Mononormativity or mono-normativity is the normative assumption that monogamy is healthier or more natural than ethical non-monogamy, as well as the societal enforcement of such an assumption.[1] It has been widely tied to various forms of discrimination or bias against polyamory.[2][3]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4e/Plain_home_talk_about_the_human_system-the_habits_of_men_and_women-the_cause_and_prevention_of_disease-our_sexual_relations_and_social_natures_%281896%29_%2814764404035%29.jpg/220px-thumbnail.jpg)
The term is also used to instead describe monosexual normativity, akin to monosexism.[4]
Background
editAnalysis of monogamy as a social institution dates back to the Nineteenth Century, when works like Lewis H. Morgan's Ancient Society or Frederich Engels' response to the same, titled The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, argued that the difficulty of determining patrilineal descent meant that societies under primitive communism likely developed under a matriarchal, non-monogamous social order that was only overturned with the rise of private property and the consequent enforcement of monandry as part of the "world-historic defeat of the female sex".[5]
Morgan's research contrasted the more patriarchal West against indigenous societies like the matrilocal and matrifocal Iroquois, citing the inequality of the former as a consequence of societal developments which "thus reversed the position of the wife and mother in the household; she was of a different gens from her children, as well as her husband; and under monogamy was now isolated from her gentile kindred, living in the separate and exclusive house of her husband."[6]
Polygyny is instead largely culturally unopposed in many regions of Africa and the Muslim world, with the Qur'an providing scriptural basis for a man marrying up to four wives at once as long as he is capable of supporting them.[7][8]
In the contemporary era non-monogamous couplings are reported to constitute an increasingly significant sexual minority in the developed world. The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction estimated that there were half-a-million "openly polyamorous families" in the United States in July 2009.[9][10] Additionally, 15–28% of heterosexual couples and about half of gay and bisexual people have a "non-traditional" arrangement of some kind as reported in The Guardian in August 2013.[11]
Mononormative society
editA large majority of the Western world can be thought of as legally or socially biased towards monogamous ways of living. Feminist scholars Dossie Easton and Janet Hardy explored the consequences of sex-negative, monogamy-centric socialization in their work The Ethical Slut, writing:
How do you dig up and examine a belief that you don’t even know you hold? The idea of lifelong monogamy as the only proper goal for relationships is so deeply buried in our culture that it’s almost invisible, we operate on these beliefs without even knowing we believe them. They are under our feet all the time, the foundation of our assumptions, our values, our desires, our myths, our expectations[12]
"Mononormativity" in the sense of opposition to sexual monogamy was used as early as 1982, defined as "the idea that sexual relations are acceptable when only two people take part, preferably within the confines of a monogamous relationship" in a critique of normative phrasing in the Canadian decriminalization of homosexuality by scholar Thomas Hooper.[13]
"Mono-normativity" in the modern understanding has instead been described as originating in 2005 with German queer studies scholars Marianne Pieper and Robin Bauer, later defined by Bauer as the assumption that "couple-shaped arranged relationships are the principle of social relations per se, an essential foundation of human existence and the elementary, almost natural pattern of living together."[14] The concept has been increasingly cited by psychiatrists and other professionals as a point of concern when countering systemic discrimination and improving legal or social representation for polyamorous people.[1][2][3] University of British Columbia professor Carrie Jenkins explored the impacts of mononormativity in a book titled What Love Is: And What It Could Be, later discussing her own identity as polyamorous and drawing a distinction between "pro-polyamory" and "anti-monogamy".[15]
See also
edit- Amatonormativity – Assumption that everyone prospers with an exclusive, romantic relationship
- Heteronormativity – Concept asserting heterosexuality as the only social norm
- Cisnormativity – Assumption that everyone is cisgender
- Abstinence – Self-enforced restraint from pleasurable activities
- Fourth-wave feminism – Feminist movement, 2010s–present
References
edit- ^ a b Keese, Christian (2016). "Marriage, Law and Polyamory. Rebutting Mononormativity with Sexual Orientation Discourse?". Oñati Socio-legal Series. 6 (6): 1348. Archived from the original on April 22, 2018. Retrieved December 24, 2020.
- ^ a b Taya Cassidy, and Gina Wong, Consensually Nonmonogamous Clients and the Impact of Mononormativity in Therapy/Les clients non monogames consensuels et l’impact de la mononormativité en thérapie, ISSN 0826-3893 Vol. 52 No. 2, Pages 119–139 (available online). Canadian Journal of Counselling and Psychotherapy/Revue canadienne de counseling et de psychothérapie, Athabasca University.
- ^ a b Rodrigues, David L., et al. “Examining the Role of Mononormative Beliefs, Stigma, and Internalized Consensual Non-monogamy Negativity for Dehumanization.” PsyArXiv, 31 Jan. 2022. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/yjwma
- ^ Hayfield, Nikki; Křížová, Karolína (2021-04-03). "It's Like Bisexuality, but It Isn't: Pansexual and Panromantic People's Understandings of Their Identities and Experiences of Becoming Educated about Gender and Sexuality". Journal of Bisexuality. 21 (2): 167–193. doi:10.1080/15299716.2021.1911015. ISSN 1529-9716.
- ^ Frederich Engels. The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, 1884. (Wikisource)
- ^ Morgan, Lewis H. (1881). Houses and house-life of the American Aborigines. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. p. 128.
- ^ Kramer, Stephanie (December 7, 2020). "Polygamy is rare around the world and mostly confined to a few regions". Pew Research Center.
- ^ "Polygamy in Context." Common Grounds News Services. Alia Hogben. 02-Mar-2010. <http://www.commongroundnews.org/article.php?id=27379&lan=en&sp=0 Archived 2016-04-23 at the Wayback Machine>.
- ^ Bennett, Jessica (July 29, 2009). "Polyamory: The Next Sexual Revolution?". Newsweek. Archived from the original on November 4, 2020. Retrieved December 23, 2020.
- ^ Newitz, Annalee (July 7, 2006). "Love Unlimited: The Polyamorists". New Scientist. Archived from the original on November 9, 2020. Retrieved December 23, 2020.
- ^ Penny, Laurie (August 20, 2013). "Being polyamorous shows there's no 'traditional' way to live". The Guardian. Archived from the original on November 12, 2020. Retrieved December 23, 2020.
- ^ Easton and Hardy, The Ethical Slut
- ^ "More Than Two Is a Crowd": Mononormativity and Gross Indecency in the Criminal Code, 1981–82.
- ^ Quoted by Gordon-Orr, Rose. "Mononormativity and Related Normative Bias in the UK Immigration System: The Experience of LGBTIQ+ Asylum Seekers". via Frontiers in Human Dynamics, Volume 3, MCCS Goldsmiths University of London, 23 July 2021.
- ^ Interviewed by Sean Illing; A philosopher makes the case for polyamory, Vox.com, 18 February 2018. Retrieved 20 October 2023.