Polyamory in the 21st Century: Love and Intimacy With Multiple Partners (14 page)

Riane Eisler has written extensively about the paradigm shift in attitudes toward love, sex, and the family, which she characterizes as a shift from domination of the feminine by the masculine to partnership and equality between men and women.5 In the old dominator paradigm, pain and fear of punishment are the primary motivators, she says. In the new paradigm of partnership, pleasure is a core value. Those actions that contribute to shared pleasure are considered right and good. Violence and coercion are not condoned for any reason and are especially anathema when used to subjugate others.

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In my 2005 book
The Seven Natural Laws of Love
,6 I discuss the nature of love in the new paradigm at length. The brief summary of the differences between the old and new paradigms for love mentioned previously merely highlights the major differences in values and beliefs. Now let’s see what some contemporary religious leaders have to say about the ethics of polyamory.

In chapter 2, we discussed the important role that progressive Christian clergy have played in challenging the monogamous standard since the nineteenth century. Twenty-first century Episcopalian theologian Carter Heyward7 takes a more neutral stance by emphasizing the familiar old-paradigm value of fidelity or faithfulness while giving it a new-paradigm twist. Her interpretation of faith involves “trusting that each of us is being honest with the other; that each knows and cares about the other on the basis of who [they] really are, rather than on the basis of who we might wish [them] to be; and that each desires the other’s well-being.” In other words, she is emphasizing unconditional love and honesty rather than form as the foundation for the ethics of intimacy.

Dr. Heyward asserts that fidelity does not require monogamy, but it does require that we be honest with each other and honor each other’s feelings. In her view, any sexual option, including monogamy, can be chosen in alienation or in fidelity. Heyward warns that monogamy can easily be used to shield spouses from their real feelings, fears, and yearnings and so prevent growth in a relationship. An “unexamined, static commitment to monogamy” can just as easily be used to destroy fidelity as to preserve it, insists Heyward.

In Dr. Heyward’s contemporary Christian viewpoint, both polyamory and monogamy are morally neutral. Morality is a matter of how we conduct ourselves within our chosen lifestyle rather than adhering to any particular form. She believes that while historically monogamy benefited women and children by providing some measure of economic security by obligating men to provide for their families and also served to protect women from unwanted sexual advances from other men, it is no longer necessary. Today’s women have achieved sufficient equality to provide for themselves.

Both monogamy and polyamory are moral options if chosen with the intent
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of building and sustaining trust in a relationship where extraordinary love is present, according to Heyward.

At the height of the sexual revolution, Dr. Robert Francoeur, a married Catholic priest, proposed the concept of “flexible monogamy,” in which sexual relationships with partners other than one’s spouse could be permitted within the context of a lifelong marriage. A similar concept was proposed by Christian laymen Rustum and Della Roy in their 1968 book
Honest Sex
8 and later popularized by George and Nena O’Neill as
Open
Marriage
.9

Dr. Francoeur’s position is that a long-lasting marriage that allows for outside sexual partners is more stable and better suited to the pressures of modern life than a series of short-lived monogamous marriages. Thus far, what little data we have suggest that there’s no difference in longevity between open marriage and closed marriage, but I strongly intuit that overall monogamy is not a significant variable in predicting longevity. Nevertheless, Dr. Francoeur is clearly placing a higher moral value on stability and longevity than on sexual exclusivity. In other words, he is suggesting that the moral litmus test for relationship ethics be “does it preserve the relationship or destroy the relationship?” This is an interesting blending of paradigms that marries the old-paradigm value of longevity to the new-paradigm acceptance of allowing greater flexibility of form while continuing to give greater weight to longevity.

