Is non-monogamy a new phenomenon?

Monogamy as the default mode of relationships is often seen as a universal and timeless practice, but in fact, it is a relatively modern construction. Throughout history, non-monogamy has been practiced in many diHerent cultures and contexts; for example, many indigenous cultures in the Americas, Africa, and Asia traditionally practiced various forms of non-monogamy. It was only with the rise of Christianity and the subsequent influence of Victorian morality that monogamy became the dominant form of relationship in Western society, with legal and cultural norms enforcing its primacy.

Ethical non-monogamy is not …

A new phenomenon. Although interest is in non-monogamy growing within Western societies, humans all around the world have been practicing nonmonogamous relationships of all types for millennia.

Prescriptive. Non-monogamous people are not out to “abolish” monogamy. However, we do challenge the assumption that monogamous relationships are the ideal, and that monogamous romantic relationships should take priority over other forms of relationships. While everyone has the right to choose monogamy, they should also have the right to choose non-monogamy1.

The assumption here is that OPEN and other promoting polyamory are fighting against the stigma against non-monogamy created by Christians. Most people practiced non-monogamy, and all was well until those pesky Christians came along and spoiled everyone’s fun.

Apparently, no one in OPEN has read Tom Holland’s classic work Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind. Relationships, particularly for women and children, were not a peaceful proposition before Christianity impacted sexual practices in societies around the world. Most men indeed practiced non-monogamy before Christ, leaving chaos and destruction in their wake.

In a 2020 interview entitled ‘Christianity gave women a dignity that no previous sexual dispensation had offered,’ Tom Holland relays the following to Shoaib Daniyal:

As I began the book, I was thinking, well, essentially the whole Christian sexual morality in the West has gone. But then while I was writing it, the Harvey Weinstein episode happened. And what was interesting about that, and the whole #MeToo movement, which followed it, was that nobody said, well, what’s wrong with a very powerful man sexually abusing his social inferiors. And the #MeToo movement depended on, for its effectiveness, not just on women accepting its premises, but men.

And the very question, why do people take for granted that powerful men do not have the right to use their social inferiors in a sexual manner? This is one that actually goes back to the very heart of the theme of Dominium. Because that was what the Romans took for granted. The dynamic in the Roman world was not between, as it is now, men and women. It was between those who have power, namely Roman free male citizens, and those who were subordinate to them. And essentially the Roman sexual universe was, by our lights, very brutal. It was a very Harvey Weinstein sexual arena.

A Roman man had the right to sexually use anyone who was subordinate to him, such as slaves and social inferiors. He could just use their mouths or their various orifices, as receptacles for his excess sperm. And so, the Romans had this one word “mayo” for urine and ejaculate. This is how it’s seen. And so it casts those who have to receive the Roman males’ attentions in a rather unpleasant light.

Now, Christianity radically, radically changes that. It’s there in the very earliest Christian texts: Paul’s letters. And Paul is a Jew. So, he has an idea that the binary is male and female; God creates man and women separate. So, he brings that assumption to the table. But he also brings another novel assumption, which is that Christ came and suffered death out of love for humanity.

And so, what Paul does is to say that love; all you need is love. Love is the greatest animating force. And if we want to have a sexual relationship with another human being, then it must be true to the love that Christ has shown for humanity. So, what Paul does is to say that there can be only one way, one proper way, of having a sexual relationship, and that is you have to have a marriage that is monogamous.

The Jews would have numerous wives. The Romans were monogamous, but they could dump their spouses at regular intervals. Paul says no, it has to be monogamous. A lifelong, monogamous relationship. Something very, very odd. There’s was nothing like this before. But more than that: the reason why this matters is that Paul says that the man who marries a woman is like Christ, marrying the church. So that gives an incredible sacred potency to every man and every woman in a married relationship.

These [Romans] are householders who, until they get converted by Paul, are taking for granted that they have the right to sleep with who they like. But Paul is now saying no, you are the image of Christ. Christ doesn’t go around sexually forcing himself on the cullery maid or page boys. Yoiu can only with your wife.

And likewise, though it might seem sexist now, the woman gets to be the church and doesn’t get to be Christ. But actually, what Paul is doing is giving an incredibly potent sacred quality to the physical body of a woman. That a woman is not there to be sexually abused. She’s not there to be jumped on by a powerful male. And if that’s true of an aristocratic woman, it’s also true of the lowest humblest woman in a Roman household.

