Historical Marriage vs Polyamory

Historically, getting (monogamously) married meant “getting serious.” It meant hight expectations of one’s proper behavior. The social ties of marriage create interdependent systems of obligation, mutual support, and restraint.  Marriage meant having someone to care for and having someone to take care of you—yes, being interdependent—and these responsibilities and obligations only grew stronger when children entered the family. Non-monogamy flouts such norms, exhibits little constraint, a great deal of “checking in,” and invites partner jealousy and pernicious bugs, all in the pursuit of genital pleasures and perceived “needs.” 

Mark Regnerus, Cheap Sex: The Transformation of Men, Marriage, and Monogamy, pg.184

The Downfalls Of a Poly Society

A poly society will require a more vigilant public health system, a more active security stated to protect its citizens—especially women—and a more aggressive social welfare system, since invested fathers will continue to recede. Misogyny is embedded in polyamory, too, however “ethical” it claims to be. That’s because sexual objectification—the treatment of persons as objects—is unavoidable in a non-monogamous system, especially a modern one characterized less by plural marriage than by the serial circulation of multiple, over-lapping sex partners.

Mark Regnerus, Cheap Sex: The Transformation of Men, Marriage, and Monogamy, pg.183

Monogamy Is Foundation to Family

Monogamy also means confidence in the biological link between mother, father, and child, a combination long known to reduce the threat of abuse, violence, and homicide in the household. And monogamy means greater equality—more men and women have the opportunity to meet, marry, save, and invest for the long term, instead of competing (and spending resources, etc.) for others’ available attention. This is why monogamous marriage systems preceded the emergence of democratic institutions in Europe, and the rise of notions like human rights and equality between the sexes. … Monogamy, after all, is disciplined—by definition. No other form of organizing relationships between the sexes does a better job of fostering a fair exchange between the distinctive interests of men and women. Societies that disregard monogamous norms undermine their own long-term interests.

Mark Regnerus, Cheap Sex: The Transformation of Men, Marriage, and Monogamy, pg.181

Monogamy is BEST for Society

…monogamous arrangements comprise a historical minority of the globe’s societies, but the vast majority of the more successful and flourishing ones.  Monogamous marriage…fosters savings and economic output, and reduces competition among men for women, which functions to reduce the pool of low-status, risk-oriented, unmarried men. (It reduces competition not through sex-ratio manipulation, but through normative expectations of one partner.) And that, in turn, lowers multiple types of crime, abuse, household conflict, and fosters greater paternal investment in both their work and in their children, who are more apt to enjoy their attention and exhibit notably lower stress levels than in households displaying all manner of outsiders. Speaking of outsiders, a review of data from 69 polygamous societies from around the world failed to reveal a single case where the relationships between a man’s partners or wives could be described as consistently harmonious.

Mark Regnerus, Cheap Sex: The Transformation of Men, Marriage, and Monogamy, pg.181-182

No One Needs Multiple Partners

[P]eople “need” multiple partners like they need four houses or six automobiles. These are wants, not needs. And when seemingly reasonable people argue that in previous eras people didn’t live so long, such that the death of a spouse functioned as a way for humans to fulfill their “need for sexual variety” it pays to be skeptical. (Since when did golden anniversaries become something to pity rather than something to celebrate?).  No, the new turn away from monogamy was made possible not because we figured out that we are still animals but because we figured out how to effectively prevent pregnancies or end them prematurely, freeing us up to pursue the art of sexuality—the body as a tool of consumption rather than production.

Mark Regnerus, Cheap Sex: The Transformation of Men, Marriage, and Monogamy, pg.179

Monogamy vs Polygamy

Monogamous marriage…fosters savings and economic output, and it reduces competition among men for women, thus reducing the pool of low-status, risk-oriented, unmarried men. And that, in turn, lowers multiple types of crime, abuse, and household conflict, enabling children to enjoy paternal attention and exhibit notably lower stress levels than in households displaying all manner of outsiders.

Monogamy also leads to greater equality. More men and women have the opportunity to meet, marry, save, and invest for the long term, instead of competing (and spending resources) for others’ available attention. This is why monogamous marriage systems preceded the emergence of democratic institutions and the rise of notions like human rights and equality between the sexes. … Monogamy, after all, is disciplined—by definition.

Mark Regnerus, “Polyamory: Complicated New Identity or Primarily About Sex?”

Marriage As a Social Construction

When traditional marriage is merely a social construction, no principled reason keeps the state from permitting virtually any marital union.  For example, marital arrangements that include two brothers, two sisters, a mother and a son, a father and a son, a mother and a daughter, or a grandfather and a grandson, would be consistent with the philosophical assumptions undergirding the same-sex marriage defense.

And this is not all.  Nor is a polygamous marriage of one man and numerous spouses--which also may include his mother, his grandmother, his grandfather, as well as his adult daughter and son--inconsistent with the same-sex marriage worldview.  Given sexual politics today, one can easily imagine polygamy being reintroduced by an appeal to the sad plight of the bisexual, a person who is incapable of fulfilling his or her marital aspirations with merely one spouse of one gender.  The rhetorical question could be raised: Why should he or she be forbidden from marrying the ones he or she loves?

Of course, we cannot ignore the marital rights of the person who has a deep and abiding affection for the family pet, for then the animal-rights crowd may pipe up and accuse us of speciesism, the prejudice favoring human beings over nonhuman animals.

To be blunt, the state and its institutions (including public schools) could not say that a heterosexual monogamous couple raising three young children in a traditional Christian, Jewish, or Muslim home is a better arrangement for the moral ecology of the community than the marital union of a father and four of his adult children who make their living producing pornographic films of their sexual encounters.  After all, they are all adult consenters, nobody is being coerced, and the state should not prefer one sexual lifestyle over another.

We believe these counterintuitive results occur because most proponents of same-sex marriage presuppose that marriage and family are merely matters of convention and positive law.  That is, because family and marital arrangements aren't particularly sacrosanct or normative, individual members of society may tinker with them as long as they don't interfere with other people's choices.  The state must be "neutral" and assume no overarching good or purpose to human life, relationships, and communities.  Thus those who uphold the philosophy of same-sex marriage must be willing to embrace marital and familial anarchy.


Francis J. Beckwith and Gregory Koukl, “Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air,” pg.121-122