Polyamory and you

[DisturbedPervert]

The instinct to not get cuckolded seems too strong for most people to be cool with other men balling their wife.  Being single is preferable to that situation.

[frunk]

The thing is, it isn't.

You often hear the fact that 50% of all marriages end in divorce.

But flip it around.  50% of marriages last until death.  That's a lot of successful marriages.

Not to mention that there's a long tail of people who have been married and divorced multiple times, driving down the marriage rate further.

[Valmy]

But flip it around.  50% of marriages last until death.  That's a lot of successful marriages.

Just because something happends hundreds of millions of times does not mean it is not a pipedream invented by Hollywood.

[Drakken]

Our modern experience also show that believing that people can remain love together with a single partner for a life time is a pipedream to sell Twilight books and bad, cheezy Hollywood flicks.

The thing is, it isn't.

You often hear the fact that 50% of all marriages end in divorce.

But flip it around.  50% of marriages last until death.  That's a lot of successful marriages.

Nice try.

Since when have we started compilating the data on marriage success and divorce? The seventies. Barely a generation ago. The data might be tampered by the fact that divorce became readily accessible (to women I must add) only 40 years ago for us, so it is too soon to infer whether, with no-fault divorces now more easily accessible, 50% of married couples still remain together until one of the partners die of.

It is not that 50% of marriages last until death, but 50% of marriages haven't still end up in divorce by the end of the year studied. But I suspect that, after a century passes off, the % of marriages which have lasted beyond 10 years will be much, much lower than 50%.

[Valmy]

Not to mention that there's a long tail of people who have been married and divorced multiple times, driving down the marriage rate further.

My Mother-in-law married and divorced four times...so statistically there are four happily married couples out there just for her.

[Drakken]

The instinct to not get cuckolded seems too strong for most people to be cool with other men balling their wife.  Being single is preferable to that situation.

Because they can be entraped with someone else's child if she becomes pregnant.

However, "our" reptilian male instinct is to have sex with as many women as possible, and even better if we don't have to deal with the child-rearing afterwards. It is a little paradoxal that, while we would instinctively abhor being a cuckold, the same instinct would make us readily available to have intercourse with as many women as possible, taken or not, which leads to impregnating other men's partners without them knowing.

[Valmy]

Since when have we started compilating the data on marriage success and divorce? The seventies. Barely a generation ago. The data might be tampered by the fact that divorce became readily accessible (to women I must add) only 40 years ago for us, so it is too soon to infer whether, with no-fault divorces now more easily accessible, 50% of married couples still remain together until one of the partners die of.

It is not that 50% of marriages last until death, but 50% of marriages haven't still end up in divorce by the end of the year studied. But I suspect that, after a century passes off, the % of marriages which have lasted beyond 10 years will be much, much lower than 50%.

Um...no the statistics indicate that annually there are twice as many marriages per capita than divorces going back 30+ years.  Not that half of everybody married is divorced by the end of the year.

[Valmy]

However, "our" reptilian male instinct is to have sex with as many women as possible, and even better if we don't have to deal with the child-rearing afterwards.

My instincts must be rather weak because I have no more desire to do that than jam a very dull spoon into my eyesocket and scoop out my brain.

[Barrister]

Since when have we started compilating the data on marriage success and divorce? The seventies. Barely a generation ago. The data might be tampered by the fact that divorce became readily accessible (to women I must add) only 40 years ago for us, so it is too soon to infer whether, with no-fault divorces now more easily accessible, 50% of married couples still remain together until one of the partners die of.

It is not that 50% of marriages last until death, but 50% of marriages haven't still end up in divorce by the end of the year studied. But I suspect that, after a century passes off, the % of marriages which have lasted beyond 10 years will be much, much lower than 50%.

Not true.  Since marriages happen in churches, and divorce is a legal process, we actually have excellent statistics on divorce going back a century or more.  And while yes it isn't all that helpful to look at pre-1960s statistics, we certainly have them.

And we definitely have statistics of marriages lasting 10 years.  Most of them do.

[Drakken]

Since when have we started compilating the data on marriage success and divorce? The seventies. Barely a generation ago. The data might be tampered by the fact that divorce became readily accessible (to women I must add) only 40 years ago for us, so it is too soon to infer whether, with no-fault divorces now more easily accessible, 50% of married couples still remain together until one of the partners die of.

