitigate the chaos-producing tendencies of the practice. The idea that polygamy or polyamory could work effectively in our culture, especially for children, is ridiculous. Frank is correct that it is telling that such proposals neglect to mention the needs of children.
I found Marx dull until I found two angles to it, one of which was a delightful Austrian girl (now running a government graffiti sponsorship scheme in a dirt poor part of rural Scotland) who made reading Kapital intoxicating. We read alternate chapters together and discussed them. I’d not taken much interest in prison rights until I dated a warden. Dating an airhead Texan somehow made Sartre make sense (although I still disagreed), and going to a poor Mexican celebration of July 4th may have been the tipping point in my falling in love with America. Dating a mother from when her child was 18 months to 6 years old, teaching feminism and theater to a slightly younger student, or upping my churchgoing to multiple services/ day, passion about a person/ people often extended to a collateral passion with a lasting benefit.
Think of how many more hits you would have gotten with a post about degenerate sex.
Reminds me of Walter from the Big Lebowski and his ex-wife’s dog or talking about Shabbat because his ex-wife was Jewish, etc.
Umm… er… This explains a lot, actually.
Maybe I should have known the guy was bad news when he couldn’t get me interested in his Marxism. Unfortunately, leading a bible study at church is a pretty good disguise.
Or the other way round. Never had a crush on a guy whose brain I didn’t want to pick about something. Several of these crushes were too awkward to be acknowledged, even (and especially) by me.
I still don’t know how many guys would be insulted by gals who only had a crush on one end of their anatomy.
Personally, I think it flattering. But then, my feet really are sexy.
Frank,
Monogamy is a moral trinket!!!
Weather Forecast For Western Civilization: Heavy Salt Downpour expected sometime within this Historical Period.
Advisory for fleeing travelers: Don’t Look Back.
Regards,
Jim
There’s only one way to find out!
And you’re a comedian too? :)
Depends on which end.
I’ve found the opposite to be true, alas.
I find my Nag-Free Zone quite liberating.
And I suppose if I told you it was the brain-end, you’d point out that men have two brains. Fair enough. The brain-end that’s marginally less stupid ;-)
I see we’re going to have to have a talk, Dr. MLR. Speak with you over on e-mail. :)