About monogamy vs open relationships

 

If link is not working, listen to Ella Eyre, we don't have to take our clothes off

I was browsing Reddit the other day when I stumbled on a post where a young, recently married man was asking opinions from women regarding a possible open relationship with his wife. He was interested in the subject, she was interested, he wanted to know more from people who had done it. 

    Most people replied that it's a great way to lose his wife, and she would probably find someone better. He argued that with proper communication, he would maintain his relationship. A few hours later, after reading that, it hit me:

    In my opinion, modern western morals derived from Christian tradition impose monogamy as a way to insure the family stays together in order to raise children. In short, you are free to meet new people, asses how funny, romantic, rich, caring etc they are, but Adultery is still forbidden, so you won't know how sexually compatible you are with this new person. Following the adage " a bird in the hand is better than two in the bush", most people will remain content with what they have at home. 

     This reminded me of the post https://adultrelationshipmanual.blogspot.com/2024/05/about-jealousy.html on jealousy, where it had struck me as odd and controlling for a man to control his and his wife's interactions with opposite sex people. He called it "emotional hygiene" . In the end, he was only extending the above reasoning to impede himself or his spouse from discovering how funny, romantic, friendly somebody is (or in my case, to remember those facts about me). 

     Is that behaviour a bit paranoid? It's not as bad as wearing a burkha to prevent the others from seeing how beautiful the woman is or imposing beards on men for the same reason. It will also interfere with the person's ability to have a meaningful relationship with someone other than the partner.  That's probably not as bad in their minds as the partner is meant to provide all emotional and intellectual support one needs, but nobody's perfect. But it's proof that sound reasoning a a good intentaion may lead to bad results if 

P.S. I haven't seen any meaningful statistics, but I doubt most people involved in polygamy (whatever flavour or description they use for it, "open relationship" , "polyamory" etc) will find happiness in the long term that way. If you know of any feel free to drop a link the comments.