It is not that 50% of marriages last until death, but 50% of marriages haven't still end up in divorce by the end of the year studied. But I suspect that, after a century passes off, the % of marriages which have lasted beyond 10 years will be much, much lower than 50%.

Um...no the statistics indicate that annually there are twice as many marriages per capita than divorces going back 30+ years.  Not that half of everybody married is divorced by the end of the year.

Point taken. But how many of these marriages have lasted more than 5 years? More than 10 years? And so on.

The point is, it must be studied longitudinally.

[garbon]

2 or that's what I'd like to believe.

[Drakken]

Since when have we started compilating the data on marriage success and divorce? The seventies. Barely a generation ago. The data might be tampered by the fact that divorce became readily accessible (to women I must add) only 40 years ago for us, so it is too soon to infer whether, with no-fault divorces now more easily accessible, 50% of married couples still remain together until one of the partners die of.

It is not that 50% of marriages last until death, but 50% of marriages haven't still end up in divorce by the end of the year studied. But I suspect that, after a century passes off, the % of marriages which have lasted beyond 10 years will be much, much lower than 50%.

Not true.  Since marriages happen in churches, and divorce is a legal process, we actually have excellent statistics on divorce going back a century or more.  And while yes it isn't all that helpful to look at pre-1960s statistics, we certainly have them.

And we definitely have statistics of marriages lasting 10 years.  Most of them do.

I'll have to have a check on StatCan, then. I accept that I can be wrong.

But perhaps religious marriages tend to last longer than civic unions, common-law marriage, and plain girlfriend-boyfriend relationships, because of the costs entailed for breaking it off, or because of ulterior motivations? After all, most couples don't tend to want to divorce after 3 months...

[Barrister]

But perhaps religious marriages tend to last longer than civic unions, common-law marriage, and plain girlfriend-boyfriend relationships, because of the costs entailed for breaking it off, or because of ulterior motivations? After all, most couples don't tend to want to divorce after 3 months...

I don't know of any stats that distinguish between religious and civil marriages.

But yes, married couples have a much better rate of 'staying together' than do people who are merely cohabitating.

[The Minsky Moment]

. Our scientific knowledge of human reproduction behaviors has long killed the myth that humans were as much monogamic as gorillas. 

"our" reptilian male instinct is to have sex with as many women as possible

Suggestion - your argument would be stronger if you didn't try to wrap it up in unconvinving pseudo-scientific appeals to "nature".  Eg. the "myth" that men don't act as "monogamic as gorillas" because of their "repitilian instincts"

[Drakken]

. Our scientific knowledge of human reproduction behaviors has long killed the myth that humans were as much monogamic as gorillas. 

"our" reptilian male instinct is to have sex with as many women as possible

Suggestion - your argument would be stronger if you didn't try to wrap it up in unconvinving pseudo-scientific appeals to "nature".  Eg. the "myth" that men don't act as "monogamic as gorillas" because of their "repitilian instincts"

That ad hominem was rather uncalled for. Yeah, it is an argument from nature, because human reproductive behavior is part of nature AND we have instincts as much as other animals, especially hominids (which we are a part of). And I mind my audience. I am not in front of the Royal Society of Sciences, but arguing with people who are as likely as I am to use silliness and hyperbole to present their points in good heart and fun. We won't change sociobiology today by this discussion.

I don't claim monogamy or polygamy is better or worse or put it in normative manner because it is natural and other behaviors are artificial, which is why an "appeal to nature" really is. Both forms are present in nature in many species and subspecies, and both sides may - and do - argue where we humans lay on the spectrum. I may lay in the "poly" side of the spectrum, but both Valmy and BB can argue from the "mono" side with equally good arguments.

If you disagree about the claim, or the way I have presented the claim, your argument would be stronger if you countered it factually and argued where I am wrong, in other words keep it on the claim (which is that humans, despite socialization and normative issues, are instictively wired to go for more than one partner, either in serial or in parallel, and that our current definition of monogamy and faithfulness isn't adapted to that reality) instead ot attacking the form, whatever the way you may qualify it.