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”?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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.
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)
All forms of relationships will fluctuate as legal options throughout time. Polygamy is no different. Polygamy used to be common in certain parts of the developed world and is still common in places like the Middle East. Heterosexual monogamy is just the thing that it happens won’t fluctuate, this is as it’s like an axis mundi of relationships. That said, everything you describe is inevitable as a phase.
That said, I don’t consider a relationship invalid or “less valid” no matter how many people are involved, their genders, their race, their creed, their medical history, how close they are, etc.
I wouldn’t be surprised if we got to Huxley’s Brave New World, but I would hate it
I’m surprised I’ve got to scroll so far for a BNW reference.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
as long as religion exists polygamy will never be mainstream
PolygamyPolygyny, in particular, is a largely religious institution. In no small part that’s due to the fact thatpolygamypolygyny is inherently patriarchal, and nearly all modern religions are too, so it makes sense that it would be found predominantly in religious communities and histories.Polyamory, however, is neither patriarchal or matriarchal. It is freedom for everyone involved to have relationships in any capacity they want, including women and other non-male gendered people to be with whoever they want. Patriarchal societies will never accept something that gives women that type of freedom and power over their own lives.
Edit: I got some terminology wrong and thought polygamy was one man multiple women, but the term just refers to having multiple spouses. Polygyny is one man multiple women. Which def means I took the conversation down a weird hole.
other non-male gendered people to be with whoever they want
right, thanks for enlightening me where your opinion comes from. Not that the constant mention of patriarchy in places it has no relevance wasn’t already a red flag.
I’d still like to highlight the inherent sexism in excluding a single group, in this case males, from your supposed Polyamorous Utopia. If it really was independent of the “patriarchy” or a “matriarchy” there would be no need to single out any gender or sexual orientation no? To me it seems like you are simply trying to invert a perceived victim status instead of abolishing victims entirely. Inverting your ideals from time to time helps illustrate inherent flaws or discrimination, helped me get out of the feminism-hate section of the internet, might help you get out of the all-men-are-evil section.
comment about polygamy
so how exactly does that correlate to excluding men from the equation? That was my point. The discussion was about polygamy and they A) brought up the patriarchy pretty much unprompted (I don’t see how Polygamy is inherently patriarchal, most patriarchal societies are strictly monogamous and while more lenient on a man in case of an infraction of the monogamous relationship Society still punish them. I see that more as a result of the elevated standing of a man in a patriarchal society than from the alleged inherent polygamy) and then B) proceeded to be just as sexist as the alleged Patriarchy by excluding men from polyamory/suggesting men can already be with however many partners of whatever gender and sexual orientation they want (ask any gay guy: really not the case, having multiple relationships with people is in most countries considered adultery/cheating, so also a no on the “however many”)
target baseless attack
if what I wrote comes off as an attack focused on a “target” I truly feel sorry for you, must be hard living in a world where everyone is out to get you. If you can’t accept people challenging your beliefs without immediately being angered that is cause for serious concern, I’ve been there I’d know. Just on the opposite of the spectrum where you apparently are right now. Doesn’t make the fanaticism any more healthy. If in your life so far everyone truly has been out to get you, you have my condolences and hope that the situation improves for you, in that case I’d suggest getting off the internet or liberally employing blocking instead of entering discussions.
issues raised
What issues raised? The only “issue” I see raised is the allegation that
1: somehow polygamy is based only in religion because it is patriarchal. I’m not well read on the religion part but polygamy being a patriarchal construct just isn’t the case given historic precedent. More likely it’s an elitist construct given how it is (when appearing) mostly prevalent in the higher ranks of society and not among the common folk and how among the elite women having affairs was also a thing, that was a lot rarer but still happened.
2: Somehow a patriarchal society will not allow polyamory. Technically part of a patriarchal society but more a byproduct of biology than a construct designed by men to oppress women. Polyamory not being prevalent is down to the same reason why in the past men accused their partner of cheating when the son of the blue eyed man had no blue eyes: There is an inherent biological drive to leave offspring. We might lose that drive some day but for now we’re stuck with it. Since men don’t have an easy identifier to make sure the kid is theirs (women physically push the child out of their body, pretty strong indicator for who the mother is) they resort to whatever option they have available. That also includes generally, as in not all men do this, (sub-)consciously preferring monogamous relationships over polyamorous ones. Now you could swap out a patriarchy for a matriarchy or any other societal blueprint and it would not change much in that preference. Upbringing can help mold that preference a bit but overall it’s still there. So I can’t see how blaming the patriarchy helps here, monogamy and patriarchy are correlated, not causally linked. One does not cause the other but where one appears, the other also happens to appear (at the very least in one direction: in patriarchal societies monogamy appears).
