The Numbing down of Monogamy
27 August 2015
Monogamy is perhaps the worst deterrent to Love in its absolute form – save for a few exceptions.
Provocatively placed at the onset of these written thoughts, I have no doubt that such a statement would cause the worst of uproars among those stilted minds reading it with a disapproving, foreboding stance. Yet how to elude the inescapable essence of that reality? For those still doubting, let me provoke you a little more and jolt you into doubt that you may find your own reality within these meanders.
We are born single, free to unite or remain (perhaps return) separate as we go through life tumbling, evolving, devolving, searching, finding, losing and finding again. Some of us are born with an imbedded link of a twin person who might have occupied our egg or a neighbouring one and some of us are even born so bonded that it is necessary to surgically remove that bond at birth like in the case of Siamese twins. For those born with that sense of togetherness, they usually naturally evolve towards the sense of needing another person to feel complete while for those born separate, the sense of togetherness is brought upon them by upbringing starting first with the family and then with the larger society around them.
Our sense of togetherness is often shaped in little practical formats that society finds convenient: the Mother (respectively Father) and the Child, the Teacher and the Student, the Lover and the Beloved, the Husband and the Wife, etc. Whilst most of the pairs thus formed and inculcated to us as a binding reality could actually come to us as a natural occurrence, the one that is the least natural is that of the Husband and the Wife (sometimes the Lover and the Beloved). Yet it is that pair that is the most lauded and sung in all alphabets and measures of voice and absence of voice through music or written word. It would seem that society wants us to believe that this is the ultimate pair that would indicate to us our purpose in adulthood and the ultimate emanation of Love as we should experience it throughout our adult life. How then to explain the number of people who bond and break, unite and separate, get together and then break up?
My personal take on the matter of togetherness is that we are – with rare exceptions – not meant to be monogamous beings because monogamy is not a heartfelt inclination but merely a social diktat, something that is necessary to hold in place the required family unit that builds the texture of society as a whole. Society needs definitions, it needs a sense of property and propriety and therefore requires the drawing of lines both visible and invisible that will allow it to thrive within a set of finite restrictions.
In reality, we are meant to experience Life and Love as a major component of that Life in an unrestricted and holistic manner in order to reach a degree of completeness whereby we are finally prepared to be One with all that is around us. While most of the time this can be done on a purely theoretical (sometimes energetic) level, depending on our stage of evolution it may also include the physical or carnal level. Unfortunately, monogamy in its generic form does not allow for the pursuit of this completeness and therefore of the realisation of the various forms of Love because it binds a person to a chosen other person who more often than not may not correspond to the stage of evolution the other person is in. Often, even when chosen by oneself (the case of choice by parents and extended family being a fairly more poignant one), a partner may not evolve in the same way or never have been at the same level of evolution in the first place. In such cases, one finds oneself bound by social rules to a person one cannot relate with on a spiritual (or sometimes even a physical) level while many opportunities may present themselves to relate to another person who happens to be at the same stage of evolution and would have a very rich palette of possibilities to offer.
We yearn for certain elements of life or characteristics that we find in ourselves and that we would like to see mirrored or that we lack and that we would like to view, observe and acquire from the other. It is seldom the case that we feel fully complete from the beginning and therefore this research of completing qualities is something that haunts and pulls us through life on a continuous basis. Every time we reach a sense of completeness with a given person, something else may come up and we may realise that this new quality, this new element that reaches into us is something we cannot do without, that we yearn for beyond what we thought we had felt as full satisfaction initially with the first person we had bonded with.
When a person who is in a monogamous couple is faced with such a situation, there are two possibilities that present themselves to him/her: cheat (whether physically or merely emotionally) on the person they are with because this new element is something they cannot do without and their partner will never acquire it although the current partner may have other essential elements the person still needs or leave the other partner to form a couple with the newly found partner because the new element (or series of elements) can fully replace the old series of elements or is more of a vital nature to the person’s being at that stage of his/her Life. Of course there are the less widespread cases of the third choice where the partner is willing to allow the installation of a new kind of union where a loose Trinity is formed although the matter becomes more complicated where it is more than a Trinity.
Monogamy does not allow us to freely relate to others because it comes invariably with the sense of property that has been engrained into us by society. Lovers and spouses usually feel compelled to begin or continue their declaration of Love through various assurances or statements that could almost read as veiled (or sometimes even clear) threats. This could range from the simple “I love you and only you”, “you are my only sunshine”, “nobody else than you is in my heart” to the more oppressive “You are mine”, “I will never let you go”, “I will kill anyone who lays a finger upon you” and “I will kill myself if you leave me”. This sense of property then makes it impossible to feel free in relating to others and therefore ends up numbing one to the potentiality of growth offered by a free interaction with others. Like in the example of the eye within the tomb watching Cain, monogamy with its sense of property and propriety halts the free expression of the heart and body only filtering through those relationships to others that do not breach the restrictive tight walls of ownership that is woven by the bond of monogamy.
Does this mean that I believe that one should live in a frenzy of multiple partners changing and exchanging them as one evolves? Not really. I firmly believe that it is necessary to be able to relate with others on various levels and that sometimes this could include a romantic involvement. There is, however, not so much a moral code but rather a sense of not wanting to cause damage to another soul and therefore the obligation of retaining as sacred the other’s codes of conduct and values. If one wants to be in a socially sanctioned relationship, one should respect that relationship and abide by the rules that it is set in. If the other party to the relationship has a wider perspective on belonging and interaction with others, then it would be possible with proper consent obtained beforehand for each to experience a different sense of togetherness with others whether purely on a spiritual/intellectual level or also on a more physical/carnal level. Such experiences are however very delicate to go through because we are conditioned to believe in the necessity of monogamy and a unique couple as being the pillar to a sane and acceptable relationship.
As to the exceptions, they involve the situations of those who are lucky enough to find at an early stage the person who gives them a sense of completeness right from the start. A person who might not necessarily mirror all their qualities/defects or have the whole set of additional qualities that the person may seek to acquire but who has almost all the required qualities/elements and is at the same stage of evolution and continues to be so as time goes by. Needless to say such relationships are very rare and even rarer when a person is at a young stage of his/her life. Such relationships when they exist are a blessing and funnily enough in most of them it would seem that one does not feel inclined to abide by the rules of monogamy although they often do not require physical/carnal interaction with others. It is almost as if when you are with the right person, it is not necessary to set down any rules on transgression of the boundaries because there is no longer a reason for transgression simply because there are no boundaries and the evolution maintains its path towards infinity.
We live, we love, we experience and we grow. As we grow, so does our bond to everything around us grow and the less we are concentrated on the necessity of monogamy the more we realise that our capacity to love and share love is infinitely expanding within and without us pervading more than our little selves and the humanity around us. Unfortunately, it would seem that until the point in time that we are able to fully transcend the Earthly notions of Love that have been pressed upon us, we will always be subject to the tug-o-war between the dutiful sense of Monogamy and the versatile sense of Polyamory in our quest for completeness.
Images respectively courtesy of chicagoreader.com and themattwalshblog.com
Below a series of thought provoking videos on the social side of the issue of polyamory (whether polygamy or polyandry)