Thoughts on Monogamy

One thing that has had me thinking for a while now is about this ancient concept of monogamy. Or should I say somewhat medieval concept, since in the truly ancient times was somehow accepted as a norm.

The instinctive response of most people would be to stick with the one partner idea. Obviously the law puts a huge incentive on this, apart from this ever present danger of STDs (that's you d) , we have the newspapers putting a lot of commentary on family and divorce rates etc etc, which I won't go into. The bottom line is that society believes in monogamy.

I know I used to.

Obviously, I don't anymore. Always begs the question why doesn't it? The short answer: it's because we don't need it. This is of course with the qualification that you do not have children. If you do, obviously things change, because it's not really about you anymore.

This viewpoint of mine arose when I asked myself: Why should we chain ourselves to one person forever? Is there a higher law telling us to do so? No? Then why do we persist in doing it. To me, it seems like a form of self-slavery, or self-bondage, in which we choose to close ourselves off to forming deeper connections with other people because we perceive ourselves to already share such a bond with someone at the moment. To me, it seems illogical that we should do this.

We have long ago decided that freedom is a universal right that we all should enjoy. Why do we curtail this right? For the sake of responsibility? What responsibility do we really hold to each other anyway, assuming we don't have children? Is it necessary that we pledge ourselves in such exclusivity? Or is it simply because we have accepted this value as truth, the vestiges of our very familial culture? Why is it morally wrong to have multiple partners with which we can share time with? This is of course with another qualification: that everyone is aware of the arrangement.

And while people might say that it speaks of a lack of commitment to the partner here, I am going to argue that we are already so worried about commitment in our world today, or so nonchalant about it(look at our divorce rate, for example), this might not necessarily actually reduce the amount of commitment we actually give.

Also, if you are necessarily monogamous by law, then wouldn't you be even more scared of commitment because once you have made your choice, undoing it will be difficult? I think that scares people away from relationships.

Is committing yourself to multiple partners necessarily a bad thing? While you cannot share all your time with anyone if you choose to be polygamous, it seems to me like maybe we really do not want to anyway. Let's say I desire my own space, my own time with other people who I also like a lot. Should I be chained to give someone all my time, even if I don't want to? Simply because I'm only able to get married to one person?

In other words, conceptually, I don't think there's anything wrong with it.

But after a long discussion with the others, I think there might be problems with it in effect. Maybe as a race we are not quite ready for it. We cannot have polygamy because we are unable to be more selfless in our interpretation of polygamy than selfish. Societal chaos? I don't know. I don't think that we lose anything by giving people an option to be polygamous. I don't think that we lose anything by giving people freedom.

But can people handle freedom?

Problems aside, I think it's progressive that we allow this, rather than regressive. Others have told me the opposite though, that we have become like ancient society. I am inclined to think that maybe those old people in those holy books are wiser than we know.

But in any case, I think that just because there are problems with implementation doesn't mean that we shouldn't move towards it.

Let's just say that the light at the end of the tunnel might be a rushing train, but would you rather stay in the darkness?