The
Evolution and Revolution of Marriage
7/1/9
From the beginning of time and
even to this day, monogamy, polygamy and celibacy are the known forms of
marriage. But where do all of their
roots come from? Well, I’m going to take
you back to the very beginning—to the primal roots of mating to find out how
our primal ancestors (or should I say biological prototypes) the chimpanzees
began. I met Jane Goodall, the famous
primatologist at a Windstar Symposium some years ago. I bought two of her books, In the Shadow of Man and Through a Window and studied them to
find out how primates conduct themselves during mating. After spending thirty years with the
chimpanzees of Gombe, Jane’s findings were very interesting.
First of all, all chimpanzees are polygamists (not in
the traditional male sense of the word, but meaning both males and females have
multiple partners). This is their
instinctual behavior as part of their innate process of natural selection. Males copulate with any available female who are in estrus and females will copulate
with their “selected male” first and
then allow any other male to copulate with them after that. This keeps their colony strong as there is an
investment in the offspring for all of
the males as none of them knows for sure which offspring are theirs. (Novel thought) Also, the physiology of the clitoris, which
does not typically generate orgasm after a single copulation, ceases to be
mysterious if we put aside the idea that women’s sexuality evolved in order to
“serve” her mate, and examine instead the possibility that it evolved in order
to increase the reproductive success of primate mothers through enhanced
survival of their offspring. It’s only the weaker males of the colony who try
to abduct or lure off the weaker females in order to copulate, which causes
dissention in the ranks. And these
offspring are the most at risk of being attacked by the stronger primates as a
result.
In an essay called “Polygyny
and Polyandry,” George Bernard Shaw promulgates the theory that “our monogamous
nature was a myth invented by inferior and insecure men who were alarmed by the
fact that women did not like them.
Instinctively women sought out the strongest and ablest men’s semen to
impregnate them so they would produce the best children. If a woman had to choose between a complete
second-rate man and a fraction of a first-rate one, she would certainly prefer
the latter. Second-rate and third-rate
men created the law of monogamy so that they wouldn’t be without women.”
Polygamy was the natural order
of things and so when did this “natural order” get “screwed up?” (Sorry, I couldn’t help myself—and we’ll get
to that later.) I read a book many years
ago entitled, The Woman That Never
Evolved by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, which is “about the female primates who have
evolved over the last seventy million years.
It is dedicated to the liberated woman who never evolved but who with
imagination, intelligence, an open mind, and perseverance many of us may yet
become.” (Her own dedication) Sarah
states in her book:
Throughout much of evolutionary history,
the uncertainty of paternity has been one of several advantages females
retained in a game otherwise heavily weighted toward male muscle mass. Female primates evolved a variety of
strategies to pursue this advantage—the shift to situation-dependent
receptivity, concealed ovulation, an assertive sexuality. Such attributes improved the abilities of
females to manipulate males and to elicit from them the care and tolerance
needed to rear the infants they bore. Females
were abetted in this by selection upon males themselves to promote the survival
of infants which were likely, or even just possibly, their own. But such advantages were not granted to
females in a vacuum; once again the ball was tossed back into the other court. To keep women (and their sexuality) in check,
husbands and their relations (and perhaps especially property-owning families)
devised cultural practices which emphasized the subordination of women and
which permitted males authority over them.
Presumably, females have adapted to these new constraints, becoming
among other things, more discreet and more subdued, but the fact is that little
is known about the sexual life histories of women, and the matter of their legacy
will not be soon resolved.
Often it was the power-hungry
male who insisted on monogamy or polygyny (male-dominated polygamy in some
cases) in order to guarantee that his progeny was indeed his. And so society turned from a peaceful
matriarchal system (most indigenous societies still practice tribal polygamy)
to a violent patriarchal system (where male polygyny and monogamy exist to
protect a man’s inheritance). Women and children were transformed from human
beings into possessions and men into “War Lords.” Laws and taboos were created to keep men’s
“possessions” in check to assure their monetary security. The Tao Te Ching says, “The more the taboos,
the more miserable the people. The
inevitable result of such prohibition and restriction is violence.” It has been said that in medieval times
sexual rivalry and jealousy were a major cause of violence. Loving and sex are a life-giving force of
nature. It was the artificial
restriction produced by taboos that caused much medieval violence.
