Chapter Seven - Monogamy Myths

CHAPTER SEVEN

Monogamy Myths

ASK ANYONE WHAT love is “supposed” to look like, and they’ll say something like this:

“One person. One lifetime. True love. Faithful forever.”

It sounds natural. Noble. Even biological.

But it’s not.

The idea of lifelong, exclusive, romantic monogamy?
That’s a story, not a universal truth.

And it’s a story that came with conditions.

Humans aren’t strictly monogamous by nature.
We form bonds, yes. Deep ones. Real ones.

But we also feel attraction to others.
We also leave. Cheat. Grieve. Re-pair.
Across cultures and history, we always have.

Some animals mate for life. Others don’t.
Humans fall somewhere in between.

What we are is flexible and social.

We build the systems we’re told to believe in.

For centuries, the most powerful men in the world had mistresses.
Openly.

French kings housed their lovers in palaces.
Roman emperors wrote poems to both male and female favorites.
Chinese emperors kept massive harems.
Sultans, pharaohs, chiefs, all surrounded by many partners.

Marriage was for legitimacy.
Love was for elsewhere.

And it wasn’t just men.

Wives wrote letters to secret lovers.
Affairs happened in every class.
People bent the rules, or broke them, quietly.

Because the fantasy didn’t always match the feelings.

The idea of finding your one true soulmate, the person who completes you forever, is recent.

It wasn’t doctrine.
It was marketing.

Hollywood sold it.
Churches blessed it.
Capitalism reinforced it.

A perfect pair. A perfect home. A perfect life.

But the pressure to fit that ideal has crushed millions of real relationships.

Historically, cheating has been more common than full fidelity.
And still, we treat it like the ultimate betrayal.

We built a system that promises perfection and punishes imperfection, even though the system itself is based on fantasy.

Some people want one partner.
Some don’t.
Some do for a while then change.

None of it makes you more pure.
More evolved.
More righteous.

But for centuries, society treated monogamy as the only “real” kind of love.
Everything else was dirty. Immature. Dangerous.

And that’s how the myth survived:
not because it was true, but because it was treated like it had to be.