At this point I’d highlight something that might help understand why Polygamy isn’t inherently linked with the Patriarchy: There is a rough 50/50 split between males and females in the human population (yes I’m ignoring homosexuals and non-binary here, won’t matter for the point I’m making, it’d simply change the numbers to 47/47 or whatever the percentages are). Most men have a biological drive to leave offspring (ignoring external factors making them decide against it such as poverty or bad environment) which works out to roughly one possible woman per man to be in a relationship (assuming all men actually manage to get into a relationship by behaving accordingly). If we introduce Polygamy suddenly there is a “lack” of women a man can try to get into a relationship with for sub-average men. Naturally those men will be dissatisfied that one man is “hogging” multiple women for himself, therefore uniting them in the common goal of getting rid of polygamy so they can have a change.
it’s funny that you wrote like 5000 words based on a misreading.
they said that polyamory is different from polygamy because non-males have more freedom in polyamory tyan in polygamy.
you misread that to mean only women get that freedom. that is not true. everyone gets the freedom, but in polygamy men already had it, so op omitted it.
try to spend more time understanding and less time ranting and raving. i sincerely mean this, and with empathy: something about this comment thread triggered you, and you might wanna think through it.
If you read my other comment chain with June (which you apparently have) you would know that the accusation of me supposedly attacking June is what triggered me, not June’s statement. (As evident by the much calmer tone of that convo) I was annoyed by her statement but not to the point of starting a rant, that only happened after lexi thought it a good idea to add her own toxic soup. The result was a toxic² response from me. Was that a healthy response? Certainly not and I hope I can learn from it for similar situations in the future. Not defending myself here, that rant is pretty sad to look at in hindsight but the cause of it certainly wasn’t June’s statements.
you are a cool unicorn
@neshura
words. i’m glad they bring you comfort in lieu of meaningthe person who can’t see the patriarchy for the polygamy apparently believes monogamy is not about control of property
many years of reflection and cringe ahead of you. good luck with that
many years of reflection and cringe ahead of you. good luck with that
Only thing you typed I can agree with but I’m afraid for entirely different reason. I’d say if I look back at my self of a couple years ago and don’t cringe at at least some of my choices I went wrong in life. Unfortunately for you I really don’t see myself drifting off the deep end as badly as you have, been there once already and don’t really plan on visiting again. Was a dark place that.
I brought up patriarchy because
polygamypolygyny (one man, multiple wives) is inherently patriarchal. Same aspolygynypolyandry (one woman many husbands) being matriarchal. While polyamory is genderless and everyone is free to pursue their own relationships.This isn’t a controversial take. I never excluded men from the equation, I simply pointed out that polyamory is different from
polygamyin that women can have more than one partner as well, something that polygamy doesn’t allow.The rest of your comment here is word salad and idk what you’re getting at. But the basis of your offense is rooted in
amy own misunderstanding of theconversation andterms being referred to.Edit: I got some terminology wrong and thought polygamy was one man multiple women, but the term just refers to having multiple spouses. Polygyny is one man multiple women. Which def means I took the conversation down a weird hole.
Oh hey, I learned something, thank you. Not sure where I got my definitions from but I’d have sworn i had it right, but polygamy is just the practice of having multiple spouses, you’re right.
I’d done a fair bit of research on it a while ago and either had bad info or bad memory. Thanks for the correction! I’ll go make edits and let that other person know I got the terminology wrong.
polygamy (one man, multiple wives) is inherently patriarchal. Same as polygyny (one woman many husbands)
right, I can see why we talked past each other. When I hear polygamy I understand that as one person with mutiple partners (imagine the spoke of a wheel) whereas I understand polyamory as a web. I don’t differentiate between the genders because frankly it doesn’t make a lick of sense to do so imo. If you’re gonna be fine with one you should be fine with the other type of deal.
Word salad was mostly me not even knowing how the second person chpping in here got seemingly so offended and trying to overexplain.
Wouldn’t really say it was an offense, got offended by the second person accusing me of a “baseless attack” though. Just tired of both extremes so I get pissy when I see either (the “all men pigs” and “women belong to the kitchen” extremes). Definitely should have asked for clarification though.
Hey, just wanted to follow up that you had the definition of polygamy right and I had it wrong. I got polygamy and polygyny melded together in my head, but polygamy is the blanket term for having multiple spouses and polygyny is one man multiple wives. I kinda set us up for this misunderstanding and wanted to own that and make sure you knew.
Got it, yea. The definition here def matters for the conversation.
I agree that if you’re ok with polygamy, you should be ok with the other types of non-monogamy. But, with polygamy in particular being practiced predominantly by religious folks (namely Mormons and Muslims) the philosophy is centered around the man being in charge. Women are not allowed to have multiple partners, even among the wives. The husband is the only partner they’re allowed to have. Hence the commentary on patriarchy and me taking the time to specify that women and non-male gendered folks have a different experience with polyamory.
