Ethical Non-Monogamy

"Biologists now tell us that 98 to 99 percent of the creatures that roam the planet are not monogamous. Anthropologists inform us that 86 percent of the world's cultures have sanctioned some form of polyamory. Sexual monogamy is virtually non-existent in nature and among human populations it has been rare until very recently. In view of such facts, it seems that we live in very strange times. Our peculiarity does not stem from our actual behavior, but from our staunch disbelief that non-monogamy might be natural even though a rather large majority of us are, in fact, quite polyamorous. Consider the statistics: More than half of males and a third of females admit to having at least one affair during their marriage. Unreported affairs would undoubtedly push this number up significantly. Random DNA fingerprinting has revealed that five to ten percent of our children have not been conceived by the man they believe to be their father. More than half of our marriages currently end in divorce. Finally, it is not merely sex, but the combination of sex and deceit ˆ lying about who we are not sleeping with ˆ which continues to spread the AIDS and other venereal diseases."

Comments

Last update: Tuesday, January 21, 2003 at 8:54:02 AM.