Polyamory – loving around
Kira writes on Polyamory today at 20-forty.com.
polyamory is the practice of simultaneously having more than one loving relationship.
Unlike promiscuous behavior, the relationships are stable and committed.
A primitive view
Humans evolved with a need for community. We see that today with neighbors, neighborhoods, congregations of worship, extended families, and the way people often gather for mutual support and comfort in adversity.
Recently (in evolution timelines) the aspect of bound marriage appeared, a social institution that formalizes the mating that must have been present all along. Whether human nature lends itself to temporary or life-long matings, in the absence of trauma, might be a good question. Most of us live in societies that combine economic goals of inheritance and domination and stability to impose a life-long insistence. One theory has it that the human spirit is geared to four year matings – the length of time for a gravid woman to give birth, nurse and rear a toddler. I think people are more inclined to inertia – unless something happens, relationships would tend to persist through the lifetime.
Three coins
The Mormons with their initial reverence for polygamy, binding marriages of a man to multiple women at the same time, was derived straight from the Bible; nothing in the bible contradicts this. The ‘Wedding at Canaan’ has inspired many cheap wine parties (”Keep the good wine in case someone important shows up”) and also the mistaken assumption that the wedding was between a man and a first-and-only wife. Nothing is ever said that the man didn’t have other wives at the time, or that he didn’t marry later, as was the belief and custom.
Today a number of people live a multiple-mate lifestyle, sometimes referring to their choice as ‘three coins’ from the movie. The choice is made by the women, to choose to share lives with the same man. There is no reason that people that believe such an arrangement is a joyful blessing on themselves and others. At least, until they cross paths with a fanatic that is often unhappy with many of the people in the world.
Polyamory, though, strikes me as a distraction in finding fulfillment and joy. Instead of building a family, polyamory is a means to keep dating, to continue to explore sexual adventures. The only advantage that polyamory has over polygamy or polygyny is that it isn’t obvious to their community, usually, that they are violating social and religious strictures of today.
Polyamory also consumes resources – extra residence, time, effort, curtailed communication and time with a given partner – that are thus unavailable to form a family, participate in a community. To be of service to others. This seems to be a display of conspicuous consumption. Squandering money and time to boast, rather than to quietly and competently build a home to nurture each other.
“Instead of building a family, polyamory is a means to keep dating, to continue to explore sexual adventures.’
Not necessarily. Most people I’ve spoken with do not think of poly as simply dating. Certainly not in my case, which the result of it HAS been a family.
“Polyamory also consumes resources – extra residence, time, effort, curtailed communication and time with a given partner – that are thus unavailable to form a family, participate in a community. To be of service to others.”
Not really. In fact, using my family as an example, we actually have MORE time. There are 3 adults and 2 children. In our house we have 2 full time wage earners AND 1 fulltime stay at home mom. When one of us needs time off… there are 2 others who can pull the slack. The SAHM is currently taking full-time classes … guess where the support for things like laundry, cleaning, and child care when she’s studying comes from? Not 1 but 2 other people. We have 1 residence instead of 2… spend a lot of time together as a family (including going camping)… and we all get “alone” time. There’s never really anyone NOT available for the kids or to do something with that someone else doesn’t want to do. How is that squandering and not nurturing?
To my way of thinking, someone always gets less.
I’m just not able to believe think or feel that a man can have sex with/love me as well as someone else and that is okay.
Or if it is the woman who wnats to be with two men.
Either way, it is a flagrant disrespect and control freakism (new word)
I agree with your conclusions, Brad.
Tammy, welcome!
I think of what you describe more as the ‘three coins’ type of polyandry, multiple adults in a single family. And my understanding is that your situation is stable, and with the right people (like any family!) good for all involved. I think of what you describe as polyandry, though rather than polyamory.
Family to me requires that the partners select each other based on their aptitude and capacity to be a good mate, and a good co-parent, that they conduct themselves as a family among themselves and with regard to their community.
Polyamory is usually a formal term for a stable swinging or perpetual dating arrangement, not forming a family.
Loving Annie,
Remember there are always distinctions. Where those involved form a family – as Tammy has – I have no concerns about anything.
But where I find polyamory described the people are usually involved in permanent dating and actively avoid things like character and children. They think because they don’t stop dating one another they are accomplishing something – maybe a prolonged childhood or sexual adventure.