The Roman system was an empire
built on conquest with incorporation.
The secret of Rome’s strength lie in her ability to incorporate
vanquished nations into her own political body.
In the fourth century when Constantine was converted to Christianity and
became the first pope and ruler of the church, (which later he named the Roman
Catholic Church) he imposed religious edicts under penalty of Roman law to
support Rome’s sanctioned monogamy. The
Christian Jews and Gnostics, who had “knowledge of God’s truths,” refused to
toe the line and, as a result, were denounced as traitors or “heretics” and
systematically converted or exterminated.
Thus was the history of the Christian Crusades.
Christianity was propagated
from the Roman Empire into the West and from the West into the rest of the
modern world. And wherever the gospel is
preached, Roman monogamy was portrayed as “God’s only divine standard.” But because the major part of the world is
still unchristianized, there are actually many more societies of the world that
are polygamous than monogamous.
Legalized monogamy never gained worldwide attention until the last few
centuries. In fact, polygamy was still
openly practiced in the last generation in non-western countries, and is today
still practiced in modern societies, even though not so openly because of the
bad publicity from religious and feminist groups (understandably so). A worldwide ethnographic survey of 849 human
societies show 708 whose customs are polygynous (more than 1 wife), 4
polyandrous (more than 1 husband) and 137 monogamous. Other than the religious and supremacy
factors, there can be a few other reasons for this.
The most obvious reason for the
quick popularity of monogamy lies in the exclusive nature of its “romantic”
appeal. Dr. Nathaniel Branden, an
advocate and authority on the subject of romantic love, has well defined it in
his book, Taking Responsibility.
Romantic love means finding a soul
mate—someone whose values and sense of life mirror our own. We feel a drive to organize our life around
this person and no one else. If someone
says, “I love you” in a romantic context, this is what they are understood to
be saying.
Even the word “roman-tic” tells
us where monogamy is from—the Roman culture and the Roman Empire which is
Western Europe, where possessiveness is not only condoned, but glorified. That’s why it is so appealing. It readily satisfies the inner desire of a
woman to possess her man exclusively, and the inner need of a man to please and
idolize his woman completely above all other things—to be completely engrossed
in her only. A candlelight dinner never fails to portray a
very romantic moment. We say, “Oh, how
romantic!” But how awfully unromantic it
would be if another party is involved.
For monogamy to truly work, the elements of romantic exclusiveness must
be involved. I’m not saying that
candlelight dinners and privacy are offensive, (I enjoy mine immensely) but
essentially the elements of romantic love are selfish, exclusive, and
possessive.
Another hidden agenda, again by
the Catholic Church in order to protect their assets, was to force all of their
priests and nuns to become celibate.
Surprising to most of us, prior to this, it was common for Catholic
priests to have multiple wives and mistresses.
The Church forced them to take a vow of asceticism, the Pauline teaching
that to be spiritual is to be poor, thus sex and all human passions would have
to be denied for the highest fulfillment found only in a monastic
lifestyle. This distorted view of human
passions and sexuality put a terrible burden on the shoulders of all who wanted
to be spiritual. Celibacy was propagated
as the new standard of high attainment in holiness. Sex was taken to be unclean and sinful. Marriage was painted, at best, as a necessary
“fleshly evil” to guard against greater sexual sins such as fornication and
adultery, but avoided by those seeking spirituality. Thus monogamy would be tolerated as an
acceptable norm among the “less spiritual” and polygamy would be condemned as
an abomination. This prevailed in what is
known as the Dark Ages of the Church but is still practiced today.
