My Jihad Against Monogamy Has Failed

September 7 2011, 4:27pm

Should I give up? Monogamy is on the rise, according to a new study that finds that couples these days generally are more monogamous than they used to be.... The study of 6,864 men and women—responses were collected from 6,082 individuals in 1975 and from 782 in 2000—examines differences on a variety of issues, including monogamy. The percentages of heterosexual men who reported having sex with someone other than their wife dropped to 10 percent in 2000 from 28 percent in 1975; among married women, it declined to 14 percent from 23 percent. Among gay men, the percentage who cheated on a partner they lived with dropped to 59 percent from 83 percent; for lesbians it declined to 8 percent from 28 percent. Give up? Or point out that people in 1975 tended to stay in marriages that didn't satisfy them—sexually, emotionally, whateverally—and opted cheated on their spouses because cheating was less stigmatized in 1975 than divorce? These days, of course, cheating carries a larger social stigma than divorce. (I blame Ronald Reagan.) Consequently people in sexually/emotionally/whateverally unsatisfying marriages today are much liklier to divorce and remarry than people in sexually/emotionally/whateverally unsatisfying marriages in 1975. I hate to burst Ross Douthat's bubble here, but... serial monogamy is not quite the same thing as married-and-sexually-exclusive-for-life monogamy. I mean, let's say someone who took part in the 1975 study had been married to one person for 40 years and he cheated on his spouse one time. He would've been counted among the terrible, no-good, really bad non-monogamists. (Assuming, of course, that he answered the question truthfully.) But a guy who took part in the current study who had married and divorced four women and is currently on his fifth wife but who had refrained from sticking his dick in women to whom he wasn't currently married would be counted among the sainted monogamists because he hadn't technically cheated on any of his five wives. Who, I ask you, was better at monogamy? The guy in 1975 who was married to one woman for forty years and cheated on her once? Or the guy who had married and divorced four women and—odds being what they are—is likely to divorce his current wife and move on to a sixth? The fine print: I'm not actually waging jihad against monogamy! If people in monogamous relationships are content, I'm content! But monogamy isn't for everybody. [ Comment on this story ] [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]