Thanks!
Hi Brad…I really enjoyed reading this one.I have my own views on Polyamory,and hopefully wont offend anyone here. I am not sure that I condone it,especially when I hear about (certain) women who actually never really wanted such relationships, but they just went along with it to placate a dominant male who was head of his household and called all the shots. Sure I’m not including everyone in that observation,I know everyone is unique, and some people may believe that they are doing something religious by accepting it…but there have been ( who knows how many times??) when someone, male or female… is kind of just forced to go along with Polyamory just to keep the peace. Brad,This post is really interesting…hope you dont mind that I stumbled it!
Have a really great day….as for me,I’m just sitting here in the Creams and Lotions shop,lol
Just because polygamy existed in the Bible, does not mean that it was sanctioned by God. There are no instructions to have more than one wife. There are, however, many instructions to have only one wife.
JesseTheCat, Welcome!
Oh, Gack! I have been mixing and matching my words.
– polygamy – multiple adults forming a mated family
– polygyny – multiple wives, one husband
– polyandry – multiple husbands, one wife
Again, I think there is a bit of confusion here. As I understand it, polyamory is explicitly living separate lives.
One person may be deceiving others about whether their relationship is exclusive – hiding one from another – but many times it is all consensual.
What you mention about sex slaves and intimidation is a twisted warp of the ‘three coins’ family structure – a perversion of the family.
What Tammy mentions, and CathouseTeri, is often polygyny (multiple wives for one husband) or polyandry (multiple husbands with a common wife) or other form of polygamy – a form of family.
I ran across a fictional “sororal polygamy” (sisters sharing a husband) future history novel, Wen Spencer’s “A Brothers Price”. The only thing piquant about the social custom is the way characters are motivated to act in reasonable fashion, while responding to a cultural cataclysm (a virus has sterilized or killed most men, and scarred their genetic heritage: few fertile men are born). Spencer is an under-rated author, and this particular novel is well worth reading, as an exploration of customs, as an adventure, as the depiction of some very likable people.
As Tammy mentioned, where polygny succeeds, it is the women that choose to form the union. A guy gathering concubines is something else – concubinage.
Polyamory on the other hand is ‘multiple lovers’. Not intent or purpose to build a family unit containing all the members. Shacking up in multiple shacks.
CathouseTeri,
I can find the passage that directs what to do when you bring home a war bride, if your other wives don’t accept her.
Recall Lot’s daughters both sleeping with him – this wasn’t that uncommon a practice for sisters to choose a husband, although picking Daddy was a bit twisted for me.
Recall the virgins with lamps and those without enough oil – and count how many husbands-to-be were involved.
Abigail was the widow of the man that died of apoplexy when he refused to give the warriors under David food and supplies, but his wife Abigail intervened to plead for David to spare her husband’s life. When the man found out she saved him (and gave David the supplies), he died of his rage. Abigail left the other wives and servants and ran off with David, becoming his second wife.
Old testament and new are filled with references to the bond between man and wife, and none about how many wives a man might take. Strict warnings about adultery and kidnap and coveting wives and servants, but not about multiple wives.
The New Testament poses a particular problem in this regard, alluding to the wife’s relationship to her husband as the church is to the Lord. So – how do we reconcile setting up a new church of Christians, devoted to the same God as the Jewish people? Then the Roman and Orthodox churches, and the protestant churches – doesn’t this form the very picture of polygamy – multiple brides for a single husband? Yet each church is content with it’s own ‘bride’ relationship to God.
In today’s United States, Christian teachings and secular law mostly coincide with you, that a marriage is a man and a woman. But this particular version of the story is somewhat recent in the history of man kind, and doesn’t embrace the way other people worship and live. Just as we can point to the Celts in the British Isles, and the time in history that the Catholic Church adopted the Celtic pagan spring festival, and called it Easter, the practice of single man and woman marriages can be traced to executive decisions in various religious hierarchies. Galileo was jailed for pointing out that the the-current teaching – where the church claimed the sun and universe revolved around the earth – was in error. Obviously that particular affectation of the Church wasn’t the inerrant message of God.