In Neale Donald Walsch’s
ground-breaking book, Conversations with
God, we find the conversation with God concerning marriage:
Walsch: But it is the nature of things for life to
express unity, oneness. Isn’t that what
I’m getting from all of this? And
marriage is our most beautiful expression of that. You know, “What God has joined together, let
no man put asunder,” and all that.
God: Marriage, as most of you have practiced it,
is not particularly beautiful. For it
violates two of the three aspects of what is true about each human being by
nature.
Walsch: Will You go over it again? I think I’m just starting to pull this
together.
God: Okay.
Once more from the top. Who You
Are is Love. What love is, is unlimited,
eternal, and free, by nature. Now any
artificial social, moral, religious, philosophical, economic or political
construction which violates or subordinates your nature is an impingement upon
your very Self—and you will rail against it.
What do you suppose gave birth to your own country?” Was it not “Give me liberty, or give me
death?” Well, you’ve given up that
liberty in your country, and you’ve given it up in your lives. And all for the same thing. Security.
You are so afraid to live—so afraid of life itself—that you’ve given up
the very nature of your being in trade for security. The institution you call marriage is your
attempt to create security, as is the institution called government. Actually, they are both forms of the same
thing—artificial social constructions designed to govern each other’s behavior.
Walsch: Good grief, I never looked at it like
that. I always thought that marriage was
the ultimate announcement of love.
God: As you have imagined it, yes, but not as you
have constructed it. As you have
constructed it, it is the ultimate announcement of fear. If marriage allowed you to be unlimited,
eternal, and free in your lives, then it would be the ultimate announcement of
love. As things are now, you become
married in an effort to love your lover to the level of a promise or a
guarantee. Marriage is an effort to
guarantee that “what is so” now will always be so. If you didn’t need this guarantee, you would
not need marriage. And how do you use
this guarantee? First, as a means of
creating security (instead of creating security from that which is inside of you), and second, if that
security is not forever forthcoming, as a means of punishing each other, for
the marriage promise which has been broken can now form the basis of the lawsuit
which has been opened. You have thus
found marriage very useful—even if it is for all the wrong reasons. Marriage is also your attempt to guarantee
that the feelings you have for each other, you will never have for another. Or, at least, that you will never express
them with another in the same way.
Walsch: Namely, sexually.
God: Namely sexually. Finally, marriage as you have constructed it
is a way of saying: “This relationship is special. I hold this relationship above all others.”
Walsch: What’s wrong with that?
God: Nothing.
It’s not a question of “right” or “wrong.” Right and wrong do not exist. It’s a question of what serves you. Of what re-creates you in the next grandest
image of Who You Really Are. If Who You
Really Are is a being who says, “This one relationship—this single one, right
over here—is more special than any other,” then your construction of marriage
allows you to do that perfectly. Yet you
might find it interesting to notice that almost no one who is, or has been, recognized
as a spiritual master is married.
Walsh: Yeah, because masters are celibate. They don’t have sex.
God: No.
It’s because masters cannot truthfully make the statement that your
present construction of marriage seeks to make: that one person is more special
to them than another. This is not a
statement that a master makes, and it is not a statement that God makes. The fact is that your marriage vows, as you
presently construct them, have you making a very un-Godly statement. It is the height of irony that you feel this
is the holiest of holy promises, for it is a promise that God would never
make. Yet, in order to justify your
human fears, you have imagined a God who acts just like you. Therefore, you speak of God’s “promise” to
his “Chosen People,” and of covenants between God and those God loves, in a
special way. You cannot stand the
thought of a God who loves no one in a way which is more special than any
other, and so you create fictions about a God who only loves certain people for
certain reasons. And you call these
fictions Religions. I call them
blasphemies. For any thought that God
loves one more than another is false—and any ritual which asks you to make the
same statement is not a sacrament, but a sacrilege.
Walsch: Oh, my God, stop it. Stop it!
You’re killing every good thought I ever had about marriage! This can’t be God writing this. God would never say such things about
religion and marriage!
