Questioning the possibility of monogamy in the cyber era

I was just sitting at the edge of the whirlpool, unwinding after a rough 1.5-hour weight lifting session and minding my own business when an African-American man in his 60's next to me said, "I just want to tell you something, you are one very pretty young lady. I hope you have a man in life who appreciates you because a lot of men don't know how to appreciate their women."

Nice man. How true that is.

"Thanks," I said, smiling ear to ear. "I hope so too. And that's very true."

I have come to learn though it doesn't matter how wonderful a woman is, how worthy of love and adoration she is to those who aren't lucky enough -- and would kill -- to be her suitor, appreciation doesn't always come from the man she is devoting her life to.

It doesn't necessarily mean, and heck surely we all know it, that she's the only person he will ever desire because she has everything that a man could ever ask for from a woman. It's not only that familiarity breeds contempt, it's not that she doesn't keep herself sexually desirable and intellectually stimulating, but there is just something about men (and perhaps some women as well) that keeps them constantly yearning for novelty and variety, no matter what.

Monogamy is arguably -- yet has become so obvious -- not a natural design for men (and yes for mankind in general).

Monogamy has become a violent institution that has kept the lies and the pretense of fidelity brewing under the surface, denying men their basic instincts to spread their seed to as many fertile fields as possible to ensure the continuation of the species (how much I hate it that the male bunch is so lucky to be granted such a grandiose excuse, but it does hold water if you study evolution).

Well, they will still cheat anyway, only now they have to keep it a secret. Or do they?

What is it about polygamy that is so detestable to this "civilized" society of ours? Does it ruin family life as the naysayers claim? What of those cultures that have practiced polygamy (for both men and women) for ages and treat is as something natural?

Could it be that Islam allows its men to have up to four wives at a time a statement of understanding of this basic male need (sure there is an apparent male-preference in it by forcing the females to be satisfied with just one presumably-too-tired-for- anything-romantic man)?

So instead of forcing and turning a blind eye toward something that is not "natural by design", it institutionalizes and regulates the opposite as an option (just like smoking and drinking you see).

I'm at this point in life surely not as a propagator of polygamy, I even look at it with contempt in most situations.

And, boy, it sure hurts knowing my man sleeps with and is attracted to other women. Despite my doubts of the effectiveness and viability of monogamy and marital fidelity, I still, with faded optimism, hang my hopes on it, that at least, with some miracle handed down from heaven, it works for me (and my future partner).

And I know I deserve all the appreciation and adoration and gratitude for the "perfect" partner that I am and will only marry one who is decent enough to know this! And the fact that I'm not married speaks volumes of how much I consider a commitment between two people -- translated in the "M" dreads for both marriage and monogamy -- sacred. But it just makes me think that the marital setting is very much a convention, a relative truth.

People should perhaps be free to decide what kind of setting they would like to have. And we know or have heard of couples who have an "open marriage."

If it works for them, who are we to judge? Isn't it better than cheating and lying? Isn't it better if couples could talk about it openly without anger in the knowledge that this is only going to be physical, mainly.

This age we live in can't be more challenging considering the advancement of technology that allows us to connect and communicate with virtually everyone on the face of the planet in a blink of an eye.

This has opened an entirely new avenue unheard of a decade ago: cybersex, cyber lovers, cyber marriage. The Internet allows lonely people (yes loneliness has ironically become a chronic malaise of the overcrowded and communication-savvy world of ours) to meet and for a period of time fulfills the void, a need, that each is going through and creates an illusion of love when there is perhaps none if they live a block away from each other.

I have come to learn as well that love doesn't carry much significance these days. Men (since I'm a woman and straight so I can only tell you from experience which I'm sure many women could relate to) will tell you that they love you at one point or another whether or not they mean it and often times they don't even know whether or not they mean it! It doesn't mean a thing.

And it's even more depressing knowing that we live in an age and a culture that makes marital fidelity a virtual mission impossible.

There is simply too much temptation out there for the small brains (compared to their gargantuan animal instinct) of men to fend off. And if people hang their marriage on fidelity, how long will the thin rope it hangs on stretch to its limit before it breaks down and falls apart? Any wonder why the rate of marriage failure is so high today? How rare is it nowadays that you hear the people you know who are happily married as your parents are? (My parents have been married for 35 years and I'm sure they have been monogamous and faithful to each other, at least sexually, all those years). And how so familiar is it now to hear people you know who are divorced or separated?

Is there any hope out there?

Is there really one -- and only one -- perfect match with whom we are destined to spend the rest our life and feel content about as we are often made to feel when we are madly in love or to believe by our convention? For those who are happily married and devoted to each other despite everything, the answer is yes.

But that only perhaps constitutes less than 10 percent of the whole world's population. And surely you know this is not only a desperate voice of a pessimist struggling with her inner demons.

-- Rahayu Ratnaningsih