Will this one-by-one system forever be our main thing or do you think we will break monogamy and maybe “team up” as groups or something?
And yeah polygamy is a thing but do you think it will catch on to “the upper class”?
By monogamy do you mean having one partner, and only one partner, for life? That isn’t the norm. It’s very rare, at least in the western world.
Serial monogamy is the norm, and seems to make the most sense for most people.
Polygamy and polyamory only work for a small subset of people. I don’t see those types of relationships ever becoming mainstream.
Know the difference between polygamy and polyamory. Polygamy isn’t that uncommon but is often used to serve patriarchal hierarchies. Polyamory is much closer to “do whatever” (though that’s not strictly true).
I’m trans and let me tell you so many of us are polyamorous. In my personal experience it has to do with spending so much time fighting against society to claim our identity that we end up questioning a lot of social norms. I think that more people than we realize could live very happily being poly, and if we had better poly representation more people would know how to approach it in a healthy way. But it doesn’t serve the hierarchies we live under to let people love freely in that way, so it gets othered in media and by governments.
Also the “groups” you’re talking about teaming up in are typically called polycules. There are a lot of forms they can take it is an umbrella term.
I think that as people are made more aware of the harm caused by some aspects of society we’ll be better at questioning things like monogamy as a whole. It isn’t an overnight thing. Also, often even in the poly community it is considered an unstable way to raise children (I don’t agree with this but it is a common enough sentiment). I don’t think polyamory will overtake monogamy certainly not any time in my life but I hope it becomes more common.
I think monogamous people could all do with a dose of the lessons and the vocabulary the polyamory community has developed over the years. Even if they never have more than one partner it helps to have the words to talk about things and the awareness of when you might be treating your partner unfairly out of emotional reflexes.
Polyamory has taught me more about healthy relationships in 3 years than 14 years in a monogamous marriage did.
Where would one find this vocabulary?
ETA: I may have answered my own question: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyamory
Here’s a decent one with lots of queer terms too: https://www.readyforpolyamory.com/polyamory-glossary
Cultural polyandry is also worth mentioning for completeness, but it’s less common and almost always involves two brothers.
Polygamy just means that you marry more than one person. It’s not related to patriarchy and there are many polygamous people around the world who are not patriarchal at all.
Polyamory means loving more than one person and can take many of the same forms as polygamy does, including patriarchal structures.
I chose my words intentionally for the context of the post. I said ‘often’ not ‘universally’. The post is asking about social acceptance and I was pointing out that polygamy already is socially acceptable in some cultures and where that’s true it is often in the form of patriarchal hierarchy.
Also polygamy by definition is a hierarchy because there is one primary partner with many partners/spouses, but those partners don’t have the same freedom to take on other partners. If they did, then that is called polyamory. Polyamory may or may not have hierarchy depending on the structure, polygamy has to have hierarchy.
Also polygamy by definition is a hierarchy because there is one primary partner with many partners/spouses, but those partners don’t have the same freedom to take on other partners. If they did, then that is called polyamory.
That’s untrue. Polygamy just adds marriage to the equation, there’s no ‘extra rules’ there.
I think polyamory is an immutable part of someone’s sexual orientation as much as the gender preference spectrum (homo/heterosexual) and the intensity/situationalness (ace/gray-ace/demi). I think some people just naturally see sex and intimate relationships as something they can do openly with multiple people and some people just don’t. I think it will become more acceptable for the people who see sex that way to find each other and express their love that way, the same as with all the other sexual relationships between consenting adults are becoming more acceptable. But the same way it would be silly to say we’ll all be homosexual eventually I don’t think we’ll all be poly someday either.
This is how I see it. It’s probably a fairly fluid part of someones sexual identity, but it is identity nonetheless. Though I would argue most people aren’t poly, as there’s a pretty big difference between having multiple sexual partners and multiple romantic partners, as well as between one person with multiple partners and several people all in a relationship together.
It appears to be pretty stable through history and prehistory around the world, so it’s probably biological. Occasionally cultures allow limited exceptions but they’re usually one-sided. This lines up with my personal experience, which is that some people are capable of being poly, but most people just aren’t.
With the amount of people who cheat, I would say most people are but not ethically.