I received an e-mail from a
dear friend this past week (coincidentally?) which gave such a great
description of the difference between the “special relationship” and the “holy
relationship” and with his permission I’m going to share it with you.
The Course in Miracles outlines the
difference between the Special Relationship and the Holy Relationship. The Special Relationship is full of romance,
wanting, and expectation. The Holy
Relationship is allowing, present, inclusive, and authentic in every way.
I love you all so much! I so appreciate your allowance as I’ve milked
the shit out of the Special Relationship.
I am so grateful to you all for that.
In this world of duality, it seems I’ve required a knowing of one side
of the spectrum to fully embrace and appreciate the other side. The pain associated with playing on the
“special” side reminds me that I don’t want to play there any longer.
There have only been a few in my life that
have made such profound impact on me, that they’ve profoundly altered my life
(“good and bad” as perceived). These
were intense loves that came with intense joy (at times) and intense pain (at
times). That belief is a notion of the
Special Relationship. The by-product is
conditional love, separation, and pain.
In the Holy Relationship, we are all equal,
no one above another. Clearly, who would
ever want it any other way? For there to
be only one, means all are included.
There is, after all, only one of us.
I choose out of the Special Relationship.
I embrace the Holy Relationship, with all
of you, and all I’ve yet to re-member.
When the book Relationships as a Spiritual
Journey (From Specialness to Holiness) was written (based on CIM), Jeff
Foxworthy hadn’t yet hit the scene. Had
he, he might have developed the following shtick (lifted from chapter one)…
You might be in a Special Relationship if
you hold the belief that…
Being treated specially and made to feel
special is a good thing
Having a special partner is a good thing
Other people can make me happy
Some people can give me more than others
It matters what people think of me
It matters how people treat me
I can be treated unfairly
Making sure I am not mistreated is a very
important skill
It is right and good for me to point out
the errors in how people treat me and tell them how to correct those errors
Other people make me feel things
Other people can attack and injure me and
they have
Because of the bad things they have done,
other people deserve my anger
I am honestly angry at the bad things they
did
My anger at them is not really displaced
anger at myself for my own
“sins”
My actions are caused by what other people
do to me
I never attack first
People have certain roles they are supposed
to fulfill in relation to my needs and my happiness
If they fail in these roles I have to feel
bad about them
My picture of them is wisely informed by
all of their past failures in fulfilling their role
In reacting to their present actions it is
valid for me to respond to the entire constellation of their past actions that
resemble the present action in any way
People owe me because of how much I have
given them
Giving to another means loss, sacrifice,
and needs to be done very cautiously
The way I was treated in the past continues
to be relevant in the present
My past should have treated me better and I
can prove it by my achievements in the present
I know who my partner is, maybe not
perfectly, but roughly
My partner’s personality matters
My partner’s material circumstance and
place in society matters
My partner’s body—its sex, shape, weight,
age, clothing, etc.—matters
If someone can meet my needs I should be
with them, if they cannot or will not I should leave
Knowing how to get people to love
me—through giving gifts, having an attractive personality, body and life
situation, and appropriately guilting them—is a crucial skill in life
My attraction to certain individuals holds
the promise of my future happiness
My attraction to them is a gift that should
make them feel good about themselves. It
is not an attack
Conflicts are best resolved by a good
memory of the conflict’s exact history, good bargaining skills and a
willingness to compromise
This awareness speaks to my core. These beliefs are intensely unnatural for all
of us. It is not who you are, and it is
not who I am any longer.
I AM unconditional love. I AM accountability. I AM forgiveness. I AM you!
I AM all that is!
I AM GOD!
On the other side of this cataclysmic and
monumental shift, I suspect that I will emerge quite differently than you have
known and seen me before. I am returned
to who I am naturally. I thank and honor
you all for walking with me through this.
The events of these past two weeks have
been the catalyst for my transformation and transcendence.Love and honoring are
gratefully extended to you all…
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