As a polyamorous person myself, I personally don’t find polygamy or polygyny to be ethical in practice because they both restrict what all but one can do with their bodies.
And to be clear, I don’t think matriarchy is any better than patriarchy. Both result in the oppression of one group of people for the benefit of the other. It just so happens that western society is built on predominantly patriarchal principles, so it gets brought up a lot more.
Apologies for interpreting your reply as offense too. I know where you’re coming from and have a few topics that I feel similarly on. I’ll admit that I do get in on the ‘all men suck’ train when the context and company are on the same page as me but that honestly has more to do with my own gender journey than it has to do with actual men (and the people I’m with in those times understand that). I know a lot of good men, I just don’t want to be lumped in with them anymore.
Got it, yea. The definition here def matters for the conversation.
I agree that if you’re ok with polygamy, you should be ok with the other types of non-monogamy. But, with polygamy in particular being practiced predominantly by religious folks (namely Mormons and Muslims) the philosophy is centered around the man being in charge. Women are not allowed to have multiple partners, even among the wives. The husband is the only partner they’re allowed to have. Hence the commentary on patriarchy and me taking the time to specify that women and non-male gendered folks have a different experience with polyamory.
As a polyamorous person myself, I personally don’t find polygamy or polygyny to be ethical in practice because they both restrict what all but one can do with their bodies.
And to be clear, I don’t think matriarchy is any better than patriarchy. Both result in the oppression of one group of people for the benefit of the other. It just so happens that western society is built on predominantly patriarchal principles, so it gets brought up a lot more.
Apologies for interpreting your reply as offense too. I know where you’re coming from and have a few topics that I feel similarly on. I’ll admit that I do get in on the ‘all men suck’ train when the context and company are on the same page as me but that honestly has more to do with my own gender journey than it has to do with actual men (and the people I’m with in those times understand that). I know a lot of good men, I just don’t want to be lumped in with them anymore.
Got it, yea. The definition here def matters for the conversation.
I agree that if you’re ok with polygamy, you should be ok with the other types of non-monogamy. But, with polygamy in particular being practiced predominantly by religious folks (namely Mormons and Muslims) the philosophy is centered around the man being in charge. Women are not allowed to have multiple partners, even among the wives. The husband is the only partner they’re allowed to have. Hence the commentary on patriarchy and me taking the time to specify that women and non-male gendered folks have a different experience with polyamory.
As a polyamorous person myself, I personally don’t find polygamy or polygyny to be ethical in practice because they both restrict what all but one can do with their bodies.
And to be clear, I don’t think matriarchy is any better than patriarchy. Both result in the oppression of one group of people for the benefit of the other. It just so happens that western society is built on predominantly patriarchal principles, so it gets brought up a lot more.
Apologies for interpreting your reply as offense too. I know where you’re coming from and have a few topics that I feel similarly on. I’ll admit that I do get in on the ‘all men suck’ train when the context and company are on the same page as me but that honestly has more to do with my own gender journey than it has to do with actual men (and the people I’m with in those times understand that). I know a lot of good men, I just don’t want to be lumped in with them anymore.
Not that the constant mention of patriarchy in places it has no relevance wasn’t already a red flag.
… you dont think polygamy is patriarchal?? or “the heavenly father”???
I think the word just triggers you. you know men can participate in polyamory too right?
I think by now you read my other comment (the comment chain with June) so it should be cleared up why I didn’t associate polygamy with patriarchy.
As for me being triggered by the world patriarchy: you are absolutely correct. It’s a habit I’ve built on less discussion friendly sites that I need to get rid of. Unfortunately for now my immediate assumption upon reading that word (unless in an academic context) is that whoever uttered it has a pretty hardcore disgust of men. Fortunately I have not seen these takes around here much if at all hence my need to lose that habit. It’s definitely not healthy and, as seen in this trainwreck of a rant, definitely doesn’t contribute to a healthy discussion.
Why do you feel this way? The examples of polygamy that I can think of were popularized through religion not in spite of it.
Examples: Islam, Mormonism,
early Judaism and to some degree Christianity permitted it as well.
I mean, mormons are a thing (in the US at least idk how far they’ve spread) and polygamy isn’t that uncommon in patriarchal religions. Polyamory on the other hand tends to be more about personal freedoms and flies in the face of a lot of hierarchies.
@Violett_Queen I don’t think it’s already the case and we already generally do just do whatever we want, but are afraid to admit it to ourselves.
Also, are you talking about *gamy or *amory?
There’s distinction.
Polygamy is about just sex pretty much. Polyamory is about romantic relationships.
If the former, then, a lot of married people have sex outside marriage. It’s debatable how honest this is, most of it just cheating - but that already counts as polygamy.
If the latter… Unfortunately, we’re ways off universally recognizing this type of relationship. For shame.
