Quote: (06-04-2017 01:05 PM)Samseau Wrote:
Seems to me this "socially imposed" monogamy is a distinction without a difference. Virtually everything in society is "socially imposed" in one form or another.
Why not just call it "monogamy"?
Because the distinction is meaningful. "Socially imposed" is just a term of art used to refer to the scale and strictness of the imposition.
As noted above, socially imposed monogamy is of the stricter form we've come to know in Western Europe. It arose there in the middle ages and has become the defining form of modern monogamy in our minds.
It goes above and beyond monogamy in its prohibition of polygyny, shaming of out of wedlock children, and its limitations on female sexuality.
In a strict system of socially imposed monogamy, women have very limited opportunities to openly express their hypergamy. Elite men cannot have open multiple marriage, concubinage, or harems. The best they can do is keep a few discreet mistresses, with any children produced of those unions never in a good place and limited in the opportunity available to them. The women who would instead be getting a piece of the top 20% of men are forced to settle for someone below that level in a long-term, monogamous relationship.
This is why I say that socially imposed monogamy is the ultimate form of beta welfare. It is the most forgiving to the average man and the harshest on women and elite men. It goes further than all other systems in ensuring that every sub-elite male can gain sexual access and the privilege of being a patriarch. It is peak betaffirmative action.
Systems that promote monogamy while still openly sanctioning and allowing concubinage (these were common in east asia) are distinct in that they do more to serve the desire of elite men to have more than one woman and the desire of women to express their hypergamy relatively free of consequence.
Systems that openly allow polygamy go further still, obviously. Both of these systems are less deferential to the average man.
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By the way, monogamy goes way further back than Christian times - strict monogamy originated with the Jews. Which is why Christianity has it. In the OT, the famous line is, "Thou shall not multiply wives."
There is no such line and there is no such prohibition in the Old Testament. Men in the Old Testament were openly permitted to have multiple wives. Polygamy was sanctioned and is not prohibited in the Old Testament.
The best anti-polygamy line in the bible comes from the New Testament, specifically Matthew 19:3-9, when Jesus says: "Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?"
Of course, this passage has multiple interpretations and is not a clear prohibition on polygamy, though many have interpreted it to be such. Though only one wife is implied here, there is dispute over the notion that man can only cleave and become "one flesh" with a single woman - polygamists will contend (and there is nothing in the bible to firmly contradict them) that one can become one flesh with multiple woman, and that a second wife becomes one flesh with both the husband AND his first wife.
The fact that there is no other passage in the New Testament explicitly prohibiting the taking of multiple wives for men who were not figures in the church (indeed, the New Testament is largely silent on the issue of polygamy) lends credence to this interpretation - all bans on polygamy by the church are based on implications and interpretations. There is no solid prohibition. The Bible, quite frankly, isn't very firm in any stand against polygamy and isn't a very good source for substantiating a prohibition on it.
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But even in Jewish and Christian societies strict monogamy was not universally enforced among the rich and powerful. For example, rich Jewish men still had concubines, and many Popes had harems of personal whores at their beck and call. In The Prince Machiavelli talks about one of the Pope's bastard sons of a whore who rose to great power before losing it all. These things were always common among the top.
Partially correct, but not quite to the point. The key issue here is that in these societies strict monogamy was universally enforced even among the rich and powerful, which is why mistresses were kept with discretion and any children produced of those unions were at a substantial disadvantage (illegitimacy was a black mark). These plural relationships existed in the shadows precisely because they were not sanctioned, and they were not sanctioned because there was a strict prohibition on multiple marriages.
This stands in firm contrast with systems in which concubinage and/or polygamy were openly allowed. Discretion was not required, children produced of said unions had many more opportunities (illegitimacy was far less of a black mark), and the hypergamy of the women involved was satisfied far more effectively (an official concubine or 2nd/3rd wife had much more in the way of stability and status than a discreet mistress, she was not looked down upon or shamed nearly to the extent that mistresses were, and her kids were better off too).
These systems were, of course, worse for average men, but we've been over that.
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In general, when I speak of the virtues of monogamy, I speak of the average man. The top will always get away with murder and adultery, but as long as their degeneracy is contained then it is not a big deal. Conversely, when 50% of the women aren't having kids because monogamy has been destroyed, then captain we have a serious problem that is going to destroy our culture. And considering how much of the world depends on our culture, they're going to be in for an even worse time as well.
Alright, I am going to start by focusing again on the statement that is bolded.
You say "women" generally, but, as I noted earlier, I know plenty of women who are having plenty of kids. Birthrates are high across many parts of the world.
A glance at fertility rates in Africa (North and South), West Asia, South Asia, and the Caribbean/Central America + South America, as well as those of their kin who have migrated elsewhere, would seem to indicate that there is a general tendency to have kids (at least to have enough to replace themselves) and a preference for doing so.
The above location/groups account for
the majority of reproductive-aged women on the planet. Thus, it seems over-broad and a bit vague to me to make a general conclusion that "women" are failing to have children.
So, again, I have to ask: what "women" are you talking about who are not having kids (but need to be having kids, according to you, lest the world be imperiled)? Can you be more specific?
Now, on to the talk about the virtues of monogamy. As I said earlier, strictly imposed monogamy is distinct in that it is the most beneficial of all systems for the average man. If we're talking about the virtues of monogamy, then we have to make this distinction because the average man is not as well off in a system that encourages monogamy but openly sanctions concubinage or multiple marriage. Socially imposed monogamy (which is what I have been calling this stricter system that we've come to know in the western world) is the ultimate form of beta welfare. There is no better system for the average man, and no worse system for women and above average men.
I do not buy the notion that the destruction of the form of monogamy we have seen dominate the west has led to women not having kids. You don't need a system of socially imposed monogamy to get women to have children. If anything, maintaining such a system increases the risk of fewer children down the road and any "baby-bust" is actually the product of that socially imposed monogamy.
Let's illustrate this with a hypothetical that parallels what we've been talking about: what we are talking about is a system that effectively would have forced the women living under it to marry betas and forego any chance at getting a piece of men closer to the top of the pyramid.
Women of all kinds hate betas, so that was going to come crashing down at some point, and when it did this society was going to be in a pickle: because said society would have spent about 1000 years shaming the women to death for having children outside of the confines of a 1 woman-1 man union, the women living under it who rebelled against such unions would naturally feel uncomfortable having children (because they feel compelled to be inside the unions in order to do so).
At the same time, because this society has also spent 1000 years insisting that the women under its dominion are wrong to want to share a few elite men and shaming them for following their instinct to do so while also making it illegal (no polygamy, no sanctioned concubinage), its women won't feel comfortable procreating in those unions either (they are, after all, not the 1 man/1 woman unions they've been trained to believe are essential to procreation).
In short, such a society (which is a society of the kind you're promoting as ideal) would have left very few options for its women. Under the dominion of said society, women are only allowed to procreate in strictly monogamous unions...but they hate the men they are forced into these unions with since most are betas and they hate betas. They also despise the society broadly for its forcing them into unions with said betas. They aren't allowed to procreate outside of said unions (by, for example, sharing one or two elite men), so...no procreation.
The lack of children shouldn't surprise you at all. The strict nature of the system of socially imposed monogamy I have been talking about would inevitably lead to this outcome, as would contact with other societies in which things were not nearly as strict (ex: access to a greater pool of potentially better-than-beta men).
Fortunately, these women aren't the only women in the world. Other women can procreate too and those women have come from societies with fewer restrictions, so women will continue to have kids.
It just may not be the type of woman you, in particular, want to be having kids.