Monogamy

[No War But Cold War]

Would monogamy stop being the norm or aspiration after the revolution and wither away or is it compatible with a post revolution society?

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

If a revolution results in abolishing existing social institutions and the archaic values they represent, then relationships will reflect new social relations. It's hard to predict what those new relations will look like, but I think it's safe to assume that space will be opened up for consensual non-monogamous relationships without the social pressures against them that people in such relationships now face.

[Quail]

If people want to be monogamous, let them be monogamous, but I wonder if people would have the same jealousy that they have today if they had been socialised differently. I think it is perfectly possible to fall in love with more than one person. Each person I love, I love differently. I don't have a certain amount of love that must be shared between people; I love people in different ways for different things. If that makes sense.

[hetz]

How can social institutions represent values, much less archaic ones?
The Manifesto clearly says that bourgeois marriage is a perversion of "old romantic values" that once existed in certain forms in given circumstances.

[Decolonize The Left]

Would monogamy stop being the norm or aspiration after the revolution and wither away or is it compatible with a post revolution society?

It would be safest to say that just as monogamy existed before capitalism, it would exist afterwards. There's no real telling what a post-revolutionary society would look like, but it would be safe to assume that monogamy would be compatible with it - only there wouldn't be the same notion of 'property' in regards to one's partner.


How can social institutions represent values, much less archaic ones?
The Manifesto clearly says that bourgeois marriage is a perversion of "old romantic values" that once existed in certain forms in given circumstances.

Social institutions are erected in order to implement the practice of social values. Think about a school: it is an institution dedicated to representing and forwarding the social values of the given society.

Marriage is an institution representing the values of an archaic system: the religious union of a man to his wife - i.e. his property under god.

[Djoko]

I'm new into communism, but I think that it's assumed that with dissapearance of classes and private property will also dissapear marriage as we know it today, wich is mostly based on private property and money. I think that marriage in communism would be based only on mutual love. Have in mind that we speak here of communism, wich is historicaly, still far away

[Poison Frog]

I think marriage is often more than an economic arrangement or a sign of ownership. I don't dispute these factors have to be taken into account, and that as a result, in a post-revolutionary society, the institution of marriage could be altered significantly.

But also, for many people, marriage provides more than just the external societal benefits it accords currently. If you take the Tories granting tax benefits for couples that marry, for example, I highly doubt there are many couples deciding to get married because they might make a few bob in tax cuts. If you look at already-married couples though, who knows, perhaps there are those who sort of teeter on the brink of divorce, and could be persuaded by that kind of incentive to stick together. (This still requires a small leap of faith, as couples that stick together for money are likely doing that for bigger sums than any Tory tax cut will offer.)

While for many people, the idea of being locked in a monogamous relationship their entire life is about as unnatural as it gets, I think they would do well to steer clear of claiming that it is unnatural for everybody else. The most natural thing would be to do what feels right, and for many, that will mean staying faithful to one partner, for various reasons. Whether marriage remains the "seal" of a monogamous relationship however, is more interesting.