Polyamory is a lifestyle for some people, and it can be an alternative choice when people fail to engage in the ideal of monogamy. As Emma Goldman (1910) indicates love in polyamory as follow:
Love, the strongest and deepest element in all life, the harbinger of hope, of joy, of ecstasy; love, the defier of all laws, of all conventions; love, the freest, the most powerful moulder of human destiny; how can such an all-compelling force be synonymous with that poor little State and Church-begotten weed, marriage? (p. 242)
Goldman as a feminist believes that the traditional marriage may interfere freedom of love among women. Unlike Goldman’s rejection of monogamous marriage, Elizabeth Emens (2004) encourages people to accept and support polygamous…show more content… According to Ryan and Jethá (2010) intimate group shared all resources and needs, such as food, shelter, child care, and sexual pleasure in hunter-gatherer societies. Then when they transformed into agricultural societies, the idea of sex shifted from “sharing and complementarity” to “reproduction” (Ryan & Jethá, 2010, p. 6-15). Therefore, sexual monogamy does not exit among human nature. Anthropologists explain that the males, whose nature were polygamous mating based on the diverse testicular ratios (Ryan & Jethá, 2010), adapted male-female monogamy through eliminating the exploitation between the sexes to benefit their offspring (Emens, 2004). In other words, monogamy is a system of adaptation in human history. For that reason, same-sex couples can also pair up as long as they create advantageous conditions for their offspring in modern…show more content… Emens (2004) points out adultery among American celebrities reinforces peoples’ desire for non-monogamous relationships in spite of the fact that only 50 percent of Americans admit their unfaithful sexual behaviors. However, because media dramatically portrays celebrities’ stories to entertain the public, it also enhances peoples’ obligations of resisting non-monogamous desire (Emens, 2004). With this in mind, people who engaging polyamorous relationships have to face greater pressure of disapproval under the influence of public expectations. When monogamy becomes the mainstream culture, Ryan and Jethá (2010) conclude that most relationship counselors and therapists are terrified of encouraging heterosexual couple try non-monogamy or consensual non-monogamy as an alternative approach to what really works for them. It is sad to know that relationships professionals rarely challenge the conventional