Ah yes, that’s true. It’s pretty common among monogamous birds too.
As I understand it, they’re still mono because they couldn’t stand it if their partner was doing the same thing.
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Man I have so many hopes for that nation. Big challenges, big potential.
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I should do some reading about EFF. It really does seem like both SA and Zimbabwe chose the wrong strategy to righting colonial inequalities. Something in between, like just a tax on white-owned businesses while they’re disproportionately powerful, could be good.
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That’s exactly what I’ve heard too. Eventually they have to fall; ending apartheid was huge but even the most traditional public won’t remember forever.
That’s… not true? Monogamy was not the primary form of bonding through humanity’s history. It actually is only recently a global phenomenon, mostly due to European colonialism and the spread of Christianity.
You really need to show some data or sources to backup such a claim tbh. It contradicts most of anthropology of bonding and relationships.
Well, here’s the Wikipedia. To be clear, I’m counting a society where elite men might have multiple wives as still monogamous, since that’s not representative of an average member of the population and the wives themselves are still bound to a single partner. Maybe that’s a terminology error but for the sake of this question I think it’s clearest.
And yeah, as someone pointed out there’s an amount of infidelity in every human society, but it’s generally neither endorsed by the legitimate partner or society at large, at least not as an actual relationship.
The wiki says out of ~1200 societies studied only ~180 were monogamous. And that 16% of the monogamous were not strictly monogamous. I don’t know why the wiki would help your case.
If you didn’t read the rest of the paragraph, you should. It was comparing against variants of polygamy, plus 2 cultures that had polyandry, which I discussed elsewhere. Western-style polyamory didn’t even make the rankings. I can only think of one other culture (the Mosuo) that might count.
Like I said, it might be an abuse of terminology to call this all monogamy, but natural language is inherently imprecise and this isn’t an academic audience that can digest heavy jargon.
You’re right, but is it noteworthy that societies with monogamy ultimately outcome teddit.hm others?
Not saying it’s “better” just now successful in an expansionist kind of way.
I think monogamy will continue to be the default MO of relationships although divorce will become more common as life expectancy keeps increasing. I also think acceptance of other relationship models will increase but I doubt they’ll become prominent among lower classes, having one partner already is a lot of work and people with little in terms of money and perspective are unlikely to be able to afford that full attention for another partner. (yes cheating is a thing, it usually also involves either a reduction in relationship activity with the cheated on or a relationship light with the affair partner)
Polyamory is already mainly an upper class thing.
You are hard-pressed to find poly groups in rural areas and blue collar workers. It’s usually first-world college educated urbanites.
Is cheating and having secret partners considered polyamory? If so, then it certainly exists abundantly amongst all classes.
A core tenant of polyamory is consent. Without consent from all partners to be in multiple relationships, it’s just infidelity.
So no, secret partners isn’t polyamory. Polyamory is a form of ethical, or consensual, non-monogamy, and infidelity is both unethical and non consensual.
Also you can be in a polyamorous relationship and still cheat. It all depends on what structure people are consenting to, where everyone’s boundaries are. Granted it is more rare but it still happens sometimes. For example I have a pretty strict boundary where I don’t want any of my existing partners to start dating any of my new partners until I’ve had a chance to establish the relationship dynamic between me and the new person. I would consider any of my partners crossing this boundary to be a type of cheating.
yep, polyamory has redefined cheating for me and it’s much more grounded now than it used to be. cheating is breaking established agreements. in a monogamous relationship that’s typically defined as infidelity. in ENM it can be just about anything and it might be different with each and every partner. the key aspect is that there’s a mutual agreement and that agreement was violated.
Serial monogamy. Each partnership is between two people but a person may seek multiple partnerships simultaneously or in sequence.
First world urbanites for sure, but as far as I can tell there’s many that are pretty poor by that standard, as queer people often are. I guess I know less about the circumstances of their birth.
I’m guessing rising costs of living may push some young people to poly lifestyles where a polycule lives together and shares bills
That sounds like roommates with extra sex- I mean steps.
Depends on the setup. Triads are groups of three people all in a relationship with each other and in a relationship together. So there’s a total of 4 relationships to manage: relationship AB, BC, AC, nd ABC. Quads are the same but with 4 people and 7 relationships.