Rabbi Arthur Waskow, a respected leader in the movement for Jewish Renewal, points out that while the asserted norm for most modern Jews is sexual monogamy, the norm is often disobeyed in practice because it’s untenable for many couples. His recommendation is that couples make their own decisions about whether to be monogamous and that sexual relations outside of marriage be considered adultery only if one of the partners betrays a commitment to monogamy.10

Dr. Waskow also suggests that in some circumstances, the decision to engage in extramarital sex may be the most caring and loving course of action. He gives the example of a man whose wife had been institutionalized for a number of years with an incurable and debilitating illness. The man was very devoted in his emotional and financial support of his wife,
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but he was also lonely. Years passed, and he became involved with another woman. He didn’t want to divorce his wife, but he wanted to include his new partner into his life as completely as possible. Rabbi Waskow’s view is that the man was operating in full integrity and should be supported by his religious community. He believes that “the new sexual ethics emerge not from a commander outside and above us, but from the need to make worthy, honest, decent, and stable loving connections among ourselves.”

Dr. Waskow reminds us that up until 1,000 years ago, Western Jews could legitimately have more than one wife, and the same was true for Eastern Jews up to the late twentieth century. This practice was abandoned partly for the protection of women and partly because of the judgments of Christians who found polyamory to be one more excuse for anti-Semitism.

Perhaps it would be preferable, he asserts, to end the prohibition against nonmonogamy and allow both men and women to take more than one mate. The question, he concludes, is one of whether de facto adultery is less dangerous than de jure polyamory.

Rabbi Gershon Winkler, author of
Sacred Secrets: The Sanctity of Sex
in Jewish Law and Lore
,11 also cites the old Jewish practice of
pilagshut
,

which literally means “half marriage.” Similar to the pagan custom of
handfasting
or today’s
domestic partners
, this was a legitimate alternative to marriage for thousands of years that allowed men and women to declare themselves partners, live together, and have children if they wished with no social stigma. Neither government nor religious institutions were involved, and the
pilagshut
could also be dissolved at will. Because it was not technically marriage, women as well as men could have more than one
pilagshut
without committing adultery as long as they refrained from institutionalized marriage.

Ancient commentaries on
pilagshut
address its wholesome and beneficial use while condemning circumstances in which it might be detrimental to those involved. Winkler cites many rabbinical sources and sacred texts blessing nonmarital sex and concludes that while some rabbis condemned the practice, they are in the minority. Traditional Jewish law regarding sex is not what most people today assume it to be, he concluded.

Hinduism, like Judeo-Christian theology, finds itself facing the paradox of advocating monogamy as an ethical standard while immensely popular
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mythologies, such as the
Mahabharata
, feature wives with multiple husbands. Lord Krishna, one of the most beloved of all Hindu figures, is said to have had 16,008 wives. In ancient India, multiple wives were permitted depending on one’s caste and ability to support them, and it was not until 1955 that the Hindu Marriage Act made polygamy illegal.12 Prior to this, Hindu law sanctioned polygamy if it served to strengthen the family but not for purely hedonist purposes.

Hindu spiritual teachers tend to look on the family as the major source of attachment and karmic entanglements and so favor celibacy or monogamy or, in the case of Osho, also recognize the merit of being single and polyamorous as an option13 for dedicated spiritual seekers. Some might challenge categorizing Osho as a Hindu teacher despite his Hindu upbringing, but the elaborate sculptures of multipartner sexual activity adorning the walls at the ancient Tantric temples at Khajuraho and elsewhere suggest that Hinduism has a long history of recognizing the spiritual significance of eroticism, both metaphorically and otherwise.14

While traveling in India, I visited the abandoned palace of the sixteenth-century Muslim emperor Akbar at Fatehpur Sikri in Uttar Pradesh. Within the palace grounds is the tomb of the Sufi saint Salim Chisti of the Chisti Order, which is known for its emphasis on love, tolerance, and openness.

Chisti was the revered teacher and close adviser of Emperor Akbar. I learned that Akbar had three wives, one Muslim, one Hindu, and one Christian, and that each had her own wing in the palace artistically designed in the style of her own faith. I loved the creative use of polygamy to make this typically Chisti ecumenical statement.

