Monogamy Quotes

Monogamy used to mean one person for life. Now monogamy means one person at a time. ~ Esther Perel

Monogamy was the first form of the family not founded on natural, but on economic conditions, viz.: the victory of private property over primitive and natural collectivism. ~ Friedrich Engels

[On STDs] This be Nature's way of recommending monogamy. ~ Martin Amis

Monogamy, monotony. There's only a couple of letters ... ~ Richard Linklater

When a man cheats, it is said it is because he is a dog. When a woman cheats, it is said it is because her man is a dog. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Happiness is pretty boring, hard to take - in a word, a pain in the neck. ~ Jorge Amado

We want different things. Men want to have sex with a woman. Then they want to have sex with another woman. And then another. Then they want to eat cornflakes and sleep for a while, and then they want to have sex with another woman, and another, until they die. Women,' and I thought I'd better pick my words carefully when describing a gender I didn't belong to, 'want a relationship. They may not get it, or they may sleep with a lot of men before they do get it, but ultimately that's what they want. That's the goal. Men do not have goals. Natural ones. So they invent them, and put them at either end of a football pitch. And then they invent football. Or they pick fights, or try and get rich, or start wars, or come up with any number of daft bloody things to make up for the fact that they have no real goals.'
'Bollocks,' said Ronnie.
'That, of course, is the other main difference. ~ Hugh Laurie

We are finally driven to monogamy not by morality but by exhaustion. ~ Erica Jong

I can't fly a flag for monogamy or whatever the opposite is; it depends on the person and on the situation. ~ Sting

Today, monogamy is one person at a time. ~ Esther Perel

Monogamy is a possibility - and a necessity. Kids have got to have something they can rely on. You have got to have something you rely on. ~ Bob Hoskins

I understood that if ever one wanted to live with someone you cooked for them and they came running. But then it is my idea of hell these days, living with someone. The idea of sharing your life with someone is just utterly ghastly. I know why people do it, but it's never a good idea. ~ Nigel Slater

People in open relationships enjoy exploring different dynamics with different people-sexual, emotional, psychological, and spiritual. Non-monogamy gives them the opportunity to create unique relationships that nourish and support each other. ~ Tristan Taormino

Monogamy, in brief, kills passion
and passion is the most dangerous of all the surviving enemies to what we call civilization, which is based upon order, decorum, restraint, formality, industry, regimentation. The civilized man
the ideal civilized man
is simply one who never sacrifices the common security to his private passions. He reaches perfection when he even ceases to love passionately
when he reduces the most profound of all his instinctive experiences from the level of an ecstasy to the level of a mere device for replenishing the armies and workshops of the world, keeping clothes in repair, reducing the infant death-rate, providing enough tenants for every landlord, and making it possible for the Polizei to know where every citizen is at any hour of the day or night. Monogamy accomplishes this, not by producing satiety, but by destroying appetite. It makes passion formal and uninspiring, and so gradually kills it. ~ H.L. Mencken

Monogamy is probably enforced because society if mostly comprised of beta males. ~ David M. Buss

If love wasn't conditional, every single first encounter with individuals of your 'preferred' gender would result in *love at first sight.* ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Almost everywhere people marry, monogamy is the official norm and infidelity the clandestine one. ~ Esther Perel

You see, his mother has thrown me out of the house because I was unfaithful to her. Or rather the faith I had wasn't the right kind. Given the absence of mind-reading technology, humans believe monogamy is possible. ~ Matt Haig

I think most people are wired to be monogamous for short periods at a time. The partner who is right for me at age twenty is not the partner who is necessarily right for me at age thirty, and so on. I think from my experiences, that about 20 percent of people are truly monogamous. By that I mean, when they're in love, they truly don't want or need anybody else. For them, monogamy is not a strain at all. Twenty percent of people are polyamorous or swinger types. They'll never be monogamous and don't want to be. The remain 60% of the population are stuck somewhere on a spectrum between happy monogamy and nonhappy monogamy. Some of because thats the vow they took and they're basically okay with it, and they don't want to be liars or cheaters. Some are actively angry about it and pick fights. Some are unhappy with it and, while they don't cheat, they do withdraw emotionally from their partners, giving themselves the worst of both worlds. Some are actively cheating but won't leave the marriage. Some people would be happy at home if they could get a little "strange" a few times a year and not have it be a big deal. They don't want o lose all they've built with their mates but just want a taste of something different. ~ Nina Hartley

