Does marriage have a future? With the rise in infidelity and living together instead of walking down the aisle some are wondering.
Here are my thoughts on Open Marriage followed by an AOL blog note wondering if men have a marriage gene!
IN A YEAR when “Virginity Rules” became an abstinence movement motto, the pendulum swings to new rules for an open marriage. With recent statistics from 13 countries showing that marriage is down while living together is up – and monogamy being challenged by polyamory – will the words “for better or worse, until death do us part” become obsolete?
Polyamory means sharing more than one intimate partner at the same time. Unlike the ménage à trois or Updikean wife-swapping, polyamory is characterized by multiple-relationship arrangements with the consent of all partners and defined by specific boundaries.
Couples have been choosing alternative arrangements for years – look at Eleanor and Franklin D. Roosevelt (and his mistresses), Nelson Rockefeller and his mistresses, and the open relationship between John Lennon and Yoko Ono. In the 1800s, the married Amherst College treasurer, Austin Dickinson, spent 13 years involved with a young professor’s wife. Mabel Loomis Todd, who documented their relationship, declared that she could love two men at the same time. Poet Emily Dickinson helped her brother and Mabel sustain the affair.
One man loving three wives at the same time was depicted in Big Love, an HBO tale glamorizing polygamy. Since I do not own a television, I missed it and had to wait to read about marriage alternatives in two new books that are shedding light on sexual-preference-packages.
Written or unwritten rules that include mutual respect, agreements, and even contracts between various partners appear to set apart today’s open marriages from the swinging ’60s. Tristan Taormino, in Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships, describes a variety of arrangements, ranging from monogamy with benefits to triads and solo polyamory. The book comes with an extensive resource list by state and country.
Taormino says her goal is “to empower people to let go of societal expectations of what relationships should look like and create customized relationships that meet their needs and desires.”
Jenny Block’s Open: Love, Sex, and Life in an Open Marriage is a memoir. She wrote me and said, “I do think that polyamory might well work for many people. That’s not to say that I have any problem with monogamy. I think it is great when a couple is actually practicing it and not just giving lip-service to the concept.”
Escalating marital infidelity and divorce rates may be contributing to the rise in cohabitation. A young couple from Portland, Ore., expressed a growing sentiment. Amanda Thibodeau said: “Marriage is a government and legal institution, and we have lost faith in both. Why do I need these institutions telling me that my relationship is official?”
Of their relationship Scott Beck added: “We are working on being good partners for each other, like other couples who are married or not, gay or straight, young and old.”
Ironically in an era when many are giving a “thumbs down” to marriage, gay couples are still lobbying for the right to marry.
What message do marriage alternatives give to young people? In the absence of role models, we are spending taxpayer dollars for abstinence programs that congressional-funded research shows are failing. Why not spend money on family-focused education that includes conflict resolution, financial management, sexual responsibility and child care? We might even consider courses that talk about intimacy and love as a choice rather than wild infatuation.
Does marriage even have a future? As an incurable romantic, I am ever hopeful. But I paused at a recent New Yorker cartoon by Michael Crawford. A middle-aged couple in the formal “just married” attire of tux and tulle are sitting in the back of a limousine. The caption reads: “It didn’t have to end like this.”
Sunday July 6, 2008, adapted from Providence Journal
This AOL feature presents some interesting thoughts. The marriage gene
You may also want to read my piece “Of DNA and Desire” at Relationship Columns
Copyright 2008 Rita Watson