Study Shows Monogamy Is Not Worth All The Hype

Right now, marriage and monogamy the population conspicuously highlights monogamy. Struggles to lift the stigma around divorces here and abroad have inspired people on all sides of the political spectrum to speak about the hidden truth: monogamy is not worth all the hype. 

An extramarital dating app, Gleeden, conducted an internal survey in January 2022 to find out that 55% of Gleeden users consider, ‘monogamy, a social obligation,’ while the remaining 45% who still believe in it, however, confirm that monogamy is possible only under a definite state of affairs. The main reasons for couples to commit infidelity, according to the report, are boredom (63%), naturalization of infidelity (20%), partner conflicts (10%) and falling in love with another person (8%).

Gleeden Report On Monogamy

While individuals may have over one partner across their life, we expect sexual fidelity within a marriage. Marriage is common to all human societies, and the public acknowledges that divorce often results from extramarital relationships. However, run-of-the-mill the range of behavioral variation expressed by humans, many exceptions exist, and people found sex outside of marriage both cross-culturally and among individuals in any society. 

Suggested Reading: How to Go from Casual to Monogamous? Girls Guide To Commitment

Individuals who are married or are in a long-term relationship seeking to add some “thrill” into their love lives mostly use Gleeden, it says. This could either be a concrete affair or just a virtual flirt. And even though most of the users continue to identify with this profile type, they do not disrespect the consent of their partners. 

The survey further states that most of the disloyalties happen between the 5th and the 10th year of marriage, with 18% happening between the 5th and the 7th year, 43% during the 10th and 39% that might occur at any point in the relationship's course. The survey also illustrates that couples involved in long-term relationships are more prone to understanding and forgiving infidelity than those who have just entered a committed relationship. 

It states, “44% of users in long-term relationships (longer than 5 years) would forgive a cheating partner if the infidelity was only about sex. However, 81% of people in a relationship younger than 1 year would not forgive their cheating partner.”

What we can observe and process from relationships is that humans do not always form long-term bonds. However, while we find polygynous and polyandrous marriages in many societies, ethnographic proof shows that most individuals within a society live in monogynous marriages that are, but not always, sexually exclusive. It is important also to note that these successive unions are not commonly monogamous, says a study by Frontiers, in Behavioral And Evolutionary Ecology.

Historically, we know that universal monogamous marriages was followed by democratic institutions in Europe, and the rise of equality between the sexes. In Ancient Greece, we do not know which came first, but we know that Athens, for example, had both elements of monogamous marriage and of inclusivity. In the modern world, although cross-national data communicate positive statistical relationships between the strength of monogamy, there are complexities revolving around consent, which we can address. 

Existential questions which partners often ask are “What are we doing to each other?” “Whose life are we living? What do we want?” Is it simply a pandemic which caused love and relationships to have a dynamic play of contrasting and evolving opinions? How can a pandemic decide whether a person should be monogamous? Are non-monogamous relationships disregarding the concept of space? Is it true that being incarcerated in one house fueled differences between many couples, making them rethink the concept of monogamy? Was monogamy at all the solution for infidelity, cheating and disregarding consent in the past? Can monogamy alone "fix" problems in a relationship?

Views expressed are the author's own.