Free Republic

It’s a widely held belief that monogamy comes more naturally to women than it does to men. A lot of people subscribe to a narrative that says the sexes are just “wired” differently, with women having evolved to be monogamous and men to be promiscuous. There’s just one problem with this line of thinking—it’s not true, according to author Wednesday Martin’s latest book. In UNTRUE: Why Nearly Everything We Believe About Women, Lust, and Infidelity is Wrong and How the New Science Can Set Us Free , Martin offers a provocative read based on the latest research studies and interviews...

Come on, you didn’t really think there were any lines?The whole point is to eliminate marriage and the family. The shoes will go on dropping until there’s nothing left. Nothing but the Left. Because that is the whole point of the exercise.The case is W. 49th St., LLC v. O’Neill. It’s the usual mess of New York City’s absurd tenant protections with an alternative lifestyle twist.The decision is yesterday’s West 49th St., LLC v. O’Neill, decided by New York Civil Court Judge Karen May Bacdayan. Scott Anderson and Markyus O’Neill lived together in an apartment; Anderson was on the lease,...

Every argument supporting gay marriage—‘Love is love,’ ‘we deserve equal protection under the law,’ and ‘we’re not harming anybody’—also supports group marriage. The Massachusetts town of Somerville has become the first in the nation to legalize polyamorous relationships. It’s evidence of the slippery slope social conservatives warned would follow legalizing gay marriage.Polygamy was the obvious evolution of redefining marriage. After all, every argument supporting gay marriage—“Love is love,” “we deserve equal protection under the law,” and “we’re not harming anybody”—also supports group marriage.Somerville’s legal recognition of polyamory came about on June 25 while the city council was changing its domestic...

Over at the Institute for Family Studies, Nicholas Wolfinger, a sociologist at the University of Utah, has found that Americans who have only ever slept with their spouses are most likely to report being in a “very happy” marriage. Meanwhile, the lowest odds of marital happiness—about 13 percentage points lower than the one-partner women—belong to women who have had six to 10 sexual partners in their lives. For men, there’s still a dip in marital satisfaction after one partner, but it’s never as low as it gets for women,... (Skip) In an earlier analysis, Wolfinger found that women with zero...

Dear Liza, 
 I’m a 32-year-old woman who would like to have kids and a life partner in the not-so-distant future. And lucky me! I’ve recently started dating an excellent candidate. But I can’t even pretend to think it’s possible (or desirable) to have sex with just one person for the rest of my life or even, frankly, for a few years. 
 Monogamy feels antithetical to the type of feminism and anticapitalism I subscribe to. I am repulsed by the idea of being a man’s property. Also, monogamy—like capitalism—requires us to believe in a false scarcity: that we have...

Scarlett Johansson is having second thoughts on monogamy. In Playboy's March/April 2017 issue, the 32-year-old “Ghost in the Shell” star admitted that she isn’t sure people are designed to be monogamous in relationships. “I think the idea of marriage is very romantic; it’s a beautiful idea, and the practice of it can be a very beautiful thing,” said the actress. “I don’t think it’s natural to be a monogamous person. I might be skewered for that, but I think it’s work. It’s a lot of work.” …

For quite some time now I have stated that the same arguments that have been used in support of consensual gay marriage can also be used in support of consensual polygamy. With that in mind, I am also one of the few who has argued for some time now (long before Kim Davis appeared on the scene) against the dangers of religious sectarianism (i.e. pre-Cromwell RC times in Europe and also Cromwell using God's authority to close down the theaters, etcetera) and that the citing of scriptures in opposition to gay marriage can lead to or at least open the...

The dirty little secret about gay marriage: Most gay couples are not monogamous. We have come to accept lately, partly thanks to Liza Mundy’s excellent recent cover story in the Atlantic and partly because we desperately need something to make the drooping institution of heterosexual marriage seem vibrant again, that gay marriage has something to teach us, that gay couples provide a model for marriages that are more egalitarian and less burdened by the old gender roles that are weighing marriage down these days. But the thorny part of the gay marriage experiment is sex, and more precisely, monogamous sex....

Having more than one wife may cause some serious heartache. Men who are polygamous face more than quadruple the risk of having blocked heart vessels, compared with men married to one woman, new research suggests.

For the first seventy or so years of Christianity's existence, the Greco-Roman world paid it relatively little attention. There were persecutions here and there (like the one that claimed the lives of Peter and Paul). But, for the most part, it wasn’t until the second century that their pagan neighbors began to focus their attention on just how different Christians were. As Michael J. Kruger of Reformed Theological Seminary wrote at The Gospel Coalition, one major difference was that “Christians would not pay homage to the other ‘gods’ ” of the Roman world. Since paying homage to these “gods” was...

