I have been in two “open” relationships, both of which failed miserably. One failure was clearly my fault. The other situation was a calamity waiting to happen from word one.
Two of my dearest friends have an open, and to all external appearances, extremelym successful marriage.
I have another group of friends (7 of them) who have maintained a stable, open relationship for nearly two decades. Well, two of them joined during that period. They are loving, stable and responsible folks and have two outstanding children.
I have known three other polyamorous groups, all of which disintegrated under painful circumstances.
Draw your own conclusions. But to me the question of “possible” falls firmy on the afirmative.
The best lack all conviction
The worst are full of passionate intensity.
*
I don’t really see why not. After all, probably the only reason it’s not widespread here (in the good ol’ USA) is because of widespread christianity (the two don’t gibe too well as far as I know).
Democritus: That was a very good post. Perhaps I may have been wrong. I will try to participate in this thread as much as I can but I have a thread where I am HIGHLY involved. Thanks for bringing up the good points!
Yours,
Phaedrus
For what a man had rather were true he more readily believes.
I think that that old inheritance thing would be a problem. In a long term group relationship you would presumably have multiple children from a variety of genetic backgrounds. Who inherits what and when? If you were the main breadwinner of the group, I think there would be a natural temptation to want that income to go to insure your own children’s security. On the other hand, if you were the starving artist, you’d probably want the pot divided equally. And when would property be passed down? As each member died, would thier private property be passed to thier mates or thier children? If it is passed to thier mates, that would mean you would have to trust them to eventually pass it out equally to your children when they died.
It’s not exactly an open relationship–but there are fundamentalist Mormon groups in Utah who practice polygamy quite successfully. I doubt that polyandry would work in this same situation. Many of these people are quite happy with the arrangement, many are not. Incest is a problem in some of the groups.
The Shakers had no sex involved but lived communally. Father Divine had communal living with no sex among his followers. I wonder if “open” relationships with several people are possible only if there is a strong central leader. If you consider just emotional relationships (excluding sex entirely) then often unmarried children lived together in relationships that were harmonious and loving. Doesn’t nearly everyone have a pair of great-aunts or uncles who never married and shared a household? Or are you excluding this type of relationship from discussion–only focusing on unrelated people chosing multiple-spousal partners.
Phaedrus,I know how much time is involved with reading posts and formulating responses in GD and I have been following the evolution thread as well. Hence my semi-sarcastic comment regarding the knife. Also, I hold Pirsig in very high regard, so thank you for admitting the possibility of error. That said, it is still hard to accept your view as being an “Aristotleian” one when I see very well that many of your other views are based soley on Christian dogma(esp. the Jesus is coming view). <spidey sense feels “accusation of Ad Hominem attack” warning tingling>!
Manda, I couldn’t disagree with you more. Property is almost inconsequential when compared to the sex issues except for someone exceedingly materialistic. I love my children and care about their future, but it is easy enough to write wills, set up trust funds, etc…
smilingjaws, I wouldn’t want to exclude that at all. Actually, it would probably help to observe successful relationships of these kinds to find out what qualities make them such and try to apply said qualities to the multiple-spousal type of relationship.
“Teaching without words and work without doing are understood by very few.”
-Tao Te Ching
Democritus said:
“I love my children and care about their future, but it is easy enough to write wills, set up trust funds, etc…”
But how do you feel about the children of various partners in this group? There is a lot of communal property involved here. If you provided 50% of the income over 35 years, and the other 4 members of the group each provided a portion of the other 50%, that communal property (if held commonly)would be evenly dispersed amoung all the children of the group–even if you only had genetic ties to one, and in fact had no say in the creation of the other half dozen. And if you made a will that excluded the children of other members of the group, they would rightfully feel cheated. Much of human society, from our religions to our law codes,is dedicated to codifing a complex set of rules about how these situations should be resolved for traditional pair bonding. It has taken millinia to evolve. I think it would be very hard for any group to manufacture a completly new set for a group marrige. Remember, most marital conflict amoung couples springs from economic disputes, not because of sex.
