Monogamy... Myth? Or The Next Best Thing to Sex?

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OK... I admit I attempted to threadjack another topic, but you all ignored me perfectly!! Congratualations!!

I'm cutting and pasting most of my post from there, because it was a serious question, and I'd like to get feedback from all of you about it.

Is Monogamy viable? Is it even a good idea? Is it what we're "supposed" to do??? Here's part of what I had posted on another thread that was more about "breeding and eugenics" than the actual idea of monogamy:

Apparently I missed something about what the hell eugenics has to do with monogamy..... which is what piqued my interest in the first place....

Someone already said it, humans cheat. They cheat a LOT. I've seen figures as high as 20% for children raised "as their own" by an unknowing male who's wife had some afternoon delight... probably while he was out with the Navy wife from down the block...

Get over it, eugenics was a stupid idea. It can't be applied to sentient beings who have access to weapons... we tend to BITE when we're pissed off.

I just thought it neat someone might be debating a system OTHER than monogamy, or what we currently have in the US which seems to be marry, cheat, divorce, marry someone else... cheat, divorce... That's not monogamy, that's boredom. Utopia's don't exist, and even if they did every man's (generic as in "huMAN") Utopia is another man's Hell...

I agree with what Robert Heinlein said, "genius's make up their own rules about sex". Look at Franklin, or Einstein they both "pushed the envelope" for what was accepted... not to mention Jefferson. My point is, unless you're held in by a strict religious belief (and the divorce courts show sometimes even then) people just don't seem destined to stick to one partner.

What do you do when two people love each other, share each other's interests, raise children together, but their sexual appetites are completely incompatible? And it may not be the woman shutting off the net in the mattress hockey league either... it may be the man. Is the partner supposed to accept enforced celibacy for life? Are they supposed to divorce someone they LOVE just because that person doesn't want to knock the boots?? Sex and love are two different things, true, it's already been said here... but check the Lancet back issues. People cut off from sex who desire it suffer health consequences... eventually severe ones. So? Would you rather watch someone you love get sick? Or acknowledge that he (OR SHE!! ! I'm an equal opportunity kinda guy, ladies...) may need to handle a biological need?

For the record about monogamy.. (since that's what this was titled) I don't care what competent adults do, as long as they're all in agreement and they keep their hands off children as playthings... 3 women want to get married?? Go ahead... 2 men? I don't flippin care.... 5 men and 4 women in a line marriage?? Go ahead. I have no religious hangups about that crap. What little devotion I have go's to the Lady in all her aspects, Maiden, Mother and Crone... I don't think she really cares about the sticky parts as long as people care about each other...

Now, I'd really like to hear what some of you think about this, instead of that other stuff.

thanks. Peace out.

I think that some therapists would stand to make a lot of money. It all sounds very confusing.

Not to mention marriage counselors...

Personally, I think that marriage is between two people that love each other. They can be any two people, though... male-female, male-male, female-female, male-transvestite, etc... I personally am straight, but I also have no right to interfere with other people's decisions so long as they don't interfere with mine...

However, that line marriage idea is just too damn confusing... it wouldn't be a family tree anymore, more like a family shrub...

There seems very little point in having a marriage at all when it is between more than two people or is between two people who have no intention of remaining faithful. The aim of marriage is to create and maintain a stable home environment, originally for the purpose of raising children (though the benefits of marriage are certainly enjoyed by childless couples). Yes, I know most people utterly fail at maintaining it... and if they fail when there are only two people's needs involved, it seems that the success rate of a group marriage would be much lower. It takes hard work from all parties to make a successful marriage, but it only takes one person to break it.

On another note, I think it's odd how people who say this kind of stuff always regard the urge to mate with many partners as hardwired and unchangeable, but our natural inclination to seek faithful partners, our desire to be loved by a person who sees us as better than everybody else, and our natural inclination toward jealousy are all considered unnatural. There's no evidence to support that kind of claim. For me the urge to have a stable, faithful relationship with one partner is very strong--so strong that I would prefer to be alone forever than to settle for a relationship of the type you describe.

As for the rest of what I'm inclined to say, I'll leave it to the man who has already phrased it beautifully.

Maybe this is my being too literal, but from the thread title alone this doesn't make sense. Of course monogamy isn't a myth. Loads of people are monogamous. I've had entire relationships where I haven't cheated, meaning by definition, even if I am the only person who does it, monogamy exists.