The nineteenth-century mystic Baha’u’llah, founder of the Baha’i faith, was a product of the Muslim culture, which continues to permit men to have more than one wife. As a staunch advocate of the rights of women and the importance of the family, Baha’u’llah had concerns about the ethics of multiple marriages. His position was that in an ethical and moral marriage, each spouse must be treated exactly equally. He condemned polygamous marriage on the grounds that this condition was rarely met. In so doing, he became perhaps the first Islamic spokesper-son to articulate modern polyamorous ethics. More mainstream Muslims defend the practice of polyamory by pointing out that the second wife and her children have greater protection under the law than the unmarried mistress of a married man.15

Buddhist doctrine, or dharma, focuses on the effects of our sexual acts rather than the acts themselves. The dharma teaches that those acts
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that cause pain and harm to others or disturbance in ourselves should be avoided. According the ancient
Six Paramitas of the Bodhisattva
, a moral person having sex with another must consider his or her own happiness, that of his or her companion, and that of the third person who will be most affected by the situation. If these three people are not harmed, then polyamory is not adultery and meets Buddhist ethical standards.16 Classical Buddhist teachings show no general preference for one form of relationship over another, except in the case of monks, who are required to avoid attachments. Instead, Buddhism considers what is most appropriate for particular people in particular places at particular times.

Contemporary Buddhist teachers in the West from a variety of schools, including high-profile individuals such as the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh, tend to promote monogamy as a Buddhist ethical standard despite the absence of dharmic support and despite the acceptance of nonmonogamy in many predominantly Buddhist countries. Perhaps, like the Jews in Western Europe during medieval times, they are trying to adapt Buddhism to fit Christian society and make it more palatable to westerners.

East–West psychology professor Jorge Ferrer suggests that the celibacy vows taken by Buddhist monks limit their direct experience of these matters and encourages Buddhists to go straight to the source, pointing out that the Buddha himself advocated polyamory over monogamy in certain situations. He relates a story told in the
Jataka
200
of a Brahmin who asks the Buddha for advice on choosing husbands for his four daughters. The Brahmin says, “One was fine and handsome, one was old and well advanced in years, the third a man of family [noble birth], and the fourth was good.” “Even though there be beauty and the like qualities,” the Buddha answered, “a man is to be despised if he fails in virtue.

Therefore the former is not the measure of a man; those that I like are the virtuous.” After hearing this, the Brahmin gave
all
his daughters to the virtuous suitor.17

Ferrer concludes that from the Buddhist perspective of skillful means (
upaya
), the key factor in evaluating the appropriateness of any intimate connection may not be its form but rather its power to eradicate the suffering of self and others. He also favors the nondogmatic and pragmatic approach of historical Buddhism, which, like historical Hinduism, was not attached to any specific relationship structure but was essentially guided by a radical emphasis on liberation. These ethical criteria are found in many
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contemporary teachings as well from humanistic psychology to
The Work
of Byron Katie.

Byron Katie stands out among contemporary spiritual teachers in many ways. An ordinary California housewife who spontaneously awakened in the midst of a personal crisis, she is not beholden to any traditional lineage, and her teachings are completely content and culture free, similarly to the Advaita of the venerated Indian sage Ramana Maharshi.

Arguing with reality is a lost cause, Katie tells us. Instead, questioning our thoughts while taking actions that support ourselves and those we care for is her prescription for a happy and ethical life.18 She is one of the few spiritual leaders who is willing to openly discuss her own reasons for choosing monogamy while refraining from advocating one form of relationship over another.19

Dr. Carl Rogers is one of the most respected and influential of all the gifted therapists to emerge from the humanistic psychology movement. In the early 1970s, Rogers predicted that the “attitude of possessiveness” in marriage would be greatly diminished by the twenty-first century.20 Like many of his humanistic colleagues, Rogers refused to make judgments about people’s lifestyle choices and instead sought to understand and evaluate their experience according to whether it was growth producing for all involved or, in the case of couples, whether it deepened their connection and enhanced the quality of their relationship.