Monogamy

Esther Perel said:
‘Monogamy used to mean one person for life. Now monogamy means one person at a time.’

I came across this quote, and couldn’t help but agree with it.

Any thoughts?
If you have observed this same shift in mentality, why do you personally, think it has occurred?

3/4 of societies are poly.

Thank you for your input, moll. Just to clarify, this isn’t an “argument” about Poly vs Mono
I am curious about thoughts on why monogamy has shifted so much, or if it even has, in the views of others? Any thoughts?
Or have I missed your point, and you’re saying that monogamy is simply a thing of the past? If so, what observations have led you to that belief? Which societies do you specifically speak of I wonder?

The concept of only being with only one person for an entire life is something that was forced upon humanity by western religions. People are not meant to only have one partner throughout their lifetime. One reason monogamy came about was because of the spread of disease...we now refer to them as infections...if a person isn't having sexual relations until they are married, they won't contract an STI.

In most Middle Eastern cultures, it's very acceptable for a man to have multiple wives as long as he can afford to take care of them. Even biblical texts speak of men having multiple wives.

The problem is, people want to adhere to the "one partner for life" idea that was drilled into them since they were young, but they also don't want to spend their life with a person who they start to find they don't want to be with.

Then there is marriage.... Marriages were initially about keeping two families/clans/societies from going to war, it had nothing to do with love. It was also a way for a fathers to pass off his daughters to a husband..."here, she's your problem now." Now people want to be with that special someone....that person they actually love and want to spend their life with and finding that person takes trial and error.

Wait, people that said that monogamy was imposed by religion... Culture is part of human's evolution. And it can affect our biology, including our preference. Studies show that species that tend tip to monogamy have less dimorphism between them, body size. If you compare human dimorphism today to how our ancestors were, it has decreased. By quite a lot. If I remember correctly, it used to be like 50% and it has decreased to 30 to 20 %. At the end, the argument of it being natural or not can be fought, but then we'll have to get into the argument of how natural it is to eat with cutlery. Monogamy per definition is quite clear, we should really just look inside ourselves and see what we want. At the end, that's what is important. Once you do, you can look for it.

@moll,

So am I understanding correctly in that you’re referring more specifically to the context of why monogamy seems to no longer be seen as “for life,” as opposed to being more about “one person at a time”?

Monogamy and Christianity unfortunately got some mutual exclusivity connotations going and as people slowly become less religious they likewise assume monogamy is another restraint to be relieved of. I had to double-check since it's a pretty old concept but no, monogamy is not something created and forced upon humans by western religion lmfao, here's your overview link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monogamy#Ancient_societies . Even if you don't like wikipedia, realize that if people were really so inherently promiscuous monogamy as a rule simply wouldn't have survived this long (if people were all secretly dying to be poly that would've been the barrier broken first, not homosexuality lol). Most people tend to get on with and prefer having one partner, which is only a remotely controversial thing to say on a bdsm forum. "Ooo western imperialism" yeah, well, the majority of the world seems to have thought it wasn't a terrible idea, so maybe there wasn't much resistance to the ideas of marriage in the first place.

I think in a couple decades once religious people become a minority things will start flipping back the other way and there'll be "good" reasons to be monogamous with someone again. Like if VR sex becomes easily accessible then hookup culture really dies down and you start dating people for practical and emotional reasons again.

I would agree the shift that quote is describing has happened, but it sounds like the author is mourning the fact. I think it's something to celebrate, a progression. Sure you have licentious horndogs who fuck anything that moves, but you've always had that, even when people were "together for life"; if they wanted to get strange the wedding band on their finger didn't stop them. I don't think it has anything to do with polyamory either. Sure more people are walking down that path, myself included, but I think it's just shifting away from the patriarchal institutions of the past. It means that it's easier for a partner to escape the abuser sleeping under the same roof than it was in the past. It means not having to be stuck in situations that are clearly no longer working for either party just because a church or society said it was the only option. May that form of monogamy stay dead and buried forever.

Sure, it's wonderful and beautiful when a couple can spend their entire lives together, but the odds on that are not as rosy as popular culture/society led us to believe it was when at least I was growing up. Not to mention, a lot of those examples we hold up as examples of the ideal couples who were together 80 years or whatever; We have no idea the naked truths of those relationships positive or negative.

The only thing that matters is if people are happy, loved, and safe. Whether that be with one person for life, one person at a time but different people if one of those conditions changes, or multiple people at the same time. The rest is noise.

I couldn't agree more with you. The story of how monogamy started is much more for practical reasons than religion like people like to say. To start with, if we see where it started it was with the Greeks, something later taken by Romans. So, the reason why it was extended with religion was because that was a practice during the Roman empire. It's a fascinating subject. And anyway, I never felt weird about wanting monogamy until I started coming to these forums and people openly attacked my preference. Like, seriously? I thought we were passed that. If you want to be in poly or monogamy, it's your decision. Live and let live.

I don't think it was even the Greeks, they're just recorded as having used it (in addition to the Mesopotamians, Egyptians, etc.). I'm quite confident asserting that it's just the natural post-civilization human relationship-state with a little bit of "well, everyone liked sex and probably had some affairs and some slaves" common sense mixed in.