Looking forward to marriage

Palo Alto Window

A little data to put this in context:

• About half of all marriages end in divorce.
• A recent study suggests that when you test for all kinds of non-monogamy (cheating and/or consensual) (emotional and/or sexual) relationships around 70 percent of all marriages are non-monogamous to some degree at least at some point.
• In 1948 the Kinsey report found about half of all married men have had sex outside their marriage. Since then women, statistically, have caught up.

Marriage is changing, and has been for a while. It’s not that folks are making a mockery of marriage; it's that marriage itself is being redefined. It’s a cultural thing. It's not about the decline of "traditional values." You can blame it on equal rights, or no-fault divorce laws, or birth control, or porn, or the Internet. The fact is it’s all of these and none of these and really it's so much more! It's about freedom, freedom and responsibility to define your relationships.

Just as we have banned slavery we have freed people in marriage. Remember, it was just 50 years ago that the last laws against interracial marriage were overturned in our country. Couples can choose to define roles in their relationships based on "traditional values." But, it is increasingly not the default.

About 10 percent of all people are gay and same sex marriage is legal and also not traditional. Same sex couples have also been freed to marry, despite traditions and laws that in the past were to the contrary. Traditional marriage is on the way out. Marriage has changed.

What is marriage becoming? Marriage is and is becoming more and more a conversation. Marriage is and is becoming an ongoing conversation about mutually compatible wants, expectations and boundaries that may evolve during a marriage. That conversation can last the entire marriage; changing and evolving. This conversation includes not just who does the dishes, laundry, childcare and who works at what employment. Increasingly the conversation about mutually compatible wants, expectations and boundaries has come to include monogamy/non-monogamy.

I have known a lot of couples; some same sex, some interracial, some nudist, some open sexually and/or emotionally, and yes; some very very traditional and monogamous. Some are happy and some are not. The common thread I have found is that people get along, communicate and are dedicated, in their own way, to their marriage.

I am thinking of some swingers I have met. They have a good marriage, get along great and enjoy going to swinging venues and doing what they enjoy doing. It's what they do. They enjoy doing it. What's wrong with that?

I think all people are entitled to define their own lives and personal relationship styles. I think people are better off doing what they are inclined to do. If a person is not inclined toward monogamy, what's wrong with them marrying someone who at least accepts their inclination, or maybe is similarly inclined?

So, what is “traditional” anyway? Is traditional the same as normal? If statistically around 70 percent of all marriages are non-monogamous some way at least at some point, is the normal a sort of quasi-monogamy? Is being normal being kinda monogamish?

I think that Christopher Ryan was correct when he said that monogamy is like vegetarianism. It may be desirable and we may really want to live it, but that doesn't stop bacon from smelling really good!