There’s also the factor of polyamorous relationships being harder to maintain, requiring a lot more work to do properly. Despite what conservatives might say, this type of relationship demands MORE responsibility from all involved, not less. So, it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, and probably monoamory will be the default in most of the cases. But if you are willing and able pull it off, there’s nothing quite like it.
I see a future where you’ll need a contract to have a child and it will include support for 21 years between both DNA donors. Most people will lack the financial availability and would not qualify for parenthood. Illegal pregnancies would result in 21 years minimal prison sentence for both DNA donors.
With that, two person contracts will replace the religious concept of marriage. It will require an equal support for both partners financially. The contract would allow separation for domestic violence or failure to produce a human child. No Divorce would be authorized under any other circumstances. No new contracts would be authorized for a new partner if a DNA donor child is under the age of 21.
So yes, if you enter into a contract to produce a child, your stuck with that choice for 21 years.
Currently in most of the Western world we have very stringent standards that have to be met in order to adopt a child (and quite rightly too in my view). But in order to conceive a child naturally? Nothing, nada, zilch. Full blown neo-nazi? Meth addict? Huge track record of violence? Rapist? Paedophile? All of the above? Find a partner of the opposite sex and you’re good to go! This is a massive inconsistency that I can see we will have to face up to sooner or later, maybe not to the extent you propose, but some sort of minimum standard needs to be put in place for being able to reproduce, for the sake of those children that will otherwise be brought up in horrific, abusive nightmare environments if nothing else.
@waterbogan @YoBuckStopsHere Genuinely curious, how the fuck would we enforce such a law? How many children will be hidden and illegitimate because they were born to someone not allowed to conceive?
I suppose child protective services or your local equivalent exists for this reason - you could expand their ability to take kids away from birth onwards if the parents meet those definitions.
Its a fair question. I think the best approach actually is not to make it illegal for deeply unsuitable individuals to reproduce, but to incentivise them not to. Make contraception freely and easily available, and actually pay them not to have kids. Using a carrot rather than a stick approach like this will be far easier to get across the line and will present less enforcement challenges
What a wonderful dystopian future where rape victims (of any gender, mind you!) get punished.
And no divorce either, because humans are very well known for doing well-calculated and all around perfect long-term decisions.
Look, I know why would you want to have something like this in place. But what you have written won’t work (and for several reasons, yes there are more that I just stated above), and more so - it will backfire massively.I would have thought that in the instance of rape the burden of punishment would fall entirely upon the perpetrator, i.e. the rapist. Fair point about divorce though
OK now keep up with me:
- Luxury
- Gay
- Space
- Communism
You forgot “fully automatic”
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.
we’re heading toward monogamy at the main relationship status. Biologicaly it the best model for offspring survival
But it takes a village to raise a child
That is just extended family and friend relationships. Not a whole village of romantic partners.
Maybe that’s why poly is becoming a thing; it makes sense in America since its individualism ensures that children are independent of their parents, and especially extended family most of the time. Back in the day, children would still stay with their parents even when they have children themselves (and this is returning with inflations getting worse. Heck, there are even traditional housing systems where there is one “apartment” that consists of one extended family. But now, at least in the States, children can travel miles away from their family and pay them a visit only once in a while; so there’s no constant handling of children like in the old days. I suppose teachers can fill this role as well, but teachers handle groups of children at the time. They may or may not get individualized needs that need to be addressed that only an adult who lives with them can provide.
source, the Bible 😱
Polygamy is great- source: the quran.
Not all of us with different opinion than yours are religious.
Monogamy prevent killing of rival’s baby and protect kids Thoses studies might be biased by moral ground But the correlation between testes size and polygamous relationship is well studied. Right now, Humans fall in the midrange: not as promiscuious as a chimp but not monogamous. But seing how tiny your balls are compared to your dad, we’re certainly heading to full monogamous territory😱
I dont care about teste size.
We have other ways of preventing infanticide.
Not being religious doesn’t mean you don’t have cultural biases rooted in religion.
Linking random articles doesn’t make an argument stronger, just appear stronger.
You really think that we’re at the point as a species where we need to structure our society by comparing it to what chimps do?
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 :/
I think you are talking about marriage and family, more than just sex, right? Because sex-wise, you can do what you want already.
Polygamy no. I don’t think that’s what most people want, the sister wives thing. That’s a system used when men are scarce and you are trying to increase the population quickly, neither of those conditions exist now, and polygamist systems are often dead patriarchal and nasty.
Polyamory? The make your own family, whatever configuration, more than 2 people? I think we are closer to that, yes. In a time when you are trying to decrease birth rates, yes families with more than just a couple might become popular. More parents to love and care for each child would be handy.
Polyandry, two or more husbands? That would work in a world where there were more men than women - but most of those places in the world right now are not places where a woman would have the freedom to do that.
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