Being faithful and monogamous is not natural for human beings. It takes work. Deep down we all know that. We have all been tempted to stray at some point or another. Even when it was only a fleeting thought and we didn't act on it. Every time we acknowledge that someone of the opposite sex is "attractive" or "sexy" we are doing nothing other than pointing out that they would be a suitable mate. Not acting on that natural impulse to want to mate with a viable mating partner requires a conscious decision. It's a constant struggle between what your body wants, and what the civilized part of your brain says you should do, in order to avoid the negative consequences of cheating on your spouse and ruining your long-term relationship. That's why affairs, and extra-marital sex, are often referred to as "a moment of weakness. ~ Oliver Markus Malloy

Eventually my rejection of authority spilled into self-indulgence and self-destructiveness, and by the time I enrolled in college, I'd begun to see how any challenge to convention harbored within it the possibility of its own excesses and its own orthodoxy. I started to reexamine my assumptions, and recalled the values my mother and grandparents had taught me. In this slow, fitful process of sorting out what I believed, I began silently registering the point in dorm-room conversations when my college friends and I stopped thinking and slipped into can't: the point at which the denunciations of capitalism or American imperialism came too easily, and the freedom from the constraints of monogamy or religion was proclaimed without fully understanding the value of such constraints, and the role of victim was too readily embraced as a means of shedding responsibility, or asserting entitlement, or claiming moral superiority over those not so victimized. ~ Barack Obama

I cant take it like this much longer, Milt," Karen said muffledly into the big CKC shirt with its male smell, allowing herself the luxury of letting the bars all the way down for once, enjoying for just this moment the eternal degradation of being a woman.
"I cant take it much longer," she whimpered, tasting it, the eternally caught and held hard in the grasp of some man, the forever humiliated heavy weight it was impossible to squirm out from under, the forever helpless except for the mercy of him who always takes what he wants without any, and that all women learn instinctively not to expect [ ... ] That was all they wanted. That was all any of them wanted. You give them the greatest thing you possess, the most intimate secret, and they
just take it. Well, let them have it. Let them all have some of it. Let them root and rut and rowel, as if it was no more important than that why were they all so anxious to keep it away from each other? ~ James Jones

Sometimes people have a wild past because they have an essentially wild nature, and that's how they plan to go through life. Sometimes such people settle into happy monogamy, and can be content there because they never have to wonder, "What did I miss?" ~ Emily Yoffe

She would keep him, keep his love, deserve it and cherish it, for this much was certain, that there was no longer any happiness possible for her without that one man's love. ~ Emmuska Orczy

The protagonist, Amanda, discusses her sex relationship with her husband, John Paul
As long as it's done with honesty and grace, John Paul doesn't mind if I go to bed with other men. Or with other girls, as is sometimes my fancy. What has marriage got to do with it? Marriage is not a synonym for monogamy any more than monogamy is a synonym for ideal love. To live lightly on the earth, lovers and families must be more flexible and relaxed. The ritual of sex releases its magic inside or outside the marital bond. I approach that ritual with as much humility as possible and perform it whenever it seems appropriate. As for John Paul and me, a strange spurt of semen is not going to wash our love away. ~ Tom Robbins

Why do we believe in and practice polygamy? Because the Lord introduced it to his servants in a revelation given to Joseph Smith, and the Lord's servants have always practiced it. 'And is that religion popular in heaven?' It is the only popular religion there ... ~ Brigham Young

