Love thy neighbour

I have noticed lately that a growing number of people in the early forties age range are questioning the validity of monogamy. Interestingly, they’re not all just out of an acrimonious divorce.

Opinions on non-monogamy differ though. Some talk about “polyamory” but really mean swinging. Others conceive of it as just an open relationship, where each person pleases themselves within, I assume, specified limits. Yet others are looking for or living “true” polyamourous relationships as described, for example, in this excellent article from Newsweek. As usual, Wikipedia does a decent job of disambiguating.

I wonder why it seems more common now. Is it that we’re the jaded children of “broken homes”, refugees of failed marriages or long-term commitment-phobia? Or have we just, finally, given up on the “happily-ever-after myth”?

This cursory article still has one or two interesting points:

• apparently, some of us are more inclined to non-monogamy
• we all have sexual thoughts about people other than our partner, and suppressing them is at the root of many of our relationship problems

Interesting. Some researchers go even further though. In this article, psychiatrist Judith Lipton is quoted as saying that monogamy isn’t natural, but the result of 2000 years and more of socialisation.

And that socialisation makes it hard for us to embark on any other relationship model. While many of us like the idea, in practice it’s not so easy to mix free love and commitment. As the Times article says, it requires empathy and maturity that many of us just don’t have. We are self-centred and self-critical, lacking in self-worth and self-confidence. We are prone to trust issues and jealousy.

But if we could just get over those, accept ourselves, accept others, not need to own someone else, the world would be a vastly different and no doubt, more connected place. Many people deplore the advance of individualism; maybe polyamory is the antidote.

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