Earlier, I read this book entitled “Wellness” by Nathan Hill. It discusses, among other things, the topic of traditional marriage and its many flaws.
There’s a part in the book that argues humans aren’t fit for a lifetime of loyalty to only one person. It says:
“We have two competing impulses alive within us: the need for novelty and the need for stability. It’s this constant push-pull.”
In other words, humans need two very different, very opposite things to stay content.
First, we need to feel secure, which a marriage would usually provide, because with that legally enforceable contract, one person would then have another person to live with for life — someone to rely on in sickness and in health.
But then, the book also states that the other thing a human needs is a sense of adventure. Something new from time to time. And this other need is why, the book suggests, the divorce rate, especially in the U.S., is so high. When you’ve lived with someone for, say, even just a decade, things fall into place, and what once was exciting is now so calm that either one or both people in the marriage feel uneasy.
Maybe too much stability makes some married people lack their other need: newness.
And this is why a part of the book introduces a second version of marriage. Unlike traditional marriages, the modern version the book discusses satisfies both needs. How it works is, people still get married, but they remove the monogamy part. The book states that marriages would be more successful and divorce rates would significantly decline if only humans became honest with themselves that we were never meant to stick with one person only for the rest of our lives.
A case sample in the book is the characters Kate and Kyle, who are married, but they both enjoy the freedom of sleeping with whomever they please. Kate said marriage satisfies a human’s need for stability because you know you have someone to come home to. Someone to live life with. But when the yearning to explore with someone new kicks in, then both are free to do so without fear of hurting the other.
I’ll be honest. The first time I read this book, I actually thought it made sense. Aside from the fact that marriage was only invented to secure property and alliances, there is some truth to it that humans can never stay completely loyal to just one person. We have emotional cheating, physical cheating, and all kinds of cheating in between. Humans are, in my mother’s words, born carnal. People can’t help but feel desire not just for the partner they have promised loyalty to, but also for whoever they find desirable.
Will this arrangement work for some? Definitely.
For me? Definitely not.
It may be because of how I was raised and the community that surrounds me, but I think people should only get married if they commit to being with only that one person for the rest of their lives. I can’t imagine being married to one person and allowing each other to see other people.
If I wanted to do the latter, I would have just not gotten married at all.
At the end of the day, I think marriage means choosing one person not because you have no other options, but because you do—and you still choose them anyway. Maybe humans do crave both stability and novelty, but if you choose the “right” person, I know you’ll find both stability and newness within that same relationship, over and over again.
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