When the fight for gay marriage began to gain traction back in the early years of the last decade, social conservative critics usually went beyond denying that marriage could be redefined to include same-sex couples. Many of them argued that homosexuals were much less inclined than heterosexuals to valorize the ideal of monogamy. Allowing gays and lesbians to marry would therefore introduce a polyamorous option into the institution, and adultery would come to be viewed as an acceptable option for all marriages.A spate of recent articles explicitly making the case for polyamory would seem to vindicate those conservative predictions and...

The Vocation of MarriageAll Christians in whatever state or walk of life are called to the fullness of Christian life and to the perfection of charity.When the Catholic Church teaches that marriage is a Christian vocation it is saying that the couple’s relationship is more than simply their choice to enter a union which is a social and legal institution. In addition to these things, marriage involves a call from God and a response from two people who promise to build, with the help of divine grace, a lifelong, intimate and sacramental partnership of love and life.The Second Vatican...

Why should we stand up for normative monogamy? Well, not all forms of marriage lead to equal outcomes. For example, “normative monogamy reduces crime rates, including rape, murder, assault, robbery and fraud, as well as decreasing personal abuses” and is therefore better for adults and children, according to academics Joseph Henrich, Robert Boyd and Peter J. Richerson in The Puzzle of Monogamous Marriage Of course, my fellow Australians instinctively know that monogamy is good for children. Or at least a good majority know. Another important study, The World Family Map, found that 70 per cent of Australians believe a child...

Since antiquity, monogamy has been the general rule of Western civilizations. Yet people have always known that other mating systems are possible. The Greek gods practiced a very loose monogamy that bordered on marital chaos. Many of the early Hebrew patriarchs took multiple wives. Although monogamy was established in the legal codes of Greece and Rome and reinforced by the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages, it was well known that other cultures — mostly Islam in the Middle East — did not acknowledge it. This became uncomfortably clear as European explorers pushed out among the tribes of Africa, the...

A German scientist who found that the “cuddle hormone” oxytocin keeps men faithful by creating a drug-like effect has moved on to testing its effect on moral decision making – and women did not do well. Germans 'cut HIV out of infected cells' (18 Dec 13) A third of HIV cases 'not diagnosed' (29 Nov 13) Hormone makes men 'high on girlfriend' (25 Nov 13) Dr René Hurlemann’s initial research, which was published in November, revealed for the first time that there seemed to be a natural mechanism in people which sees intimacy triggering higher oxytocin levels. The theory comes...

... A new study comes to a startling conclusion: Among primates, including perhaps humans, monogamy evolved because it protected infants from being killed by rival males. Living in pairs, what researchers call social monogamy, has repeatedly evolved among animals, although in widely varying proportions among different groups. Thus, about 90% of bird species are socially monogamous, probably because incubating eggs and feeding hatchlings is a full-time job that requires both parents. But in mammals, females carry the babies inside their bodies and are solely responsible for providing milk to young infants—and only about 5% of species are socially monogamous.

During its first several decades, LDS Church leaders included an “Article on Marriage” in the faith’s Doctrine and Covenants. Penned by early church leader Oliver Cowdery, it stated, in part, “Inasmuch as this church of Christ has been reproached with the crime of fornication, and polygamy: we declare that we believe, that one man should have one wife; and one woman, but one husband, except in case of death, when either is at liberty to marry again.”It sounds pretty simple, albeit a bit clumsy in the wording. Some have surmised that the slight difference in the words “man should have...

New Study Shows Polygamy Leads to Higher Levels of Crime, Violence, Poverty, and Gender Inequality Interesting. Islam institutionalized polygamous marriage. Researchers have determined that polygamous marriage in a culture leads to higher levels of crime, violence, poverty, and gender inequality. Hence, Islam institutionalized a practice that led to the problems we now see in Muslim societies: rampant violence, poverty, and gender inequality. Shouldn't Allah have known better? For those unfamiliar with Islamic teachings, here's a quick review. According to the Qur'an, Muslim men are allowed to marry up to four women: Qur'an 4:3—And if you fear that you shall not...

You can’t argue with the research… Researchers have long known that people who have frequent sex are generally healthier Most health benefits seem to be linked to penile-vaginal intercourse Frequent sex may also bring longer life, fewer coronary events, lower blood pressure Researchers have long known that not only is sex fun (when done with the right person, of course), but that people who have frequent sex tend to live longer and have healthier hearts and lower rates of certain cancers. These studies also show that men with an active sex life have healthier sperm, and sexually active women have...

It's Fourth of July weekend - how about cheating on your spouse? For those not thinking about it, a piece to be published in the New York Times Magazine this Sunday marvelously titled "Married, With Infidelities" is recommending it: