A recent article in the New York Times Magazine asked, “Is an Open Marriage a Happier Marriage?” and answered with a cautious “Yes.” Susan Dominus profiles several couples who pursue polyamory and suggests that, in many cases, the experiment has been a success. But as successes go, it is a sad one. These couples have combated loneliness by adding sexual partners—a sign of the decline of friendship in America. More and more, we treat intimacy as coterminous with sexuality, leaving no room for philia, or brotherly love. The opening of marriage is also a sign of the decline of childbearing. These couples have also neglected the time-honored means of expanding a family and falling in love repeatedly: having more children.
For most of the couples in Dominus’s article, the decision to open a marriage is not primarily about sexual fulfillment. Instead, they feel that life as a couple is lonely, atomized. Daniel and Elizabeth, the pseudonymous husband and wife we follow throughout the piece, each report a lack of self-fulfillment. Daniel raised the idea of an open marriage after he had “felt some vital part of himself dwindling.” Elizabeth came around to the idea after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. At that point, she said, “I really just felt like it was right, like it was important to my growth.” Neither husband nor wife was after sexual thrills, so much as purpose and a renewed sense of identity. In this respect, they seem representative of couples with open marriages.