Lifelong monogamy is a maniacal idea. ~ Germaine Greer

We just can't shake monogamy. It definitely demands a kind of rigor and discipline and selflessness. But it's also fun. ~ Claire Danes

I often think that woman is more free in Islam than in Christianity. Woman is more protected by Islam than by the faith which preaches monogamy. In AI Quran the law about woman is juster and more liberal. ~ Annie Besant

I was angry at myself for my inclination to vice. I longed for the day when a state of frenzy would lead my mind to sober pasture, just as it had for Saint Augustine. I longed for the day when the love of one woman would be sacred enough to forget all the rest. ~ Roman Payne

Making love with a woman and sleeping with a woman are two separate passions, not merely different but opposite. Love does not make itself felt in the desire for copulation (a desire that extends to an infinite number of women) but in the desire for shared sleep (a desire limited to one woman). ~ Milan Kundera

She [Hillary Clinton] knew that's who he[Bill clinton] was before they got married. It would have been hypocritical for her to insist on monogamy. ~ Rush Limbaugh

A dog's love is forever. We expect infidelity from one another; we marvel at this one's ability to hold that one's interest for fifty, sixty years; perhaps some of us feel a secret contempt for monogamy even as we extol it, wishing parole for its weary participants. But dogs do not receive our sympathy or our suspicion - from dogs we presume an eternal adoration. ~ Jennifer Egan

Perhaps the most radical aspect of queer politics was its claim not only to transcend the homo/hetero boundary but to do so in such a way as to challenge the sexual regulation and repression of heterosexual desire, above all female desire. Queer politics, it was claimed, had a lot to teach those accustomed to the narrow confines of 'male' and 'female' heterosexual roles in relationships. The re-working of notions of monogamy and the send-up of marriage through queer weddings, the greater sexual adventurism, the rejection of the concept of gay men and lesbians as 'victims' in favour of assertiveness and redefinition, and the emphasis on the creation of more egalitarian relationships in the domestic, sexual and social spheres, were all cited as examples of how queer could contribute to a new sexual agenda of empowerment. ~ Richard Dunphy

Monogamy, it follows, is the sacred cow of the romantic ideal, for it is the marker of our specialness: I have been chosen and others renounced. When you turn your back on other loves, you confirm my uniqueness; when your hand or mind wanders, my importance is shattered. Conversely, if I no longer feel special, my own hands and mind tingle with curiosity. The disillusioned are prone to roam. Might someone else restore my significance ~ Esther Perel

Have you heard of the Children of Mae?"
"The cult?" She knew of a religious group whose members went door to door, preaching the benefits of self-discipline - abstinence, celibacy or monogamy, vegetarianism - pretty much anything fun was prohibited. They had never come to Vesper's house because her father was a butcher and probably pretty low on their list of possible converts. ~ Colleen Chen

Talk about polygamy! There is no true philosopher on the face of the earth but what will admit that such a system, properly carried out according to the order of heaven, is far superior to monogamy for the raising of healthy, robust children! ~ Brigham Young

If you go to somebody's house for a barbecue, it is only a matter of time before a guest has six beers and begins to inveigh loudly about how the institution of marriage is a sham, how it's a violation of nature's will, how monogamy is an outmoded expectation that might have made sense for power-consolidating families in AD 600 but makes little sense now, when there's you know, high school flames you can look up on Facebook. This well-versed marriage critic will then burp loudly and fall asleep in a lawn chair for the rest of the night, which says all you need to know about his marriage. ~ Jason Gay

I want you to be my black vulture:forever monogamous! ~ Munia Khan

Monogamy is like a 40-watt bulb. It works, but it's not enough. ~ John Patrick Shanley

Monogamy is desirable for many reasons, especially in creating a stable, emotionally connected home for children. But judging from centuries of human behavior, it is also a very difficult standard to meet. ~ Mary Gaitskill

Monogamy is a way of getting the versions of ourselves down to the minimum. ~ Adam Phillips

Morals are nothing but a civilized society's attempt to tame some beast called man. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

