Ruth Institute Blog

How can People with Different Approaches to Family Life Live Together in Free Societies?

by Pat Fagan, Ph.D., Senior Fellow and Director of the Center for Research on Marriage and Religion at the Family Research Council and Ruth Institute Advisory Board Member

SUMMARY The “monogamous” and the “polyamorous” cultures have totally different approaches to life, with religious worship and monogamous marriage being the defining differences in their different approaches to the sexual act. Coexistence necessitates that the differences be observed by giving parents of both cultures control over the programs that cause conflict: education, adolescent health and sex education. Monogamous men need to act to obtain this for the sake of their own children.

The following speech was given by Pat Fagan to the World Congress of Families in Amsterdam on August 12, 2009. The World Congress of Families is the world’s largest conference of pro-family leaders and grassroots activists.

The culture of the traditional family is now in intense competition with a very different culture. The defining difference between the two is the sexual ideal embraced. The traditional family of Western civilization is based on lifelong monogamy. The competing culture is polyamorous, normally a serial polygamy both before and after the first marriage, but also increasingly polymorphous in its different sexual expressions.

I hope there is an elegance in the simple distinction between the ideals that distinguish the two cultures: monogamy and polymorphous serial polygamy, or “polyamory” for short.

In between these two cultures lies the welfare state and its operational bureaucracy. The question is how this state bureaucracy can serve these two very different cultures.

The complexities of modern life, driven mainly by constant new technologies, give rise to many dangers to individual and common good that were not present in earlier history.

New, complex chemicals can be very dangerous, and bureaucracies ensure they are used safely for the common good. So too with cars, highways, aircraft, airports, atomic energy, pharmaceuticals, food distribution, and waste disposal These physical domain bureaucracies help protect the common good and individual safety by regulating how we harness the physical world today.

But the work and nature of bureaucracies change when in the realm of protecting human beings from their own shortcomings.

These behavioral (social) bureaucracies deal with eliminating poverty reducing crime and addictions, and also with the downsides of sexuality gone wrong (unwanted pregnancies, infectious diseases).

By and large, the culture of polyamory today embraces the behavioral bureaucracy, while the culture of monogamy has increasing disagreements with it. This is understandable and unavoidable when the differences between the two cultures are examined.

The culture of monogamy and the culture of polyamory differ in profound assumptions on the way society functions. Some of the differences are:

First and foremost religion has a very different place in both cultures. The culture of monogamy is infused from top to bottom with the sacred, in personal, family, community and national life. Worship of God is frequent and assumed. The culture of polyamory tends much more to hide religion, even to suppress it in all things public. It worships God less and demands religion be private.

The culture of monogamy views freedom as the freedom to be good while for the culture of polyamory freedom views freedom as having no constraints imposed on you.

Thus in the culture of monogamy insight and intellect are paramount for knowing the good that has to be pursued, while in the culture of polyamory what is paramount is the will to do what one likes.

In metaphysics the culture of monogamy tends towards a belief in objective truth—that reality exists and can be known, while the culture of polyamory tends towards a relativist and an ideological understanding of truth—that reality results from an imposition of the will.

In morals the culture of monogamy tends towards universal moral norms while the culture of polyamory embraces moral relativism.

The language of virtue sits well with the culture of monogamy but uncomfortably with the culture of polyamory.

The laws of the culture of monogamy protect by forbidding—outlawing—certain actions. The culture of polyamory protects by prescribing programs and ensuring outcomes.

Read the rest of this speech here. Then come back to comment!