It’s nice to hear the anti-marriage drumbeat intensifying.

Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off
Sandra Tsing Loh, The Atlantic, July/August 2009, pg. 116

Sandra Tsing Loh is getting divorced. In this article for The Atlantic magazine she explains the usual trajectory of relationships and why monogamy is unnatural. She uses this to argue that the current model of marriage is outdated. Serial monogamy, she says, is a much more natural model for human beings.

I am a critic of both marriage and monogamy and agree with much of Loh’s analysis of each.

Why do we still insist on marriage? Sure, it made sense to agrarian families before 1900, when to farm the land, one needed two spouses, grand-parents, and a raft of children. But now that we have white-collar work and washing machines, and our life expectancy has shot from 47 to 77, isn’t the idea of lifelong marriage obsolete?

What I do not agree with, however, is that relationships must necessarily end in order to start fresh with someone new. A more utopian model is polyamory, where individuals are free to love more than one person at a time. Each person satiates different needs and at different levels. This is what we should strive to achieve to maximize happiness.

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divorce · marriage · open marriage · the atlantic