How social media is making you polygamous (Part One)

If monogamy and polygamy were products on sale, polygamy’s competitive advantage over monogamy would be the fact that it allows the one who practices it to enjoy the benefits of being in an intimate relationship without paying the full price of committing being in one.

It is easy to love someone, anyone, from a distance. But I can bet: everyone who has made the decision to get to know a person beyond their public image (which usually means starting to live with a person under one roof) has questioned if they really love their partner at all.

At the seabed of all human souls is a strong desire to be known and loved (for that is what true love is). Sadly, naturally, the more we know about a person, the lesser our willingness to continue loving them. 

When in love, we always convince ourselves that the person we are in love with is all good. This bubble, however, is soon burst when our lover's true nature is laid bare before us.

By default, we are all selfish. By default, we are all greedy. By default, we are all proud (stubborn to yield to any teaching, correction or discipline). These traits, deeply embedded within each human soul, are hard to detect in a non-intimate relationship because there, meddling in each other’s life is minimal.

On the other hand, choosing to have an intimate relationship is allowing another person to meddle in your life above the minimal with the often-accompanying assumption that your partner too has allowed you equal access in their life. It is this unrestricted access that allows a person in an intimate relationship to see their partner for who they truly are.

Unfortunately, because we all always make what is good about us public knowledge, most of what is often left to be discovered about a person is what is undesirable about them i.e. their selfishness, greed, pride, weaknesses, illnesses, etc.

An intimate relationship, therefore, can be defined as a journey one undertakes to get to know another person beyond what they like about them and committing to love them regardless of what they will find out about them. This is why in the Church of Jesus Christ, where marriage is monogamous, the vows for holy matrimony provide no way out of it until death. Marriage, as intending couples are always reminded before exchanging vows, is a decision one must take only after serious thought because loving a person whose shortcomings you have known is humanly very difficult.

To circumvent this difficulty, some have opted for polygamy where they get extra wives and/or mistresses—officially or otherwise.