At the most recent World Congress of Families in Amsterdam, family scholar Pat Fagan argued that 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.
Some of the differences between the two cultures 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, built on appetite constraint, has little need for a behavioral bureaucracy. The culture of polyamory, designed as a safety net not only for the unlucky but the unrestrained, increasingly relies on social welfare programs to rescue its adherents from the effects of its form of sexuality. Without its net the culture of polyamory would collapse of its own weight and disorder.
[. . .]
Most noteworthy for political discourse: In the culture of monogamy, men are anchored in their families and tied to their children and wives, through the free and deliberate focus of their sexuality. In the culture of polyamory, which treasures sexual freedom or license, such sexual constraint by men or women is not expected nor is any attempt to foster such acceptable, for such would be the antithesis of the main project of the culture of polyamory: polymorphous sexuality whenever desired. [emphasis in original]
Fagan notes that the polyamorous culture expands its control—with the help of governmental bureaucracy— by drawing children into sexual activity. The polyamorous culture wins a “victory” when:
•The adolescent has been initiated into the polyamorous culture (albeit without knowledge of what is at stake) by having his first sexual experience outside of marriage;
• With the out of wedlock births or abortions that follow they have broken the family before it has started, solidifying the polyamorous stature of the adolescent or young adult;
• And, especially, they have pulled the young person away from participating in the sacred because formerly religious teenagers who begin to engage regularly in sex outside of marriage tend to stop worshipping God.
Fagan’s conclusions is that only one group can save the traditional family: monogamous men.
(Via: MercatorNet.com)
September 21st, 2009 | 11:33 am
What do studies indicate is the percentage of men in America who are virgins at the time of their first marriage?
September 21st, 2009 | 12:15 pm
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September 22nd, 2009 | 4:04 pm
Aside from all the logical fallacies and bizarre ramblings in Fagan’s speech, he also invented a definition for polyamory that has nothing to do with what polyamory is.
Polyamory is being open to having more than one intimate/sexual relationship at a time, with the full knowledge and consent of all involved. It is not polygamy (multiple spouses, usually religiously motivated and patriarchal/possessive in structure) and it is definitely *not* serial.
“Polymorphous” is defined as “having, assuming, or passing through many or various forms, stages, or the like.” — which could apply to virtually any situation, not just intimate relationships.
Basically, Fagan’s speech was a naked and poorly conceived attempt to drum up fear by cobbling together a boogey-man entirely of his own invention. His vision has zero connection to the reality of polyamorous people.
- Amy Gahran
September 22nd, 2009 | 11:19 pm
Second Amy Gahran. Fagan also conveniently erases women from this discussion by stating (without any evidence or reason) that the solution is monogomous MEN.
September 23rd, 2009 | 3:15 am
Read Prof Reno again for context Amy. http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2009/09/marriage-morality-and-culture
Dr. Fagan advocates for a just redistribution of general revenue, people who don’t want to live lives out of our settled tradition can live however they like. The article is a call on those who choose monogamy culture to organise politically and socially for what is their just dividend. What you call bogey-man everyone else calls pretty obvious conclusions from social scientific data over the last 40yrs.
Polyamorous ‘culture’ was the general category under which all those kinds of practices can be subsumed Amy. Quibbling over precise definitions misses the point – history just doesn’t care about your precise definition nor about adults who are primarily interested in adult desire fulfillment. Read some Spengler.
Whatever your definition, those practices are not future oriented, don’t work in the world, and are of interest to monogamy culture only as examples of how not to behave.
Mark H – if the article was addressed primarily to men and their duties so what? Articles are written addressed to women and their duties all the time.
September 23rd, 2009 | 8:57 am
To Amy Gahran’s comment, I must comment, that it seems she missed (or ignored) the sense in which Fagan was using the term; just as the same term has many senses depending on context, so the reader who misses it (especially to make attack) shows his (or her) intelligence (or sense) of diminished stature.
September 23rd, 2009 | 9:06 am
[...] around the world are begging for Bibles. Even damaged and parts of old Bibles have use and value." How Monogamous Men Can Rescue Civilization Joe Carter, writing at First Things, quotes scholar Pat Fagan who says "culture of the traditional [...]
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