So it’s a bit more involved than roommates with extra sex. But yea also roommates with extra sex too.
Sounds like a full time job. Must be exhausting.
Ain’t nobody got time for that.
Yep. It’s not easy and a lot of people think it’s some amazing relationship goal and when they get there they realize it’s not for them and people get hurt. It’s relationships on hard mode.
It’ll probably be a factor, but then you could do the same with roommates, and the historical pattern is of course multi-generational homes. That’s what I see happening more and more in real life - it’s becoming less unusual to live with parents as an adult.
Anecdotally speaking, probably not. I haven’t seen many poly relationships really last, nor have many of my friends (all queer).
I do see the rise of grandparents caring for children as a thing though, as wages continue to stagnate and both parents are forced to work. Intergenerational housing too. Multiple friends buying houses nearby and caring for kids if one parent is fiscally fortunate enough to be stay at home. That sort of thing.
That’s just daycare with less steps.
It is!
This was how communities worked for most of human history until the advent of capitalism and urbanization
I, after some admittedly short research found averages for monogamous relationships (including marriage) anywhere from 18 months to around 4 years. Which surprised the heck out of me. I’ve been Polyamorous for the last 24 years and the shortest relationship I’ve had in that time is 6 years. Most of my poly friends are also in quite long term relationships but that may just be a function of the friends I make.
This is also an entirely anecdotal response to your experiences as well.
Monogamous relationships are hard. I expect romantic groups are far harder.
The upper class has had mistresses and chains of relationships forever. Likely easiest with their resources.
Monogamous relationships are hard. I expect romantic groups are far harder.
This is very true. Even with parallel polyamorous relationships, relationship difficulty is turned up to high. When you introduce polycules to the mix with triads, quads, or more people it takes that Duffy and ramps it up tenfold.
A triad, for example, isn’t just a relationship with 3 people. It’s 4 different relationships that have to be managed (AB, AC, BC, and ABC, are all distinctive relationships with unique needs). A quad, is 7 relationships. Going up to 5 people is something like 22 relationships to manage. So group relationships like this are pretty rare, even in the polyam world.
It depends on the person and the balance within a polycule. I do a lot better being able to spread out the amount and kinds of emotional support I need. I ask who has capacity to help me with things so nobody at any given time should be getting overloaded. When I was more monogamous if I needed emotional support and my partner was tapped at the time my choices were to strain the relationship or silently suffer.
The benefits like this are more than just emotional support too. I connect with people with physical touch even with friends. Monogamous people can get really jealous over that but being poly that jealousy has never happened. I feel more confident I can maintain friendships in a meaningful way for me because I’m poly.
Me and my nesting partner mostly just nest. I get to fill other needs with other people. If I were monogamous I’d have to decide if it was worth it to throw my living stability out the window so I can search for someone else who can be my everything.
It takes work for sure but I’ve found being poly a lot easier. The learning curve and finding boundaries can be wild and painful at times. A lot of that is because as a society we only really talk about relationships from a monogamous lens so anyone trying to explore being poly is usually going in blind and they don’t have words to describe what they’re looking for.
Monogamy assumes marriage is a natural thing people do. People are getting married later or not at all in increasing numbers.
I don’t even think monogamous marriage is the main relationship style if you consider people that have affairs, divorced people, serial monogamist, etc., not part of monogamy. It’s over represented in media but that norm has changed a bunch in recent years as well.
There are also tons of relationships that aren’t marriage. FWB, poly, one night stands, etc.
I think the question could use a rework to clarify if you mean legally, socially, etc., as well.
It’s worth noting that polyamory and marriage aren’t mutually exclusive. Plenty of polyam people are married and even have non-legally binding marriage to multiple people. There’s a movement to make plural marriage legal because these people have the depth of relationship with more than one person that really should warrant the protections of marriage (like hospital visitation, legal protections re being forced to testify against a spouse in court, tax filing purposes, and child rearing, etc).
I’m married and poly. And yeah there are a lot of legal things surrounding marriage that I trust my nesting partner with. How to handle assets if I die suddenly, or what to do with me if I can no longer make decisions for myself, they’re important things to have someone for.
