Hi Lee. I seem to be the main proponent for polyamory in this series of blogs… are you referring to me in your comment?
Just to be clear, I am pro-choice and anti-judgement, not anti-monogamy – something which I myself practice.

BLE wrote, “But at the same time people who do have different lifestyles are condescending towards monogamy and feel they are superior and more evolved.”

Yes, they are and particularly on this site. It’s off-putting, to put it mildly.

“That’s certainly good evidence that men compete ruthlessly for paternity, and that opportunistic sex is a common feature of our evolutionary history.”
No it does not show that. You are adding your own personal narrative here. It ONLY evidences that humans evolved with women having multiple sexual partners. The book I have referenced at your request contains a complete set of well researched and very convincing evidence that the early H. Sapiens evolved to be highly egalitarian and polyamorous.

“humans “evolved” for male rape, backed up with a good dose of violent enforcement of fidelity”
Is this what you believe DrL? I have certainly never read anything solid that supports your theory. The opposite in fact. I believe the key strength that distinguished early humans from apes was our compassion and mutual support for each other. We could rely on others to keep us alive in times of need – people give to others in need, even when they get nothing in return (Book ref: How Compassion Made Us Human: The Evolutionary Origins of Tenderness, Trust and Morality)

You seem to have switched to talking about ALL equality ths neatly side-stepping my point and question which was specifically about gender equality. I suspect a deliberate sidestep – maybe a wise approach.
Apart from it being a preventer of widespread polygyny (you have not provided any real arguments regarding this point), gender equality is pretty core to the issue of monogamy given the historic roots of monogamy, that the research suggests that on average marriage benefits men more than women when compared to their single counterparts (https://heragenda.com/this-is-why-men-benefit-from-marriage-more-than-women), and that sexually, women have a greater need for sexual novelty than men and are less satisfied by LTR sex than men (book ref: Mind The Gap).

@BLE.

You make some great points. Thank you for your input. Maybe some discussion on monogamy here has become too abstract?

To be honest, I don’t know what causes DV. It must be an incredibly complex issue, as well as an extremely sensitive issue. I think there’s a conservative line, which Jordan Peterson seems to endorse, that it’s linked to sexual jealousy. But maybe that’s too sensationalistic? Maybe it’s too easy to blame people’s relationship problems on jealousy alone? Maybe that’s a huge cop-out?

Maybe some commentators on DV (not on this site, but in the world at large) try to tie certain sensitive issues to either a conservative ideology or a progressive ideology, and the given ideology doesn’t really fit the facts… Just as ideologies often reduce men and women to absurd caricatures. I.e. men are always like this and women are always like that. If only men were men and women were women, the world would be perfect, operate smoothly, etc.

I guess it’s wrong to take people’s very complex lives or personal tragedies, and use the same to prop up some favoured ideological position. That’s definitely one of the dangers of philosophy, and I suppose intellectuals make this mistake all the time. I.e. trying too hard to make evidence support particular pet theories/views of the world. I guess we’re all guilty of a little utopian thinking at times. (E.g. I could design a perfect world. But would anyone other than me want to live in the world I create? Probably not. Haha!)

Just in the part of the world I live, which is working-class mostly, I think monogamy is the norm for straight couples, and serial monogamy is the norm when relationships break down. I think most people, especially parents, are just trying to do the best they can. I think people do crave the security of a committed long-term relationship, but it doesn’t always work out. I think people are more worried about financial survival than sexual fulfilment.

I actually think limerence as a social/emotional experience belongs in a class all of its own. Limerence isn’t really about monogamy or polyamory, and which is better. Although maybe social norms such as a prior marriage to someone else can be perceived by the limerent/s, rightly or wrongly, as the main barrier to consummation.

The barrier to consummation in my own experiences of limerence has always the personality of the LO himself!! I don’t blame monogamy. I blame LO’s mercurial disposition! Haha! 😛

To be honest, I’m a bit lost in the comments thread…so I’ll just respond here and hope it kinda fits.

