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‘It’s risky business emotionally’: the social shift towards open relationships
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 03 Nov 2025
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What's more interesting to me is that every single human society has had the opportunity to allow open relationships and instead settled on some form of hardlined partnership regulation function. To put it another way, every person in every setting in every culture in every era have all come to the conclusion that it is better to have a rigid structural partnership contract of some kind than it is to even attempt to tackle the societal issues open relationships present.
It's not the first time humans have asked this type of question. Is this really a modern shift, or is this an ongoing historical fad whose waxing and waning phases have been glossed over in favor of more exciting history?
That is just literally not true. There was never any grand consensus. There was religious persecution.
Religions don’t just pop up out of a vacuum. They reflect and reinforce the predominant cultural practices of the time.
No they don't. They are a social power structure that enforces cultural practices by claiming it's the norm.
Also claim you burn eternally in hell if you don’t follow the said norm
Interesting that you think what you said is any different from what he said...
Yes. And I still maintain that it is, despite your apparent belief to the contrary. A cause is not an effect.
Relationsships with several people have been around in a lot of cultures all over the world. Harems have existed through all time periods. The main problem in the past was ensuring paternity so it was usually one man with several women. The bible has several examples of men taking multiple women, in many islamic societies taking multiple wives is ok, in Nepal one woman could have several men.
Of course relationships have mostly been formed by economic necessities, not considerations of sexual preference. A woman might have several husbands in a place where living conditions are rough and it takes a lot of manpower for one household. A man may have many wives where men often die from wars and the women need to be taken care of. If these rules are kept for hundreds or even thousands of years, can you still call them a phase?
Besides you must not forget that the western view on history has been heavily shaped by christian values. Obvious proof that people were homo-/bisexual in the past was reinterpreted, the same goes for any form of open/poly relationship. "They were roommates" has become a meme for a reason.
Explain the French then.