Mononormativity

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. It has been widely tied to various forms of discrimination or bias against polyamory.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.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

The term is also used to instead describe monosexual normativity, akin to monosexism.

Background

Analysis 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". Frederich Engels. ''The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State'', 1884. (Wikisource)

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."

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.

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. 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.

Mononormative society

A 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 expectationsEaston and Hardy, ''The Ethical Slut''

"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."More Than Two Is a Crowd": Mononormativity and Gross Indecency in the Criminal Code, 1981–82.

"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."Quoted by Gordon-Orr, Rose. "Mononormativity and Related Normative Bias in the UK Immigration System: The Experience of LGBTIQ+ Asylum Seekers". vi
''Frontiers in Human Dynamics''
Volume 3, MCCS Goldsmiths University of London, 23 July 2021. 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. 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".Interviewed by Sean Illing
''A philosopher makes the case for polyamory''
Vox.com, 18 February 2018. Retrieved 20 October 2023.

See also

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References

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Intimate relationships
Romance
Polyamorous terminology