This law of monogamy, or the monogamic system, laid the foundation for prostitution and the evils and diseases of the most revolting nature and character under which modern Christendom groans. ~ Orson Pratt

Straight couples don't have to be monogamous to be married or married to be monogamous. Monogamy no more defines marriage than the presence of children does. Monogamy isn't compulsory and its absence doesn't invalidate a marriage. ~ Dan Savage

How has the incessant, grinding campaign of socio-scientific insistence upon the naturalness of sexual monogamy combined with a couple thousand years of fire and brimstone failed to rid even the priests, preachers, politicians, and professors of their prohibited desires? To see ourselves as we are, we must begin by acknowledging that of all Earth's creatures, none is as urgently, creatively, and constantly sexual as Homo sapiens. ~ Christopher Ryan

Mr. Right' is usually two or eight men. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Infidelity is a deal breaker for me. I've broken up with people over it. You can't do monogamy 90 percent of the time. ~ Alanis Morissette

Even in the West, moreover, although the ethical ideal has been absolute monogamy, the legal norm has been merely relative monogamy, which is also known as successive polygamy. ~ J. Budziszewski

That's the thing with the young these days, isn't it? They watch too many happy endings. Everything has to be wrapped up, with a smile and a tear and a wave. Everyone has learned, found love, seen the error of their ways, discovered the joys of monogamy, or fatherhood, or filial duty, or life itself. In my day, people got shot at the end of films, after learning only that life is hollow, dismal, brutish, and short. ~ Nick Hornby

But the largest number of primate species--thirty-four--have a promiscuous system in which females routinely associate and copulate with multiple males. ~ Jared Diamond

Monogamy and prostitution go together. ~ Kate Millett

Me, I believe in monogamy in much the same way as I believe in, say, cheese on toast. I'll eat it, but only for very special people, and not for every meal. There are other interesting and delicious toast options out there, and I support people's right to investigate those options without being punished. ~ Laurie Penny

Jameson hadn't, however, counted on wanting her so bad that no one else even existed outside of her. He found himself thinking that he couldn't care less if he never fucked another woman again, as long as he could just be close to Tate. Just touch her whenever he wanted. If she said that, said she wanted monogamy between them, he thought he might actually say okay. For the first time ever in his life, he could almost picture it. ~ Stylo Fantome

Christianity fucked men and women up. Men feel guilty and women have misguided anger. The result, a weak male. Fucking controls on our behaviour. It's like a sickness. A control sickness. ~ Robert Black

Long-term heterosexual monogamy is still the dominant model: men and women still want to pair for a long period of time. ~ Monique Roffey

I don't think [being monogamous] is a natural instinct for human beings, but it doesn't mean I don't believe in monogamy or true love. I believe in finding a soul mate. Monogamy can be hard work for some people. I don't think it applies to everybody, and I don't think a lot of people can do it. ~ Scarlett Johansson

Only about 3 percent of animal species are monogamous. A couple of penguins, some otters and a few other oddball critters. To these select few it comes natural to mate for life and never look at another member of the opposite sex. Humans are not part of that little club. Like the other 97% of species, humans are not monogamous by nature. We just pretend that we are. ~ Oliver Markus

Sixth-grade sweethearts. Wow. New Yorkers only commit to that type of monogamy with the Yankees or Giants ~ Gwendolyn Heasley

..and monogamy as rare as an earthen eclipse. ~ Marissa Meyer

I reject monogamy as an affront to evolution. ~ Dan Brown

Through all this ordeal his root horror had been isolation, and there are no words to express the abyss between isolation and having one ally. It may be conceded to the mathematicians that four is twice two. But two is not twice one; two is two thousand times one. That is why, in spite of a hundred disadvantages, the world will always return to monogamy. ~ G.K. Chesterton

