Monogamy as a marital norm is contrasted with polygamy, specifically polygyny and polyandry. Type: serial monogamy; Also called monogamousness. Monogamy used in a sentence: I want a partner that supports monogamy in relationships. A (noun) monogamist (adverb) monogamously participates in a (adjective) monogamous or (adjective) monogamistic relationship. Serial monogamy used in a sentence: I look back on my dating life and found I practiced serial monogamy. A ( noun ) serial monogamist participates in a ( adjective ) serially monogamous or ( adjective ) serially monogamistic relationship.

1. Serial Monogamy Psychology
2. Polygamy

I’m going to describe a very interesting Alpha Male 1.0 phenomenon that I’ve been seeing more of over recent years. This is something becoming more common both in and outside of the manosphere.

Most of you already know my recommendations to combat the current high divorce rates, along with the clear indication that human beings hate being long-term monogamous even though they often enjoy being short-term monogamous. If you really want to get serious or “settle down” with a woman, refuse to ever get absolutely sexually monogamous, but do all the other usual “married” stuff anyway, such as move in together and/or have children together, etc.

However, many men in society are reacting to these divorce realities in a very different, and much more chaotic way. Here’s a quote from the study I linked to in my recent post on divorce statistics:

There is also evidence that many young people are moving toward embracing the idea of serial marriage, in which a person gets married two or three times, seeking a different partner for each phase of their adult life.

Yep. I have seen exactly this dynamic occur both in my personal life with men I know, and strongly within the manosphere/PUA. Numerous times I have debated with strong pro-monogamy guys (often Alpha 1.0s, players, or ex-players) who are dying to get married and monogamous “someday”, and feel very strongly about it. But here’s the interesting part; when I ask them if they plan on staying married to their current or future woman for the rest of their life, they either refuse to answer the question, or say “Well no, of course not!”

This often includes men who are already married.

Hm…

Incredibly, almost never do any of these men actually sign prenuptial agreements. It’s at the point now where I’m actually surprised when it does happen because I see it so rarely with these guys.

Hmmm…

So if you do the math on this, men are getting married, planning in advance on divorcing someday, promising (and expecting) monogamy anyway, and not getting prenups.

Hmmmmmmm…

Something is very, very wrong with men.

Of course, women have been doing this for decades already, as I’ve demonstrated on this blog before. Now to add to the mix, we have men starting to adopt a serial monogamous, Alpha Male 1.0 version of a pre-existing, temporary, feminine marriage model.

This is what I have started to call serial monogamy marriage. I should call it bullshit marriage, but I’m a nice guy full sugar and spice and everything nice. The serial monogamy marriage is where you do all of the following:

1. Legally marry a woman.

2. Promise and expect 100% monogamy at all times, though you will probably cheat later (and get caught, since men are terrible keeping their cheating a secret).

3. Very stupidly don’t sign a prenuptial agreement. (If someone challenges you on this, you’ll either quickly change the subject or mumble something about how you “don’t need one.”)

4. Pretend as if the marriage will last forever even though you quietly know you’re going to get a divorce down the road anyway.

So these crazy people are actually getting monogamously married, planning on getting divorced, but not making any legal, financial, or child custody accommodations for this. They’re literally planning on fucking up their lives down the road, all for the fleeting high of being temporarily married.

This gets even more interesting. The people I see doing this are not idiots. They are not ignorant regarding the issues discussed on this blog and blogs like this all over the internet. These are not dumbass Disney betas with stars in their eyes. No, these are intelligent, informed men (almost always Alpha 1.0s) and sharp women (usually Dominants or misguided Independents) who are purposely doing this anyway.

It’s really amazing.

A Temporary Marriage Is Fine…As Long As You Do It Right

Am I against getting married or living-together serious when you know that you’ll get divorced down the road? Not at all. As I’ve said many times before, all relationships are temporary, including marriages, and including open/poly ones.

This is why legal, financial, logistical, and sexual accommodations must be made up front when you enter into any “serious” relationship to accommodate this reality. Take a stupid beta full of oneitis who’s never read a manosphere blog, really thinks his fiancé will be with him forever, and thinks he’ll never want to fuck another woman for the rest of his life. This guy is a reckless moron of course, but at least he has the excuse of ignorance and weakness when he doesn’t get his prenup, cohabitation agreement, parenting plan, or whatever.

On the other hand, the strong, well-read Alpha Male (1.0 or 2.0) doesn’t have this excuse…yet he follows the path of the beta male anyway. In a way, this makes what he’s doing even worse.

Look, if you want to get long-term monogamous (now or “someday”) despite all the facts and stats you’ve read about how human beings aren’t designed that way and how it almost never works out, then hey, it’s your life. Go ahead and do what you want. I think that as an Alpha Male you’re making a colossal mistake, but you need to make your own decisions.

