‘They are made for each other’, ‘They are soulmates’- pop culture around the world reinforces that everyone has one soulmate out there, who will stay for eternity. Thus, it is a happily ever after. However, this romanticized view of relationships is far from being happily ever after. Are love and monogamy the same? Or does it imply that in the absence of monogamy, there is no love?
Compulsory monogamy is the social mandate that everyone, and especially women, must be in a monogamous relationship in order to be considered a morally upstanding adult. Historically, monogamy referred to the fact or custom of being married to only one person at a particular time. Over time, its meaning evolved to refer to one sexual or romantic partner at a time. Moreover, almost every culture reinforces this rule, where the individuals are forced to turn it into a legal contract, marriage.
The established norms of society make monogamous heterosexual marriages the only acceptable choice for individuals. Even it became compulsion for same sex couples to portray monogamous nature of their relationship to win the legal rights. Therefore it is important to object to these narrow visions of romance for their heteronormativity as well as for their strict enforcement of gender roles and their frequent double-standards for male and female behavior. But we fail to acknowledge the institution of compulsory monogamy that underlies media portrayals of love and romance, or how that institution has worked hand-in-hand with patriarchy for much of history.
Evolutionary biologists have also been debating the origin of monogamy. They have argued that the need for two steady and active parents is important for one’s upbringing, thus monogamy. However, as studies show, monogamy had hardly been the norm in pre-industrial society. Rather, polygyny, one man with multiple wives, was a common and socially approved practice in most of the societies in the world. Thus, the widespread belief in monogamy must be attributed to social factors and not biological evolution. Revolutionary socialists Marx and Engels have argued monogamy became a necessity with industrialization, marked by the development of private property, accompanied by patrilineage. Family became the institution through which the men would pass down their private property to their children, thus reproducing class inequality. It was important to establish which children they have fathered.
The institution of monogamy produces an unequal power relationship between men and women. It creates conditions for women’s subordination. It enables men to benefit from the emotional and physical labor of the women in social reproduction and it assumes a role of oppression where women are bound to be financially dependent on men. It is always the women who bear the burden of looking after the family and children. Compulsory monogamy is a sexually unequally arrangement as well. The women are seen as a possession or a product while the men assumes dominant sexual agency. It is evident by how marital rape wasn’t considered a criminal activity for the longest time and still isn’t in several countries. In a multitude of times and places in the world—including the present day—sexual infidelity has been either implicitly or explicitly condoned for men, while for women punishments for infidelity have ranged from social condemnation to death. As with sexual promiscuity, a woman who engages in infidelity is shamed as a “slut.” Male infidelity is not entirely condoned in all social spaces, while “the other woman” is the one who faces condemnation for “tempting” the man.
The feminists have argued that in order for women to be truly free and empowered we need to question the norm of compulsory monogamy, however it doesn’t make monogamy a regressive choice by them per se. As gender norms evolve people can challenge the normative ideas of monogamy by developing new models that takes into account people’s romantic and sexual exclusivity. It is possible to engage in monogamous relationships and yet still be critical of the institution of compulsory monogamy. Monogamy must be seen as a choice, not something that must be forced. We need to legitimize all other non-monogamous unions and question the popular opinions on romantic and sexual love, where possession is an innate quality of the relationship.