Marriage," "mating," and "love" are socially constructed phenomena that have little or no transferable meaning outside any given culture. The examples we've noted of rampant ritualized group sex, mate-swapping, unrestrained casual affairs, and socially sanctioned sequential sex were all reported in cultures that anthropologists insist are monogamous simply because they've determined that something they call "marriage" takes place there. No wonder so many insist that marriage, monogamy, and the nuclear family are human universals. With such all-encompassing interpretations of the concepts, even the prairie vole, who "sleeps with anyone," would qualify. ~ Christopher Ryan

When I tell her I feel like the other woman, she laughs, that's just learned sexist bullshit. We are all in charge of our own bodies and what we decide to do with them. We are all our own.
I believed it when she said it, like she'd opened up a new valve that had been stuck. I felt unconfined and open-minded and totally confused. Intellectually, non-monogamy made complete sense; emotionally, it felt like sandpaper across my eyelids. ~ Zoe Whittall

Human nature is such that monogamy is a really hard thing to achieve. ~ Sienna Miller

I still don't think monogamy is for everyone. But it's worked for us. And I wasn't ashamed to admit Teddy still gave me butterflies sometimes. When ~ G.L. Tomas

The plague of mankind is the fear and rejection of diversity: monotheism, monarchy, monogamy and, in our age, monomedicine. The belief that there is only one right way to live, only one right way to regulate religious, political, sexual, medical affairs is the root cause of the greatest threat to man: members of his own species, bent on ensuring his salvation, security, and sanity. ~ Thomas Szasz

There are 80,000 prostitutes in London alone and what are they, if not bloody sacrifices on the altar of monogamy? ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

The honor of acting as New Orleans's mascot comes with a profound responsibility to forsake stress, stability, sobriety, monogamy, respectability, and all manner of legitimate employment and lawful behavior. ~ Frenchy Brouillette

If love wasn't conditional, everybody would be in love with everybody. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

I think that monogamy is artificial. I do not think it's something that comes naturally to us. ~ Tom Ford

Mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters. But there were also husbands, wives, lovers. There were also monogamy and romance. "Though you probably don't know what those are," said Mustapha Mond. They shook their heads. Family, monogamy, romance. Everywhere exclusiveness, a narrow channelling of impulse and energy. "But every one belongs to every one else," he concluded, citing the hypnopaedic proverb. ~ Aldous Huxley

I don't want any misunderstandings between us. I can't make any promises."
"Ah. Commitment issues."
"Something like that."
She considered briefly and then nodded once. "Okay."
"Okay? That's all you can say?"
"I'm good with your issues if you're good with mine."
"Your issues don't begin to compare to mine," he warned.
"Now we're comparing issues?"
"You think running background checks on the guys you date constitutes a serious issue?"
She frowned. "Of course not. Paying someone to run background checks on my dates is just common sense. My issues are a lot more personal. I do not intend to discuss them with a man who isn't interested in having a relationship with me. Good night, Jack. Again."
"Wait. You're saying you're okay with my commitment issues?"
"Right. Now, if you're done with this conversation - "
"We're not having a conversation, we're conducting a damn negotiation."
She raised her brows. "Is that right?"
"Just to be clear - you'd be okay with a relationship based on the understanding that I've got a lousy track record in the relationship department?"
"I'll put my lousy track record up against yours anytime." She folded her arms. "However, I do insist on monogamy on both sides while we are involved in this uncommitted relationship."
Her voice was as tight as that of a gambler who was doubling down on a desperate bet.
"Agreed," he said. He did not want to think about her with another ma ~ Jayne Ann Krentz

Monogamy," he stated flatly. "While you're with me, I'm the only one. Anybody else touches you and I'll kill them."
"What if I accidently bump into someone?"
Gold flashed in his eyes. "Don't. ~ Ilona Andrews

Monogamy is god's way of making death seem like a more reasonable option. ~ Dov Davidoff

i don't mind if he's already married

but if he isn't married

then what the hell am i doing

letting this soul of a dude

walk down the streets completely bloody single

out in the open like that

all vulnerable like that

for just any woman's charm to hook him like that ~ Malab, The Komorébi

Men would like monogamy better if it sounded less like monotony. ~ Rita Rudner

The founders of that ancient empire were robbers and women stealers, and made laws favoring monogamy in consequence of the scarcity of women among them, and hence this monogamic system which now prevails throughout all Christendom, and which has been so fruitful a source of prostitution and whoredom throughout all the Christian monogamic cities of the Old and New World, until rottenness and decay are at the root of their institutions both national and religious. ~ Brigham Young