But for fuck’s sake, do it right! If you get into one of these temporary monogamous marriages, at least get an enforceable prenuptial agreement, keep your finances completely separate from her (no joint checking accounts!), and get a parenting plan signed and filed before anyone gets pregnant.

If you refuse to do these very simple things when getting into a marriage (or even unmarried cohabiting relationship) that you KNOW isn’t going to last forever, then you’re scheduling a nuclear mushroom cloud on some random date in your future. It’s like you’re setting a huge time bomb to go off, except you don’t know exactly when it will happen. One day, down the road, you’ll wake up to a contentious divorce (with the law on her side) at best, a financial catastrophe and painful child custody battle at worst.

Why do you want that? Do you value your future so lightly? Is your happiness today worth that kind of pain a few years down the road? Really stop and think about that.

The Value You Place On Future Happiness

One of the reasons I’m so happy today is because I consider my decisions based not only on my happiness now, but also my happiness five years in the future. I do things I know will make me happy five years from now, and more importantly I refuse to do things that will damage happiness five years from now. The reason my life is so good today is because five years ago I didn’t do anything that would fuck up my happiness five years in the future. So today, surprise surprise, I’m happier now than I was five years ago. In five more years, I’ll be even happier. I can’t wait!

If you get into one of these serial monogamy marriages, you can’t say the same. Your happiness is temporary. In three, five, or ten years from now, you’re going to be angry, hurt, sad, or at least very frustrated.

My model: happy now, happy later.

Your model: happy now, unhappy later.

I’ll leave you to decide which model is better, and which model will make you happier more often.

Cultures[edit]

Might discuss (here or elsewhere): by whom, in what cultures and under what circumstances is marriage following the death of a spouse considered unacceptable. --Daniel C. Boyer 16:27, 7 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Serial polygamy[edit]

from Talk:Serial polygamythis article needs to be renamed. It is not serial polygamy, it is 'Serial Monogamy' -- just like a serial killer (a bad comparison, but useful) kills one person at a time, but over and over, a serial mogamist is married to one person at a time, but over and over. All the scholarly literature I know on this topic refers to it as serial mogamy or (the term I prefer) Chain Marriage, not serial polygamy Slrubenstein

Renaming sounds fine, but maybe this could redirect to the new one. I think I've heard the term 'serial polygamy' used in more popular writing, possibly something like Megatrends or Megatrends 2000. Is mogamy a contraction for monogamy? Wesley

Made a redirect. 'Serial polygamy' doesn't fit the definition of polygamy.

Vacuum

Serial polygamy was moved here to preserve the page history. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Angela (talk • contribs) 23:22, 6 January 2004 (UTC)

I've undone that move because there's now a redirect at the 'Serial polygamy' title. I've also imported two of the early edits from the May 2003 database dump to the history atTalk:Serial polygamy. Graham87 04:02, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

Citation needed for serial polygamy[edit]

The comment on serial polygamy does not conform to the verifiability policy of Wikipedia. If the comment on serial polygamy cannot be verified, it should be removed from this article. Kelly 20:50, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Citations added. The comment most certainly DOES conform to the verifiability policy, as a ONE-second Google search showed.Dogface 11:18, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Combination of the two[edit]

After perusing the history of these two pages (mono- and poly- serial marriage) it seems that they are both referring to the same phenomena. Looking at the two sections as they now are there seems to be a great overlap, the first taking the form ABC and the second ACD. I propose that a combination, of the form ABCD, be compiled. Alpha designations are explained in the table:

Red Baron 16:49, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Pejorative 'Polygamy'[edit]

I just searched dictionary.com, merriam-webster online, OneLook Dictionary Search, YourDictionary.com, Dictionary.msn, Cambridge dictionary, worldcentral.com, and thefreedictionary.com, to find serial monogamy and serial polygamy. I think two times I found the latter (both by reference to this Wikipedia page), and found the former in all. It seems that the latter is a pejorative that is used to demean those who practice this multiple marriage thing, by referencing it to the illegal practice of polygamy.Red Baron 17:16, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I got the feeling that Serial Polygamy is either WP:OR, a neologism or someone with an axe to grind. I think the whole article needs to be re-worked and I wouldn't mind doing so if I have the time. WLU 14:23, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

There seem to be some web references to serial polygamy: one for every 62 (Yahoo) or 13 (Google) references to serial monogamy. So, I think that this term has some place in the article, but only insofar as saying something like: 'Some people refer to this practice as serial polygamy, in order to add a stigma to the practice...'--Red Baron 15:39, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Having reviewed Wikipedia's policy, categorizing serial polygamy as a neologism seems to be accurate. I think we should go ahead with a rewrite that reflects this.—Red Baron 15:46, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Who made this major change?[edit]

