“Monogamish,” “throuple,” and “wedlease” are some new words you may be hearing. They reflect more complex attitudes about adult relationships. But are they healthy attitudes? Ryan Anderson:
Whatever we may think about the morality of sexually open marriages, or multi-partner marriages, or by-design-temporary marriages, the social costs will run high.
If a man doesn’t commit to a woman in a permanent and exclusive relationship, the likelihood of creating fatherless children and fragmented families increases. The more sexual partners a man has, and the shorter-lived those relationships are, the greater the chance he creates children with multiple women. His attention and resources thus divided, a long line of consequences unfold for both mother and child. […]
What these new words and redefinitions have in common is that they make marriage primarily about adult desire, primarily an intense emotional relationship between (or among) consenting adults, regardless of size or shape. And why should relationships among consenting adults be exclusive? Or permanent?
If justice demands redefining marriage to include the same-sex couple, will some argue that it demands including the throuple? Or the wedlease? Love equals love, after all.
Ideas once whispered only in obscure academic journals now secure prominent billing in mainstream outlets. But if we redefine marriage to say that men and women are interchangeable, that monogamish relationships are just as good as (better than?) monogamous relationships, that throuples are the same as couples, and that wedlease is preferable to wedlock, then we’ll witness more broken homes and broken hearts. [National Review, August 8]