Is monogamy on the way out?

Those who promote polyamory often end up making a very basic error in moral reasoning by presuming that one can extrapolate moral ideals from people’s behavior. If people cheat and are increasingly tempted to cheat, their professed attachment to the principle of monogamy must be (as Wilby puts it) “pretend.”

But the tradition of moral reasoning that comes down to us from Judeo-Christian civilization makes a very different moral presumption — namely, that due to sin, temptation, and weakness of will, human beings will often, even usually, fail to live up to the moral ideals they profess. The fact of that failure doesn’t make the ideal any less real or binding, just as the prevalence of murder does not lead us to doubt it is an act of evil. An ideal remains an ideal, even when we fall short of it.

I can’t say precisely why Americans believe so strongly in the ideal of monogamy. But they do, and the mere presence of temptations and an attitude of permissiveness in our culture shouldn’t be taken as evidence (by either the advocates or opponents of sexual liberation) that they’re on the cusp of rejecting that ideal.