Someone (user 81.169.185.225) has made a major change to the text of this article that has been substantially different than anything discussed here, in fact quite the opposite, without giving any justification for doing so. As stated above, the preference of polygamy seems to be dubious, yet this was made the authoritative term by the unknown editor. I see that this change has been reverted, and I am glad to see it.—Red Baron 15:09, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

It's probably the same person that has been messing with the article for a couple weeks now. I've reverted. WLU 15:30, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Possible sources[edit]

• A website, Health 24.com, defines SM as 'long-term, exclusive sexual relationships entered into consecutively over the lifespan.'
• A study by Helen Fisher has a biological slant at this Forum.
• Serena Petrella (Department of Sociology, Carleton University, Canada) declares SM a norm in her article Only with You – Maybe – If You Make Me Happy: A Genealogy of Serial Monogamy as Governance and Self- Governance. The site Tikkun agrees.
• Trivia-Library.com says that SM was 'rife' in ancient Rome, and used to be 'almost exclusively the province of kings and queens.'
• A Canadian Marriage Study is reported to state that most people who marry do not divorce; that 46% of those whose first marriage ends will remarry; but that fewer than 1% of the 'ever married population' indulge in a third marriage.
• The Moral Animalreportedly states that the negative economic effects from SM (on divorced women and their children) have potential to be worse than from polygamy

Red Baron 16:54, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

RE-Write[edit]

I hope all will scrutinize and embellish this article as they find more data. Especially, perhaps noting the rates of re-marriage in other western countries. Also, perhaps non-western perspective could be added.—Red Baron 17:16, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Re-write looks good, kudos. I've edited a bit to remove names (personally I don't like to include researcher names unless they are specific experts in the fields and have their own wikipages) and the 'see also's that were already in the text (as per MOS). WLU 20:02, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I think it is important to retain the distinction between polygamy and SM: 'However, [using the term polygamy] is a misnomer because this behavior excludes the practice of having multiple sexual partners at one time' was deleted recently by 85.214.86.4 (Talk) with the description—(NPOV: removed prescriptive remark). I suppose the previous edit was prescriptive toward so-called 'serial polygamy,' but there does seem to be a norm against it (see neologism comments above).—Red Baron 16:20, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Serial Monogamy Psychology

Howdy, I was asked to come here from another RfC. Well, first of all, you've got to re-word the opener here - this article is about serial monogamy, not serial polygamy, and the reference to it in the first paragraph is confusing. It implies that serial monogamy is the SAME as serial polygamy - however, the reference (which I'm not sure meets WP:RS) doesn't agree with this; it's arguing, somewhat provactively, that the process these 'serial monogamists' are in fact practicing a form of polygamy carried out in a society where polygamy is banned. I also don't see any indication that term 'serial polygamy' is meant to disparage, in the sources provided - if anything, the article looks favorably upon the idea of polygamy; though it's more accurate to say that it's 'neutral'.

However, with that said, there is[1] some thread of disparagement going on here; however, it is only an insult insofar as you believe 'polygamy' is an insult. I think this article needs to just tread more carefully in describing serial polygamy - say 'This behavior is also described as a form of polygamy, known as serial polygamy etc'. I don't think it's highly necessary to talk about it being disparaging unless you can find some clear references that state as much. Anyways, those are my thoughts. --Haemo 21:25, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I'd agree with Haemo on all of his comments - though the references do provide justifications for what is said in the text, they are the kind of references that only stand up of no-one challenges them. Since no-one has, they can stay as far as I'm concerned. At this point, I'd say that the serial polygamy is verging on a neologism, which is not a good thing. See Wikipedia:Avoid neologisms. I think the distinction between serial monogamy and serial polygamy is a semantic one, verging on original research. I still think there's value to the point, not sure what to do though... WLU 21:41, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Hopefully my compromise version will be satisfactory to later edits by anons. It seems to overcome the alleged POV, reduces the neologismserial polygamy to a note at the bottom of the page, and the references are more accurately used.—Red Baron 14:59, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Personally I take what anon's say with a very large pinch of salt. Sad but true, anon's get far less respect than accounts. And though your addition does help the term slightly, it is still not the best reference for the term 'serial polygamy'. I'm not saying take it down, but I am saying if someone challenges it, you'll have a hard time defending it. Until that day, I say leave it up as good work. I still think your edits have improved the article 173% over previous versions, but the references you've got for serial polygamy (the only problematic part of the article that I can see) still pretty much verge on 'some guy said this'. That the 'some guy' in this reference is a PhD adds some weight, but not enough to withstand a serious challenge. The unfortunate truth of wikipedia is that the bloody obvious is still problematic for inclusion if we don't have a reference for it. Still, kudos to you, I think it's good work. Ever read WP:RS by the way? Excellent policy and might be useful in identifying why other editors see some of the references as problematic. WLU 20:31, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Polygamy