MONOGAMY AND NORMS: Lynn Gazis-Sax

...But what I want to talk about right now is not the Netherlands, or the law either there or here, or the slippery slope. What I want to talk about is the matter of norms, and how marriage is a matter of cultural expectations, as much as a matter of law, and what the difference is between a world of monogamy-friendly cultural expectations, and a world of polyamory-friendly cultural expectations.

Here's what our world looks like now: Back when I was in college, I once helped a guy out with a problem he was having at the computer center, and he invited me out for coffee. At the coffee house, he proceeded to tell me about his marriage--a marriage which, he said, was purely for immigration purposes. I could see where this was leading, and inwardly marvelled that he expected me to go for this line, but I was young, and polite, and did nothing more overt than politely excusing myself after a little while. Later I told a friend, and he--as well he should have done--was at pains to urge me not to have anything to do with the guy with the marriage which supposedly didn't give him any reason not to play the field. Most of us look with suspicion on men who claim to have marriages that allow for a bit on the side. Most of us urge our friends to look with suspicion on such men.

Here's another possible set of norms: Some time ago, a guy wrote to kinky sex advice columnist Dan Savage (that's "kinky sex advice columnist" as in "mostly advises people about kinky sex"--I have no idea how kinky Savage himself is in his preferences). This guy was from some Middle Eastern country, and was revelling in the greater sexual opportunities of his new home in Canada. Only problem was, the woman he'd been flirting with online turned out to be married. She was inviting him to meet her in person; should he go? And Savage basically said, well, her marriage might well be an open one; it was a matter between her and her husband. Now, I love reading Dan Savage, and find him usually entertaining, and sometimes even dead right, but there's no way on earth that I want our cultural marriage norms to work like this.

Occasionally, I've run into someone from a poly friendly subculture, extolling the virtues of open relationships. And the argument will be put forth that, after all, you can always tell people that you're monogamous, if that's your thing. Um, no. I don't want to be expected to go around telling people that I'm monogamous; I want my ring and marriage license to already tell them that such was my likely intention. And even more likely my husband's expectation. Part of the value of being married is that I'm asking people to help bind me to a promise when the going gets tough, to help me make it work. Not chain me so firmly to that promise that I'd be told I’d made my bed and needed to lie in it if Joel were actually abusive. But surely bind me enough that it's not left to be purely my own personal business if I lie to him and cheat on him.

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and more/related here:

...That said, the kinds of explanations of the difference between straight and gay couples that resonate most with me aren't the ones that talk about all the complementarity that same-sex couples are missing. They're the ones that see straight couples as, in some sense, the weaker party, and the one more in need of being shored up. *Christopher has written about this on occasion, how some ways of handling relationships that work among gay men just don't work so well in heterosexual couples.

None of this means I'm willing to join Maggie Gallagher in opposing same-sex marriage; I still think that Jonathan Rauch's case for same-sex marriage wins handily over the case against. But it does say to me that the norms of marriage should be those that work for those couples who could face pregnancy at any time, and who may not sync up so naturally and easily in their approach to sex, pregnancy, investment in parenting, etc. And all the rest of us--couples who've proved to be infertile, couples where the woman is past menopause, same-sex couples--should generally fit ourselves to those norms.

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posted by Eve at 9:32 PM | link

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