One of the podcasts I like to follow is On Being w/ Krista Tippett.
She interviews people of all faiths and types about a range of topics
generally related to the spirit and religion.
One of the recent episodes was an interview with Helen Fisher on “Sex,
Love and Attachment.” Fisher is an
academic who studies love and marriage from a variety of perspectives
(neurology, sociology, psychology) and she works as a science advisor for
Match.com or one of those dating sites.
She didn’t talk about polyamory per-say, but what she said had some
interesting suggestions.
There were two points in particular that I found very interesting. One was about how, while the divorce rate is
going up (and everybody talks about that) it is mostly b/c life expectancy is
getting longer. The average time a
marriage lasts hasn’t changed much. But
the life expectancy especially of women (due to the past dangers of childbirth
combined w/ the lack of birth control) used to be shorter than now. However, the lifespan of the average marriage
has apparently always been about 12 to 15 years. Lifetime monogamy is actually relatively new
as a social norm and also makes us unique (we could say ‘abnormal’) among
primates.
Now, from the perspective of evolutionary psychology, this
makes sense. From the standpoint of
biology, the purpose of pair-bonding w/ a mate is to raise kids, and humans
take longer for our offspring to mature than any other mammal: around 12 to 15
years (before, biologically speaking, they are ready to mate and have their own
offspring). So, from the standpoint of
evolutionary psychology, it actually makes perfect sense that the average
pair-bond (i.e. marriage) lasts about 12 to 15 years. Once the kids are raised, our brains stop
producing as much oxytocin as they used to (that’s the hormone that makes us
feel attachment to someone).
Now, the conclusion of this should not be that marriages should only last 15 or so years and then
end. I plan on making mine last until
death do us part. However, it does imply
that when a marriage does end in divorce around year 14 or 15, we shouldn’t
necessarily judge it as a “failed marriage.”
That’s actually normal. That’s
statistically average, and it makes sense as far as our biology goes. Divorce is painful enough, so let’s at least
take away the stigma of “failure.”
It also means that after 12 to 15 years when we start to
feel that “spark” decline, we shouldn’t quickly say, “Oh, well, I guess we’re
not in love anymore; time to split-up.”
That spark is likely to decline over time; we’re kind of designed that
way. That doesn’t mean we have to end an
otherwise good relationship or go into a “what’s wrong w/ us” panic. You start out in phase 1 by marrying the
person you love, but you continue through phase 2 by loving the person you’ve
married… if you see what I mean.
Okay, so the second thing that came up in this interview
that I thought was so interesting was Fisher’s idea of “associations.”
We all have programmed into us this idea that the nuclear
family is the norm. That’s totally
wrong. The nuclear family (with 2
parents and 2.5 kids living together in a home) is actually an abortion. It’s a fluke.
It comes about w/ the post-war economic boom when everyone could buy a
house and a car and move to the suburbs and commute to work… We all think this is a normal way to live
only b/c we’re so culturally indoctrinated w/ it. The post war boom happened at the same time
TV appeared. So we have decades of Leave it to Beaver, The Brady Bunch, All in
the Family, and Home Improvement showing
us the nuclear family model.
Go back before WWII and most Americans lived the same way
most people around the world did (and still do): in extended families. The nuclear family looks like Leave it to Beaver; the extended family looks
like The Waltons. You have parents, kids, grandparents, aunts,
uncles, and cousins living together or in very close proximity (the same
street, the same tenement, or on the same ranch...).
The nuclear family is kind of an abnormal blip… and it turns
out to be inferior to the extended family model: economically, environmentally,
and in terms of social-psychology. It
all-around makes more sense to live as an extended family.
Here, Fisher comes in with this cool idea that we are now
starting to readjust and move out of the nuclear family model, and move back
towards something like an extended family – but with a new twist. Because our society is so much more mobile
nowadays (I think the average American moves like every 6 or 8 years or
something) we are no longer bound to form an extended family of our literal,
biological relations who all live in the same village or neighborhood with
us. The increased mobility has meant
that we are ever more seeking out places to live with people and cultures that
suit us. (This is one reason why, even
politically, the blue and red regions on the map are becoming increasingly
distinct and divided, because people tend to move to cities and states that
share their cultural and political values, so the blue grows deeper blue and
the red grows deeper red.)
Fisher speculated that this is leading us towards a new
model in which we live in what she calls “associations” – or what I would call
“chosen family.” It’s more like the
extended family model, only now we are choosing the “family” we are settling in
with and tying ourselves to. Association,
chosen family, Leather family, poly household, pack, etc. We are forming these new extended “families”
based on shared values, and then living together or in close proximity, vacationing
together, raising kids together, offering emotional support, sharing meals, and
so on.
Finally, to me, both of these ideas – that the average
pair-bound is only designed to last around 14 years and that we are meant to be
living in an extended “family” network – seem to shine an interesting light on
polyamory. One of the advantages of the
poly household is that different partners can fulfill different needs at
different times. There’s (in that
respect) less stress on the pair-bond b/c you aren’t relying on one individual
to meet all your needs (which is great when that works… but at least 50% of the
time it doesn’t). Then you have the
added financial and socio-psychological advantages of having an extended family
– and potentially even ecological advantages as well because it’s more green to
consolidate households rather than sprawling all over the ever-growing
suburbs. I really think, long term,
Americans have to get the fuck over this nuclear family notion of every pair
unit owning their own home; it’s just very inefficient and wasteful.
Next month at CAPEX we’re holding a poly panel discussion
which I’m in on. We’ll be talking about
why and how people do poly. What are the
advantages and disadvantages? How can
you avoid or deal with jealousy and envy?
What’s the difference between polyamory, swinging, and open-relationships? What makes an “ethical slut?” How do you manage time, space and possessions? How do you deal with children, family and “coming
out?”