Great point Manda, thank you for clarifying. Well, in that case it would depend on a few things. If one went into a relationship with children, there would have to be some kind of understanding as to economic outcome and support. In a best case scenario, I would hope that the joint children, whether blood related or not, would become the common interest of all involved. I would think that As far as any discrepancy of actual wage earning between members, I don’t see that as being that much of a problem. Most married couples don’t make exactly the same amount and seem to do ok with this.
“Teaching without words and work without doing are understood by very few.”
-Tao Te Ching
If I’ve gotten this right, there seems to be a consensus that pair bonding makes monogamy “natural” behavior, but that males in particular will find straying from a monogamous relationship “natural” as well. This is speaking in a non-ethical context, using “natural” to represent normal anthropological behavior.
Continuing my interpretation of consensus: In general, polymorphous relationships can be functional but require a stability of commitment between partners that is not feasible for the majority of people.
(Side note: I’d be interested in knowing if successful polyamorous relationships are aided or impeded by bisexuality of the partners in them. It would seem logical that if any two members could cement their relationship sexually the entire multiperson relationship would be stronger. But we all know how logical human beings are! ;))
I think it would be helpful to see data on the stability and internal comfort level of the 19th Century Mormon polygynous marriages. This is the sole situation I know of where polygamy was an accepted element in a stable culture within the bounds of Western civilization. If there are others, the same data would be useful.
Finally, the OP noted and reiterated that the question was specifically not limited to sexual relationships. There have been a lot of very stable non-sexual long-term multi-person communal relationships over history, in particular the religious orders such as the Benedictines and Franciscans. My assumption would be that whatever fulfills the human need for intimacy and interpersonal contact and makes provision for one’s sexuality to be dealt with (even, as in this case, by celibacy), is viable.
Heinlein had a lot of ideas, but he was in favor of binding people as little as possible. I believe his idea of the perfect government was in Starship Troopers, and the perfect society was on Tertius Tellus (since it was perfect, it didn’t need government). Personally, I’d like to move to Tertius Tellus.
I think Heinlein’s idea was that people can be both crueler and more loving than we normally would think. Crueler in that mobs can get downright nasty. More loving in that we have our circles of people we care about (I’m talking about taking a bullet for someone here) and those circles can be fairly large. He felt that to enclose yourself in a monogamous marital relationship would cut you off or limit the expression of love between you and anyone outside of that relationship.
Of course, all of this is merely my impression after reading a lot of his books. Take it for what it’s worth. I think I agree with him, if I’m right in thinking that’s what he’s saying.
I know several people in polyamorous and poligamist (sp?)relationships. The poligamist people tend to stay together much longer whereas the polyamorous people tend to go from one series of relationships to another. In my circle of friends there are a few triples and a couple of quadruples. The most interesting quadruple relationship is between four bisexuals (two men and two women). They have been together for about 10-12 years and don’t have sex outside their union. Together they have 3 children but want the other woman to have one more because then everything would be equal. I have known triples in the past that have been together for over 30 years. I don’t really consider this polyamorous though because they are not open in their relationship. On the polyamorous issue, a lot of gay men practice this. I have seen it work, but it requires a lot of honesty on everyone’s part. If the person goes and sluts around, that person will have to tell the other individual what he/she did and above all else be safe. Also, as mentioned earlier, the upkeep on having multiple relationships is very difficult. For the ones that I have seen work (7 years is the longest current one) the people involved tend to spend the majority of their time with one person and have a few “fuck buddies” on the side. The FBs know that the person they are having sex with is in a primary relationship, but then again, so are they. It is very confusing and convoluted. Also, I have seen couples that have a periodic threeway, I don’t really consider them to be polyamorous either, just horny.
Well, I have a lot of other anectdotal evidence, but by and large in my experience, polyamory (I really want to spell that “polyamoury”) only works for a short period of time whereas poligamy works over the long term.
HUGS!
Sqrl
Gasoline: As an accompaniement to cereal it made a refreshing change. Glen Baxter
