“AND they lived happily ever after.” The lifelong commitment of two people to one another may be the fairy-tale ending, and an ideal of Western society. But monogamy is a relatively modern development, and hardly a sure path to happiness. Is it time we explored the alternatives?
Special report: Modern families
Today’s families are more diverse than ever. We explore what this means for our relationships and our children
Throughout our early history, polygyny, or one male with several females, was routine. One idea for how monogamy came to dominate is that as we evolved larger brains, keeping babies alive required more effort and food. The children of men who were spread across too many families . Indeed, a recent analysis found that, from hunter-gatherers to industrial societies, the .
The invention of weapons may have levelled the playing field, because dominant men were no longer able to fend off competitors who were weaker but armed. That aligns with another idea: that monogamy helped social stability. If a few men monopolise all the women, that leaves a lot of disgruntled bystanders. “Monogamy was essentially a social deal whereby powerful polygynist men agreed to give up their harems in return for a degree of social peace,” says psychologist of the University of Washington, Seattle.
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Religion also played a role in making monogamy a Western norm. As Christianity spread throughout Europe, children born outside marriage were increasingly cast out as “illegitimate” and cut off from inheritance. By 1215, strict new rules issued by the Pope made polygyny and extra-marital sex increasingly socially unacceptable.
Things aren’t so rigid today. The erosion of religious values, the development of hormonal contraception and the rupture of taboos around extra-marital sex and divorce mean that rather than having one sexual partner for life, many of us are serial monogamists, . But even with less pressure to make lifelong commitments, we’re pretty bad at staying true. In a recent UK poll, . Another study found that .
Perhaps that’s why some have abandoned the ideal altogether. A 2016 survey found that , where people have multiple sexual partners, but everyone is in the loop.
Cut out the deceit
Can these relationships really work, given the hurt and outrage infidelity routinely causes? To begin with, says psychologist at the University of Michigan, cultural norms shape those reactions. Where devout monogamy is expected, it’s no surprise that infidelity spurs negative feelings. But norms change. When someone cheats, it is often the betrayal of trust that proves most harmful. Consensual non-monogamous relationships cut out the deceit.
That may be why, for some people, these relationships work just fine. When Conley and colleagues , they found no significant differences in reported relationship satisfaction, commitment or passionate love. What’s more, those in open relationships reported less jealousy and higher levels of trust. “They’re not doing so much better than monogamous couples [that] everyone should make the switch, but they are doing OK,” says Conley.
So at the very least there is room in our society for other types of relationships. The systems that shape how we select our partners are flexible, and changeable. “At some point, it just ,” Conley says. But that doesn’t mean it is the only way, or the best one.
This article appeared in print under the headline “A family affair”
