So I’m not sure that men and women are meant to be monogamous.
What I mean is that I’m not entirely sure that’s the way we’re designed to be, nor am I sure it’s the most productive relationship structure for our day and time.
(Before I go into my reasoning here, understand that I’m not out to change anyone’s mind on the subject and I’m not really trying to argue about it either, though I don’t mind discussion. I like to think that I’m able to challenge my own conventional wisdom and that’s really the only thing I ever hope to do. Everyone has to find their own truth in the world. I’m just trying to formulate mine. It might change, so chill out and take it for what it is. )
In the animal world, very few mammals are truly monogamous, that is to say they only mate with one partner for the whole of their lives. There are many that mate with several other animals for a variety of reasons which include security and natural instinct. We like to think we’re so different from animals, but in many ways, we aren’t. Our natural desires can and often do lead us to become attached, emotionally and sometimes physically, to more than one person in the span of our lives. Because we’re dynamic individuals, we change and our needs change. It might not be reasonable to expect one person to fulfill our needs from the time we meet them until we die. We should also consider that we might not be everything all the time to them. We can accept that people are dynamic individuals that grow and change, but oddly, we expect our relationships to remain static and then we wonder why they aren’t working out. We say things like, “It’s natural to look. It’s even natural to flirt” and many of us can accept that about our partners, but feel as though it’s unnatural to act. In nature, they’re usually one and the same.
It’s become a forgone conclusion that some people are just going to get divorced. Instead of seeing marriage as a commitment that is perhaps mutable, we often view it as disposable. Oftentimes it’s not that the couple doesn’t love each other anymore. Maybe their interests and desires changed and their partner’s didn’t or they just found someone else to love too. Perhaps this why you sometimes see people marry, divorce and remarry the same person. Because monogamy limits what you can do as far as seeking attention, affection and companionship from other people, divorce is often the only option. But divorce is a severing of bonds and too often the devastation of a family. If we viewed relationships as dynamic, there wouldn’t be as much of a need to sever bonds, but there would be an opportunity to loosen the ropes.
I wrote before about how if something has legs, it can walk. We don’t own anything or anyone. Every day, your partner makes a choice to be with you. Some people say marriage makes it a mandate and that’s why they avoid getting married. They want to make the choice to stay every day. But I say it doesn’t matter. Ask a married person who’s husband or wife went out for cigarettes and never came home – even married people have a choice. However, the idea of monogamy, the way that we often practice it, assumes a type of ownership – a possessiveness if you will. Because we see our partner as our property, it’s hard to think about someone else having what’s ours, or even that they have a choice in where they want to be. But we have so many different qualities as people that are attractive and attracting, that I’m not sure we can look at it that way.
If we were truly meant to be monogamous, I’m not sure we could love another person after we’d met the one for us. But clearly, we can. Some people fall in love 3 or 4 times in a lifetime. What makes you think it’s unlikely it will happen while a person is already in a relationship? While it’s true that some people fall out of love too, most people have someone they will always love. What if you could be in a relationship with that person, but still experience love and closeness and companionship with another person?
I’m not suggesting that people go around cheating. That’s not honest and loving relationships are built on honesty and trust. I’m suggesting that instead of making it a capital offense that your husband has an “office wife”, maybe you can respect that relationship and allow it to grow. On the same line, a husband could respect and allow a woman to have a male companion that meets needs that he might not at that time. It doesn’t mean the two don’t love each other, it’s just that you need different things at different times and different people can provide that.
People generally refer to this as polyamory or polygamy, if you’re married. It differs from polygyny and polyandry in that both the man and the woman in the relationship can exercise the option to have a relationship with other people. I think that’s important to note, because while some people tout polygyny as the answer to the single woman/ single motherhood problems of the world, I think women are just as apt to need more that one relationship to fulfill them as men are. I think that different models would work for different relationships and different times in life. While I might not be interested in maintaining two relationships myself while I have young children, having a co-wife around might relieve some of my stress because my husband wouldn’t have to depend solely on me for the things he needs while I’m also caring for children. On the same token, I might just need someone else to lean on if my husband is putting a lot into providing for our family, but doesn’t have the time I’d desire to spend with me.
I don’t think it is for everyone. I think that many, if not most, people are going to be happy with one person forever, the end. But I also know that there are a great number of people who aren’t necessarily happy, so they go out and lie and cheat and mislead their partner, a person who they love, because there isn’t an acceptable way to express the desire to be wanted or needed by other people. I don’t believe anyone really wants to hurt the people they truly love, but I also think that people shouldn’t be boxed into a relationship that they don’t want to discard, but that they need to supplement, without a reasonable, mutually agreed upon way to do so.
Marriage as a culmination to a romantic life is almost an American idea. In many parts of the world, a marriage seen as more of a stop along the journey. In fact, Murdock’s Ethnographic Atlas supports that of 1231 societies in the world, a whopping 588 practiced polygamy regularly with another 486 practicing a more occasional form of polygamy or polyamory. I’m not saying they’re right and we’re wrong, I’m just saying that it makes me think that maybe we’re missing something.
Now, I know it seems like I can say all this because I’m so very single and perhaps I just haven’t met the one person I want to spend the rest of my life with. Maybe. But I also am willing to admit that I’ve been in love with more than one person at a time. Just like I love both peanut butter cookies and chocolate chip cookies, I loved them both. There were different things about them that I loved and still love. It would be nice to have both in my life. I’m a Scorpio, I have to fight possessive urges, but I think I’d be able to do it if there were a mutual understanding and a solid relationship to begin with. I guess, to me, that’s the key. If someone is really “yours” ( and I use that term with so much caution) they will return home to you strengthened and renewed to love you more. And if you really belong to them, you’ll do the same. You can’t get to this point without a very solid relationship and that might take a long time. But when you get there, I don’t see a real reason that you can’t enjoy time with other people.
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I’d be remiss not to mention Kenya K. Steven’s Jujumamablog: www.jujumamablog.com Kenya and her husband have a fascinating story and it helped me solidify some of the ideas I was already working on.
Ethnographic Atlas Codes – http://eclectic.ss.uci.edu/~drwhite/worldcul/Codebook4EthnoAtlas.pdf
Deflating the Myth of Monogamy -http://www.trinity.edu/rnadeau/fys/barash%20on%20monogamy.htm
