It lends itself to social stability, and has a bunch of benefits for the people who are in those stable marriages. E.g., the life expectancy for men is significantly higher when they are married. It's also generally found to be better for kids to have a stable home life, and we know that being a single parent is very difficult.

That's not to say you have to get married.

I believe the reasoning would be that it's good for kids. Statistically it is - relative to divorced or unmarried parents.

If the new norm were flexible open relationships however, that wouldn't necessarily correlate with worse outcomes for children. I think we just don't know.

Perhaps there's a heavy correlation confusion here -- I expect it's more like "If you're the type of person who would stay in a stable marriage, then your kids will do better than those who aren't, but you don't actually have to get married to confer that effect, it's just about what type of person you are"?

Despite its flaws it generally works in terms of creating a stable social structure and especially in raising children. Which I mean I suppose we could just decide that’s no longer important...we’ll probably be dead before society totally unravels. Besides, at least that way we can one-up the baby boomers on something, even if it is destroying western civilization.

Okay, so I’m being a bit hyperbolic. But still — in a world which is increasingly isolated and people are more atomized and mentally ill than ever, is it really a good idea to abandon “the family” as it currently exists?

>Despite its flaws it generally works in terms of creating a stable social structure and especially in raising children.

>But still — in a world which is increasingly isolated and people are more atomized and mentally ill than ever, is it really a good idea to abandon “the family” as it currently exists?

Given the fact that more children than ever are growing up in broken homes or with single parents, I'd say the traditional monogamous family unit is failing, and unless you're willing to go back to the days when women weren't allowed to have real jobs, it's not coming back. Having two parents both work and try to raise kids with no help whatsoever is incredibly stressful, so it's no surprise to me that this whole arrangement is falling apart.

To me, if polyamory were more widely adopted, it would actually be better for a stable society and raising children, because you could have larger family units (I mean with more adults), where the adults would be able to share parenting burdens and finances better, somewhat like the "old days" where extended families resided together and grandparents helped with child-raising.

Of course, the big problem I see here is that it's hard enough to find one compatible person, and trying to put together 3, 4, or 5 people in such an arrangement would be really difficult, but it is my belief that if poly were widely accepted, this might not be quite so difficult because people might have lower expectations of any one partner, and be more willing to compromise and work together. Of course, I could be completely wrong...

But again, it's clear to me that what we're doing now isn't working. And we can't go backwards.

There are more reasonable solutions than polyamory. Universal child care being the easiest to achieve, but it’s no more ridiculous to suggest that we all ought to live in multigenerational homes so our parents can retire and take care of our children while we work than it is to say we should embrace polyamory.

One common reason religious/cultural/governmental groups have done so is to build ubiquity, spread ideology and compete regionally or globally.

I'm not saying there's merit to it, but it has certainly bolstered the "importance" of marriage and children.

It certainly makes sense that those societal structures would be oriented towards families -- throughout history (and in modernity), families have always been the atom of democracy. The sanctity of individuality is a relatively new phenomenon and it is weak when compared to the sanctity of families.

There's no evidence that pre-civilization humans had monogamous family units. In fact, in pre-contact Hawaii, it's well documented that they didn't practice monogamy at all, except among the royal families.

Welfare of children, which in turn because we are compelled to perpetuate our species.

Because it creates a stable, growing society.