I think a lot about monogamy, how much I can’t be bothered with it. Maybe it’s because I don’t like coupledom. I always think how stupid they look walking arm and arm, or posing ridiculous getting ready to marry. Oh yes, how ungenerous and lacking in love I am to think such thoughts. Or is there a more credible reasoning?

Well, relationships are often not much to do with love, I suspect. Mutual self interest more like. The marriage contract, monogamy, what people call commitment seems to be about treating the other person too much as an instrument. Its purpose, protected under an exclusive agreement, seems to me to be about the fulfilling of one’s own wishes and desires. And if the arrangement doesn’t do that then you just damn well find another one that will. To hell with sacred vows, just get shot of the person. That this is done so readily is shown by the now commonly used word “dumping” to denote ending a relationship. I find the term offensive and those who use it guilty of contempt for what should be the holy territory of human relations.

For me, a true commitment of love is for life and not something you can just dump whenever it feels appropriate. If you ever really loved anyone you never leave them in the real sense. The spiritual connection remains. This kind of sacred union is love in its purest form. If you are able to cut off, free from feeling, then you never loved the person in the first place. Exclusivity, or marriage, or proclamations of commitment have nothing to do with this. They are not the necessary measures of true love. More often than not they are the opposite: just neediness and selfishness wrapped up in high flown language. True commitment is a sacred bonding of the heart and cannot be usurped by anything this side of death. True commitment in this way is even quite compatible with non-monogamy. It does not demand exclusivity or having the other on tap in service to our every demand.

Serial monogamy is the worst. It is a pretence at commitment. It more often than not is about leaving someone for someone considered better, someone newer and shinier. Possibly that might be a valid reason for moving on. But whatever its validity it is a slap in the face to commitment. Commitment means sticking with it. Maybe some situations don’t merit being stuck with. Maybe they have run their course. Maybe there is something fundamentally flawed about them in which case it would be right to move on. But I think in most cases of serial monogamy that’s not what’s happening. It is the lure of the new, the fresh and the different. Again, whatever that may be, it is not commitment. Supposedly monogamous people are just as often hiding behind a vale of something less ethical which is the idea that the intimacies in their life are disposable to be replaced whenever by whoever. This does nothing for the cause of quality in human relations and merely adds to the pool of selfishness and the need for gratification.

Choosing polygamy or having many intimacies can be a higher position on the moral spectrum. If an arrangement is consensual and everyone’s happy then fine. It may not be exclusive but if all involved are genuinely committed then good relationships can come from that. Someone who has multiple lovers may not be up for marriage to any of them but remain committed for life to all of them in a way that transcends selfish motives. Simply replacing one low-grade partnership with another is a lesser practice. It is not in the interests of integrity. If this is monogamy it should not be encouraged. It should be ceremoniously dumped!