Dating : Toxic Monogamy Perpetuates Rape Culture

Monogamy has a weird course of evolution — and it is based on ownership and not respect.

Culturally, up to the 18th century, it used to be not only accepted but also expected for men to have extra-marital affairs, while women did not. Women were generally seen as objects, slaves, household personnel more than an equal party in the marriage — even if the economical reason of getting married was closely tied to the woman bringing wealth into the family.

Women were thought to be less capable of fending for themselves, they were thought to be unable to make decisions on their own — and that left them perceived as less autonomous human beings. On the other hand, men were fully capable of deciding about their own fate — including getting involved romantically with another party. For this capability, men were allowed to what women weren’t: seek happiness out of the marital territory.

Women were expected to be monogamous, for they were perceived to be incapable of making decisions. It had nothing to do with love or respect — monogamy wasn’t about that — it was about ownership and decisionmaking.

With the cultural changes and the uprise of feminism, slowly this setup has changed. And it took a weird direction. Instead of granting the same freedom of choice for both the husband and the wife that used to be exclusively reserved for the husband, both of them were taken away their decision-making ability in terms of happiness seeking. The husband owns wife setup changed into an everyone-owns-everyone setup — in the name of equality.

It didn’t give the same rights to the women as the men used to have, it took away the rights of the man to match the lack of thereof of women.