I was going to ask one of my other partners to ‘marry’ me in the sense we’d have a celebration with partners, friends, and possibly family with the focus of the celebration being our partnership. They ended up very unexpectedly breaking up with me recently so that fell through but the thought was there :/
The main problem with polyamory is the jealousy. I have experienced jealousy maybe three to five times in life, because I was an only child and I have a very laid back temperament. I think if we start prioritizing quality of life more as a society, parents will be free to raise their children well with less insecurities, and maybe that would result in more people gravitating towards polyamory. But it’s really not for everyone. Poly is hard work.
Jealousy is definitely the biggest sticking point for me. Every woman I’ve been with has always had a few other dudes sniffing around at any given time waiting for their chance. I on the other hand have gone years between relationships because I have a hard time meeting women that I’m interested in who also want to be with me. If I could easily find someone else to hook up with while my gf was out doing it I wouldn’t really have that big of a problem but I would have a huge issue if I was stuck at home by myself while she was out potentially finding a replacement for me.
Also I think you have a good point that if we didn’t have to invest so many resources into a relationship more people would probably be more okay with it.
OK now keep up with me:
- Luxury
- Gay
- Space
- Communism
You forgot “fully automatic”
Here in the Pacific Northwest, the vast majority of people under 50 seem to be in polyamorous relationships. I’m fairly new to poly, but I’ve done a lot of reading and therapy, and it’s working out pretty well for me.
I do tend to be people’s anchor partner, so I’ve admittedly never experienced the pain that comes from being a secondary when you wish you were a primary. My anchor partner tends more towards relationship anarchy and doesn’t like hierarchical relationships, but i made it clear that my expectation is to be the priority in her life. We’ve made it work, although it takes a lot of communication.
PNW poly gang!
Poly can be such a wild learning curve and so much personal growth. There can be a lot of heartbreak in being poly (my polycule split in half a while back, I’ve gone from 5 to 2 partners this year, my anchor of several years broke up with me over text recently I’m pretty devastated over that one), but so much love too it is all worth it imo. And not having to rely on one person for everything is great for everyone’s mental health. Breakups are a lot easier to manage because you don’t have to seek romantic/physical comfort from strangers or the other side of the breakup, there are other partners around to help comfort you.
And yeah, so much communication, and introspection, and evaluating social norms to figure out what parts are toxic. You really have to learn about your partners and be really clear with boundaries for everything to work well.
It seems like one of my partners is about to be broken up with and I’m bracing to be there for them if/when it happens. I’m going to sardonically laugh my ass off if it happens next week because it’ll be nearly a year to the day that my wife and I broke up, and days before our anniversary. It was definitely surreal last year breaking up with my wife and celebrating my first anniversary with this partner 2 days later.
One of my breakups happened during my most recent tranniversary party, their nesting partner broke up with me the next day, and my (at the time) anchor partner broke up with both of them like a week later. Going to be a little weird next tranniversary is also going to be a ‘polycule implosion’ anniversary. Going in sardonically sounds like a good idea
Some animals mate for life or mate exclusively, others don’t. It’s not “the main form of earth,” it’s the norm by which humans establish long-term romantic and sexual relationships and raise their young.
I don’t think society will forget that any time soon, but it’s hard to predict the future. Culture does change over time.
Almost all birfs are strictly monogamous, with a huge portion mating for life. Cetaceans on the other hand…
We have already seen a huge change as it’s much more acceptable to be in more relationships and getting a divorce. If people start to live a lot longer you will see people changing relationships more. With AI there is already worry about people getting into romantic relationships with AI partners.
If we ever achieve long-term life extension, I could see monogamy being tossed. Being with a single partner for life can serve well if it’s the ideal of both parties in the relationship. But extend that lifespan to multiple times the current one, and I can see it getting pretty iffy.
Very true… I love my wife (20 years together) and if we don’t split in the next ten then we’ll probably stick it out until the end. We’re not perfect but we love each other, share a ton of values and make a good team. I don’t think I would want to ever be back on the dating scene though, especially in my late 40’s and 50’s. I would probably enjoy spending my final years relatively alone, doing my own thing and living peacefully.