Pello, if I wanted two guys, I would have two guys, one's a big enough nuisance as it is. ~ Sally Courtnix

Monogamy, or restrictions by law to one wife, is no part of the economy of heaven among men. Such a system was commenced by the founders of the Roman Empire ... Rome became the mistress of the world, and introduced this order of monogamy wherever her sway was acknowledged. Thus this monogamic order of marriage, so esteemed by modern Christians as a hold sacrament and divine institution, is nothing but a system established by a set of robbers. ~ Brigham Young

I had met my now wife, Sheryl, and was attempting my first try at monogamy, which was not really in my nature at the time, and I wasn't able to do it. ~ Rob Lowe

Monogamy is the Western custom of one wife and hardly any mistresses. ~ Hector Hugh Munro

Tequila--a sure cure for monogamy. ~ Lois Greiman

Only species in nature that doesn't commit adultery and in which there seems to be one hundred percent monogamy is a flatworm, Diplozoon paradoxum. ~ Paulo Coelho

I don't know, monogamy is a weird thing for me. ~ Sienna Miller

For any couple, once you delve into the idea of non-monogamy, you're entering pretty frightening territory. ~ Zoe Lister-Jones

Now I'm just like everybody else, and it's so funny,
the way monogamy is funny, the way
someone falling down in the street is funny.
I entered a revolving door and emerged
as a human being. When you think of me
is my face electronically blurred? ~ Jeffrey McDaniel

If you held your head the right way and squinted, we could practically pass for marmosets. Well, the lack of fur and the use of indoor plumbing would give us away, but you get the point. Monogamy is rare among animals, as we have seen, but hardly unheard of. ~ Marlene Zuk

Accursed from their birth they be Who seek to find monogamy, Pursuing it from bed to bed - I think they would be better dead. ~ Dorothy Parker

Monogamy is a tricky thing. I don't think it's for everyone, but I've chosen that life, and there's no question in my relationship. ~ Joanna Garcia

Inside the boundaries of the old paradigm there's no hope, there's no way out of the box of capitalism, monogamy, consumer fetishism, egoism, money worship, no way out. No way. No way out! ~ Terence McKenna

Culture preaches monogamy while Nature repeats it - over and over again. ~ Anthony Marais

The industrial age has transformed our material well-being, but these improvements have come at the cost of our beliefs: belief in our special place in the universe; belief in an omnipresent god; belief in country and community; belief in monogamy and marriage, and belief in our values. What, then, holds up the foundations of society when these beliefs finally fall away? ~ Sean A. Culey

Monogamy is monotonous, but it's safe you know. And that's my philosophy. And I like to convey that to people. ~ Joy Behar

Woman wants monogamy;
Man delights in novelty.
Love is woman's moon and sun;
Man has other forms of fun.
Woman lives but in her lord;
Count to ten, and man is bored.
With this the gist and sum of it,
What earthly good can come of it? ~ Dorothy Parker

The first class antagonism appearing in history coincides with the development of the antagonism of man and wife in monogamy, and the first class oppression with that of the female by the male sex. ~ Friedrich Engels

I was always anti-marriage. I didn't understand monogamy. I couldn't figure out how that could last. And then I met Bryn and I started to understand the beauty of constancy and history and change and going on the roller coaster with someone - of having a partner in life. ~ Maria Bello

Love is cursed by monogamy ~ Kanye West

Mr. Monogamy doesn't find my shenanigans funny? Oh thank god, if you did I'd have to chuck it all and join a monastery. ~ Kim Cormack

Monogamous heterosexual love is probably one of the most difficult, complex and demanding of human relationships. ~ Margaret Mead