random thought of the day

I was reading an article recently that used the phrase “serial monogamy” when it occurred to me that this is actually a rather curious phrase to choose for describing one of the major partnership patterns in the U.S. I mean, suppose we called it instead “variable polygamy”? Wouldn’t this do a better job describing a field of experiences that ranges from strict monogamy to many kinds of of overlapping relationships— not just those that overlap at the beginning and end, but various forms of polyamory, extramarital affairs, and so on. And it seems to me very problematic to describe the kinds of long-term involvements that are typical of the adults in divorced and extended families as a discrete series of monogamous relationships. I’d argue that the choice of “serial monogamy” has a good deal of wishful thinking in it—it’s prescriptive rather than strictly descriptive. However, ‘polygamy’ carries so much baggage in this culture that it’s a forbidden descriptor for all practical purposes. But clearly the choice of such sweeping designations has consequences for the culture, from the kinds of scientific investigations that are pursued to the ways in which certain relationships are normalized while others are demonized or overlooked.

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One Response
  1. lilly says:

    I think you’re right that it is all about prescription.

    I was watching the decades old movie “One, Two, Three” a month ago about a 50s era Coca-Cola executive trying to sell capitalist soda to the USSR. I was surprised to see that extramarital affairs with the hot swedish secretary and literally trading the secretary as part of business negotiations was so mundane as to be a source of gags without moralizing comment. It made me go, huh, that Gayle Rubin was onto something (The Traffic in Women)
    I would love to read a history of how the status and gender relations of extramarital affairs has changed over the last 50 years in the US. I bet serial monogamy is tied into that history.