This reminds me of a person I knew who thought that, just because her parents' marriage was like that, all marriages were shams. Everyone just stayed together because they had responsibilities, or because they didn't want to be alone. No-one ever ACTUALLY loved each other. And she just refused to believe any different, she was too damaged an individual by that point.

JohnHopkins wrote:

Ah... now see? There's a semantic point.... If the relationship is monogamous, presumably as MONOGAMY it is until death. If that's what you meant and you've lost someone, then my condolances and I'm sorry. I realize that people search, presumably through many to find "the one" to mate with.... for life. By saying "relationships" as a time limited thing it's not monogamy from what I'm trying to describe. Of course people can be faithful in a relationship, even long term ones. Many are. What I'm seeing around me is a kind of "serial monogamy" in the US. It's like 'marriage ADHD' or something. How many people do you know who have married and never divorced? It never struck me that way, until my sister said something when we had gathered at her house after my Mother's funeral... she commented on how one of her co-worker's had said how unusual we were, since the each of us (four siblings) have all been married, to the same partner and for 20 years or more... Both my brother's and my sister and myself being married to our original spouse. My parent's married in the late 30's or early 40's. The fact they stayed married until death wasn't that unusual for their generation but it seems almost endangered in mine.

As far as "hardwiring", I do think we're all affected by our evolutionary heritage, males were selected by those who could breed the most prolifically, females by those who could attract and retain a mate... But we're people, and our minds, not our impulses control our actions. Marriage, in my view, is just a recognition of that biological imperative to bond and raise young. Even if you don't have children, even if you don't want to, doesn't mean you won't feel an urge to bond to someone. Systems other than monogamy have been used all over th planet over the years, some worked well to care for children, some didn't. I wanted to find out what others thought. Biologically, we're just a species of great ape, and of the great apes only humans appear to try monogamy. Bonobos and orangutans use sex to bond. Chimps use it to assert dominance, and I think that's the basic pattern the gorillas use too.... Why, besides bigger brains, microwave ovens and SUV's are we so different?

The thought of the property settlement and custody issues on divorce boggles the mind.

I guess that's what lawyers are there for...

I realise that the world, including my own country of England has become very litigious and divorce-y lately, but I know dozens and dozens of people who stayed married until death did them part, including but not limited to my grandparents; both paternal and maternal. And there, if we're staying on my previous point, are two examples of it happening proving that it exists.

If you're looking for serial monogamy, that's pretty much unfeasible, really. I mean the suggestion that from your very first love or sexual experience you stay with that person forever? It happens to fewer people each year. I'm not a big fan of people getting married just to break the ice, but marriage and dating are different things and expecting everyone to only have one relationship, ever, isn't really logical or fair, I'd say.

Perhaps I didn't state things clearly, I thought I had, but it doesn't seem so....

I realize it's not realistic to expect everyone to settle down with the first person that catches their fancy and stay there forever. However, presumably, once they've settled down in a marriage, the vows include "until death do us part". Obviously, with a divorce rate over 50%, people change their minds. A lot. Probably a quarter of the people I know don't even bother getting married, they move in, buy a house together, mingle their monies, their household... in a lot of places that would be considered a "common law" marriage, but that usage doesn't apply in most of the US. Only 12 states recognize it and a few more if it was "grandfathered in" by existing before a certain date.

So, people get married.... for life, presumably. And 5 or 10 or 12 years later and they're divorced. A lot of them are remarried within 5 years... only to do the same thing over again.

How is that "monogamy"? That's what I meant about "serial monogamy". Faithful relationships, that were pledged to be for life then, "oopsie, I take it back" and they start over with someone else?? It makes me question whether we're designed to be monogamous as so many seem to assume. Some species do mate for life, we don't appear to be one of them, certainly not "naturally".

Other cultures that had these institutions of marriage had no problem with "till death do us part"... it's more a cultural expectations issue than a biological one...

I'd add that humans are the only animals on earth that have civilizations. In general we're not wired to follow instinctual urges without any regard for others and for social expectations. When people are born who violate that rule, we call them "sociopaths". It is not realistic to suppose that man was meant to follow his every urge, when in reality he is a creature of multiple, conflicting urges and possesses a rational capacity by which to weigh the benefits of each option, in addition to more intuitive/emotion-based conclusions.

I think this place has the longest posts ever for a message board. This thread like reading a mini-novel lol

That's funny. This board has the shortest posts of any board of which I've been a member, heh.

Dude, what boards do you got to? "Deep Physiological Discussion of the Universe?"

Pretty much. You from 4chan? j/k

Thank you for the sort-of compliment. Or at least I regard it as such.