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Monogamy is Against Human Nature?

By CocoaDiva on Nov 16, 2009 with Comments

wedding_bandI was sitting around chatting with a few of my male friends.  They tried to persuade me that monogamy is dead in marriage and that men should not be held to the standards of our parents.  What???  I refuse to believe that such a thing can be true. 

Back in our parents and grandparents time, marriages lasted for life.  You picked your pony, saddled up, and rode that bad boy out until death do you part.  True, many marriages suffered from infidelity but the couple found a way to work it out.   These days people swap partners and remarry as often as they change their underwear. 

Men are meant to roam free??

My male friends stated, it is not in a man’s nature to be faithful to one woman as men are natural hunters and gatherers, and were made like every animal to spread their seed and populate.  So marriage goes against human nature and it is unfair for men to be held to such standards.  

There used to be free sex in the society and reproduction was an exclusively female prerogative.  Bringing up of the kids used to be partly an individual (of the mother) and partly a social (of the tribe) phenomenon.

Society Allows Infidelity

Infidelity is becoming more common among people under 30. Many experts believe this increase in cheating is due to greater opportunity (time spent away from a spouse) and young people developing the habit of having multiple sexual partners before they get married

It is estimated that roughly 30 to 60% of all married individuals (in the United States) will engage in infidelity at some point during their marriage These numbers are probably on the conservative side, when you consider that close to half of all marriages end in divorce (people are more likely to stray as relationships fall apart.

Is Monogamy a Decision?

The initial decision to be unfaithful is rarely ever a rational choice; instead infidelity is usually driven by circumstances and one’s emotions. In fact, most people are surprised by their own behavior at the start of an affair

I find the problem with marriage and not being faithful is that the person settled with someone who fit the bill for the time being, but not someone that they could spend the rest of their life with.  

Unfortunately, many people find a more suitable mate (someone they love more than their spouse) after they are already married.

I don’t agree that men were meant to roam free and round up buttcheeks all willy nilly.  I think monogamy is a conscious decision and is dependant on how you currently feel about your partner or relationship….not on some innate hunt and gather mentality. 

Is monogamy unnatural?

Should we do away with it?

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Filed Under: Dating • Featured • Relationships • Uncategorized

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  • ivykikoe
    to answer the article's question, yes, monogamy is against human nature. HOWEVER, we are creatures of rational thought as well as emotional consideration and instinctual behavior. I.e, we are not animals. And as such, do not need to conduct ourselves as animals, unless we so choose. (another benefit of being human: free will).

    Choosing monogamy sets up a societal structure that is valuable for a number of reasons: not just propagation of our species, but to pass down norms/values/beliefs, to aid in societal stability, to make raising children easier on adults, to sustain wealth and health...a whole host of reasons.

    The reasons to choose polyamory? To satisfy self-appeasing needs. Polyamory helps no one both those involved in the relationship...and that is only IF those involved DON'T develop feelings, pass along diseases, tell mates not involved in the amorous behavior...

    You get the picture.

    Black people - of all people!! - should be advocating marriage and monogamy! We have higher rates of single-parenthood, higher rates of incarceration, higher STD contraction rates, higher rates of divorce. All of these issues, plus more, would be alleviated - at least partially, if not in whole - if we would advocate what is RIGHT, not just what is RIGHT for us as individuals. Please people, stop thinking with you woohaas, and use your God-given minds!
  • SBWomen
    this kinda related ; A New Report about successful unmarried Black Women
    Shows some good stats about why men are avoiding exclusive relationships and marriage

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJGMAhWpDF8
  • swiv
    a woman trying to understand a man's nature. classic.

    LMAO

    monogamy isn't natural for men.
  • Andrea_Victoria
    You're right, i was being glib.
  • Poly Friend
    Polyamory is not just 'hoe'ing around without getting married' as you put it. For those that are truly polyamorous it is a conscious choice to engage in ethical non-monogamy. Seeking out relationships that are intimate on many levels, not just sexually. You can have a poly relationship that has not sexual component to it. As you state, it should most definitely verbalized, but also negotiated and consensually agreed to.

    There are most definitely married people who are polyamorous. Jenny Block, who is poly advocate is one such person. Marriage, as well as any committed relationship, can include polyamory as a component. Poly = many, amoury = loves. Many Loves. I am assuming that people love the ones they are making a marital commitment too, right?

    Here is a great Google Knoll article on Polyamory:

    http://knol.google.com/k/james-o-neill/polyamor...

    For both males and females non-monogamousness is a part of who we are. Generally men here the call more strongly that women. For many it is easy to choose monogamy especially with society's built in expectations for it, but for a minority of others the call seems antithetical to their very being. Human sexual relationships span the range of celibate to totally non-committal non-monogamy and everything in between, but the far majority pick some sort of committed relationship, whether married or not.

    I think you have a very important point that our relationship expectations are not following with humanities full range of relationship models, and to purport that only one is acceptable does great harm and this needs to be fixed before and true progress can be made.
  • Andrea_Victoria
    monogamy is a decision. so is polygamy, or, what is more common these days, polyamory (tha's when your just hoeing w/o getting married first and everybody involved knows about it and is ok with it). Whether its 'outdated' or not is a question of both social construction and personal values, which of course strongly overlap. The truth of the matter is that there are now more unmarried women in the US than married - and that's according to the Census. That's a historical first. So reality is not matching social expectation that women grow up to marry. Still, many women feel like failures if they don't live up to that standard. This means that we have internalized social values that do not match reality.

    Also real is that more people are choosing same sex partners, intentional single parenthood, and other non-traditional relationships and family structures. So again, is the problem that our social expectations need to catch up to reality? Or, perhaps, its more of a choice now to disentangle your personal expectations and standards from the 1950's nuclear hetero-normative model.

    Whatever you decide about your personal decisions, value and models of integrity (i.e., making sure that if you choose non-monogamy, you inform your partners of this - otherwise you just a dog!), its important that you recognize how and why you are rejecting the 'norm'. That's the only way that the social dialog can really begin to evolve.
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