The scale of this transformation cannot be over-emphasised. And it’s something that offers to women a dignity that no previous sexual dispensation had ever given them. And over the course of the first centuries of Christianity, this understanding of sex eats like an acid through the understanding that the Romans previously had of how sex operates. And over the course of Christian history, the church imposes on believing Christians this sense that being a powerful male does not license you to have multiple wives and concubines. You have to focus on one.²

Holland goes on to note the practice of “free love” that became popular in the 1960’s is actually not a good deal for women. (As I noted in part I of this series, stating identifying as non-monogamous can also be known as EFBD - every frat boy’s dream.):

…Puritan is now a dirty word. But actually, what Puritans are about are – it’s there in the word – it’s about purity. And part of that purity is sexual purity. And it’s not just repressive.

Within a marriage, Puritan men and women have as much sexual fulfillment as you possibly want. But outside it, you have purity by respecting the bodily integrity of, you know, your servant girl. You shouldn’t go to prostitutes and things like that. And so, for centuries, this was taken for granted in America and England. And it’s really only with the 1960s that that changes.

…Something that does cut the link not just with doctrinal, but with cultural Christianity is the idea that starts to bed down in the ’60s, that love is not just
spiritual, but physical. And then therefore, “all you need is love” means that you can basically have sex with anyone you like. And this becomes something that hippies over the course of the ’70s and the ’80s, in the West again, bed down.

But it turns out, as we see now in America, that this idea that free love is a great thing, have sex any way you want, actually turns out to be better for men than for women. Because essentially, it’s license for men to sexually harass their social inferiors. And that’s what the Harvey Weinstein #MeToo thing is all about. And, in a way, the perfect illustration of this paradox, a kind of moral Mobius Strip, is that when women go on their marches to protest against sexual harassment, many of them will wear red robes and white bonnets.

This is the uniform that they’ve taken from The Handmaid’s Tale, a novel by Margaret Atwood, which then became a TV series: a dystopian satire set in a future America that’s become basically fundamentalist Christian. And it’s drawing on the model of Puritan New England. But what is it that these women are demanding?

They’re demanding that men become Puritan.

They’re demanding that they that they exercise sexual self-restraint, sexual continence, and that they respect a woman’s right to choose her own partner. And that is nothing if not the demonstration of the fact that Christianity is always going to come back. We in the West, we cannot escape it. It always returns, even if it’s not wearing an overtly Christian form.

It is wild reading an atheist noting that love between a man and a woman in a committed marriage is not repressive, but fulfilling. And yes, “free love” isn’t free – there are consequences to having sex with numerous partners, and these fall heaviest on women and children. The short-sightedness and revisionist history of those at OPEN is startling. We can learn from the past – both distant and recent – to find the boundaries for sexual intimacy the Lord has outlined for us do indeed fall in pleasant places.

The Parts are not Equal to the Whole

As a final thought, let’s not forget that co-parenting, nesting / co-habiting, sexual partnerships, asexual partnerships – all of these old practices being listed under new terms as identity categories are each aspects of a marriage, and the parts are not equal to the whole of that sacred covenant. Married couples are parents to their children, living together as friends and lovers, forsaking all others in an act of sacrificial love.

Honoring this level of commitment is a good and noble thing. Children especially need this level of stability to flourish, and there is plenty of evidence to back this up. (Again, see Them Before Us, as this book and advocacy organization highlights the dramatic benefits of opposite-sex, biologically related parents in the life of a child.)

Supporting this foundational part of society – the raising of children – is not exercising oppression against those in friendships or those who wish to have sexual partners they don’t live with, etc. That is a faulty assumption encased in a faulty perspective – stretching all the way back through the history of monogamy. People are free to make choices to separate out these aspects of marriage in their own lives, but consent is a low bar in our relationships.

Society is not obligated to pretend that compartmentalizing one’s relationships in this way should be seen as equal to
marriage. People have experimented with these practices for a long time, and found loving, committed, exclusive marriages between a man and a woman to be best. The sacrifice required to say “no” to all other relationships, in the interest of supporting one other person and the children born of that relationship is worth promoting and supporting by society, including the state.

And let’s not forget - the long-term commitment between a husband and wife is a reflection of the long-term commitment the Lord wants to make with each of us. He is our Creator, Father, Redeemer, Lover and Friend. This is the commitment He offers all to those who trust in His name.