1) As someone who has experienced DV, I don’t believe that it is rooted in sexual jealousy. This person, who I’ve encountered, was someone who was extremely unstable and used control and violence to regulate themselves and to give them a sense of stafety and power that was entirely independent from sexuality or jealousy. Voilence is a power move that is not exclusive to romantic relationships either. There are people who are abusive towards their children, employees, class mates, parents etc. You can’t explain that with sexual jealousy. Abusive people will be abusive no matter the scenario…it’s entirely about their internal state at that moment. It’s not about what you do or don’t do or how society is built or how you have defined your relationship. Romantic partners (and children for that matter) are more available and dependent that’s why it’s easier to abuse them but it’s always the same mechanism. Blaming it on sexual jealousy doesn’t sit well with me. I’m sorry, if I’m a bit intense here but this is personal to me and I’m not ok with simplifying DV like that.

2) When I read the above dicussion about monogamy vs polyamory etc. the thought that popped up was that we are still far away from tolerance regarding that topic. Sure, monogamy is the social norm and that creates pressure and stigmatizes people who deviate from it. But at the same time people who do have different lifestyles are condescending towards monogamy and feel they are superior and more evolved. Intolerance really is no one way street here. I mean what’s the point in arguing what’s “best” and more “fitting” to human nature? Is there really a one size fit all solution to this?

LE,
“Friends would line up on the goal line, family would get a 5 yard head start. My attorney would blow the whistle and anything someone could carry to the sidelines was theirs.”
I would never leave anything to family and friends. They aren’t in my life enough to warrant that. And I don’t really want my family arranging any kind of service. It would be like the priest who shows up to do the service after you pass and has never met you.

For years, I held friends in higher regard than family. Neither side of my family was very close. If we weren’t related by blood, we wouldn’t have anything to do with each other. For example, my maternal uncle called one day and said he thought he should tell me my aunt died. I asked him when it happened. He said, “About 6 months ago.” My mother’s sister died a few years ago and I hadn’t talked to her in 50 years. Of my 13 cousins, I’m in casual contact with 4 of them. Facebook put me in contact with two extended family neither of whom I remember ever actually meeting.

As an only child, as an adult, until I got married, I only had my friends to rely on if I needed help.

But, I was trained to be self-reliant. In her great confession, LO #2 said, “You don’t need me. You were only with me because you wanted to be.”

LO #2, a nurse never really did anything that made me want to set up shop with her. Once, when I came down with the flu, she came over, took care of me, cooked, cleaned the house, and did the laundry while I was sick. I asked her why she was being so nice to me. She said,

“It’s the firs time since I’ve known you that you needed someone.”

Oddly, I was never 100% sure LO #2 had my back. I had other friends I had no doubt had my back. LO #4 once told me that it felt good to know that I had her back. I liked that.

Before I got married, my idea of disposing of my estate if I died would be to pile all the stuff and things like insurance policies, bank books, personal possessions in the middle of a football field. Friends would line up on the goal line, family would get a 5 yard head start. My attorney would blow the whistle and anything someone could carry to the sidelines was theirs.

After I got married, my wife and I didn’t get wills until we had our first child. It wasn’t because we didn’t want to leave the stuff to each other, it was because we couldn’t agree on what would happen to the estate if we died simultaneously.

Since I was an only child, she assumed everything would go to her family. Because my father had died, I brought a decent estate into the marriage and I objected to all of it going to her family. So, I refused to get a will until she agreed I could leave something to my family. That way, if we died together, my family would get a cut. Having a kid, took that problem away and we set up wills to take care of one, later two kids.

Families are families. When my daughter got her first real job, she asked if she should get life insurance. We told her, yes, and we were the beneficiaries. She got indignant. We told her we had co-signed her student loans and if she died, we shouldn’t be on the hook for them. We told her that once her loans were paid off, she could name anyone she wanted as beneficiary.

I got a lot Esther Perel’s Ted video, but perhaps the idea that jumped out at me the most was individuality. We are more desirable when we are independent from our partners, and vice versa. That would seem to contradict limerence don’t you think? The idea that you don’t even need a partner that you have everything to sustain you within you that is an argument for both monogamy and polygamy.