From Wikipedia “The defining characteristic of polyamory is belief in the possibility of, and value of, multiple romantic loving relationships carried out “with the knowledge and consent of all partners concerned.” What distinguishes polyamory from traditional forms of non-monogamy (i.e. “cheating”) is an ideology that openness, goodwill, intense communication, and ethical behavior should prevail among all the parties involved. Some consider polyamory to be, at its root, the generalization of romantic couple-love beyond two people into something larger.”
“People who identify as polyamorous typically reject the view that sexual and relational exclusivity are necessary for long-term loving relationships. Those who are open to, or emotionally suited for, a polyamorous lifestyle may be single or in monogamousrelationships, but are more typically are involved in multiple long term relationships.
This is *dating* as opposed to building families. And violates all kinds of laws about fornication (sex outside marrige) both religious and secular.
But then, as a nation we have collectively decided not to enforce laws about statutory rape (underage sex partners), or about adultery (married people engaging in sex or dating outside marriage). I knew a woman from Atlanta, that showed me evidence that she had married five different men, all living, none divorced, when she was pregnant by another that she planned to marry. In 1977 the attorney general of the state of Georgia was uninterested in prosecuting, when I reported Linda.
I don’t see that United States law today considers the family ’sacred’ at all. Just like other ‘family value’ positions, all I see accomplished is funds being raised and politicians and religious leaders gaining TV time and popularity. I can easily be convinced that the family is ‘protected’ when adultery is reported and punished in criminal court.
I am uncertain that God has blessed one form of family over another. I do believe that God blesses families.
Again, Brad, there are numerous references to having multiple wives in the Bible. But just because something is spoken of in the Bible, doesn’t mean it is instructional and being stated as a directive by God. In fact, most of the situations you find in the Bible are speaking of disobedience to God.
I’m only mentioning this in response to your statement:
“The Mormons with their initial reverence for polygamy, binding marriages of a man to multiple women at the same time, was derived straight from the Bible; nothing in the bible contradicts this.”
Rather, there is much in the Bible that contradicts teaching the practice.
As for the Mormons, they brought along the polygamy from the Old Testament, but neglected many other aspects, such as stoning rebellious teens.
There is a great wailing and gnashing of teeth coming from certain political and charismatic religious figures about how the United States of America was formed based on God’s law – the Ten Commandments from the Old Testament. But I see so much picking and choosing. The commandments require that believers in the God of Abraham and David to hold their God before all other gods. Yet the Constitution requires tolerance of beliefs. Adultery is a sin as much as keeping the Sabbath Day holy and stealing and killing. Yet many of the laws regarding honoring Sunday (Saturday?) have been repealed or ignored, and Adultery has become an issue in divorce rather than a criminal offense (no one cares to enforce the law).
Other cultures adhere to polygamy (multiple mates). I see the modern-day Christian adherence to “one man and one woman” as a definition of marriage to be a basic Christian belief – and as such not defined by the constitution, but by Christian dogma. And thus falls under the Bill of Rights – as tolerance of beliefs.
I am glad that the law of the land tolerates a man and a woman that form a lifelong mated couple. Tolerating other beliefs should include tolerating other mature, sound arrangements.
Just as long as it’s not done in the streets and scares the horses! That’s my rule!
Just a quick note ~ I have no problem with polyamory. As long as things are up front and agreed upon, I see no reason to have an issue with it.
You see, I decided long ago not to worry about whether something is right or wrong. I am more interested in whether it is honest.
Cathouse Teri, I have a great respect and tolerance for any viable form of family – including polygamy. I see a *lot* of ethical, moral, spiritual, social, personal growth, and family values differences between family-oriented polygamy and the the merely dating polyamorous.
Polyamory, swinging, open relationships – these are all forms of what I call ‘perpetual dating’ – obsession with sexual adventure to the exclusion of true family bonding. The risks are high, the paybacks, aside from sexual interest and excitement, are minor. Perpetual dating is much less likely to lead to a satisfying family life, and much more likely to result in invested life-skills like winning (new) bed partners and keeps the focus on sexual thrills and exciting ‘adventures’ where the participants flirt with risk and danger. That is, life-skills and interests that are contrary to being a good mate and co-parent.
Polyamory and polygamy might both pass an ‘honest’ test, where no one is deceived and no one is coerced. But I consider polyamory to be ritual adultery, whether or not any of the relationships are formally considered to be ‘marriage’ or matings.