An Old Man's Game:

A Holistic Gen Z-er's response to the Petersonian Conception of Monogamy

As someone who was raised just on the cusp of modern technology proliferation of the internet, cell phones and all other attendant apps & gadgets, this has directly impacted my experience of love, relationships and the societal rules that shape these games we play. In conjunction with living in the aftershocks of the sexual revolution of early wave feminism, the civil rights movement and the cultural revolution of the 60s and 70s; growing up in the late 90s/early 2000s has been quite a wild, confusing time when it comes to love.

Not only do we have social media and dating apps, but we have the social mores that would’ve prevented these dating apps from existing in the first place essentially wiped away. As someone who has experience both the boons and busts of the sappy but irresistibly sweet hometown sweetheart monogamy as well as the open season polygamy and/or serial monogamy that is available nowadays for those who would choose it, it is quite the conundrum to know what to do with monogamy and ultimately marriage.

Someone who has certainly put much thought into the subject is Dr. Jordan Peterson. He is a quite a vocal advocate of this institution for reasons we’ll get into. He is also quite popular, especially with young men on Youtube.

In this article I want to explore what I’ve experienced in the modern dating game, being somewhat ‘successful’, then compare & contrast what JBP has to say about his general take on things. As someone who hasn’t been married, my point of view is speculative when it comes to experience but there are many developments to the institution of marriage within the last 50 years that need to be addressed in contrast with JBP’s perspective.

Because he’s been a monogamous fellow the majority of his adult life, he is decidedly pro-monogamy. Generally, I lean towards monogamy as well, but I have given polygamy an earnest try, somewhere in between being an ‘ethical slut’, a ‘pickup artist’ and just living in line with what seems to be evolutionary consistent to my capability in life. While I agree with JBP in much of his conception of monogamy, it seems that he fails to address many significant challenges and developments to monogamy, that if he properly did so, would allow him to make a more persuasive argument to those who are actively pursuing polygamy or who are just dealing as best they can with the current devastated state of the dating game.

So: away…we…go…

First off, it is important to address holistically the historical development of the institution of marriage. JBP often elucidates the beautiful ideal of what marriage could be: “integration into a more sophisticated game of a mutually wonderful long-term relationship that is preferable to the short-term gratification of serial and/or sporadic relationships”, to paraphrase the attached video. Yet this is an ideal, many people can achieve this, many do not. Historically speaking, this was exceedingly rare.

Marriage has been, for most of history, an economic institution designed to divvy up, negotiate and exchange property, fertility & power, to a large degree. There was of course consideration for compatibility but that, more often than not came second. Marriage, for the large part of humanity has been born out of economic necessity. Raising children, for most of human history has been difficult and expensive. Marriage has been a great way to ensure generational socio-economic stability over the long term.

The ideal would be nice but for most of history everyone is choosing this useful but far from perfect social norm out of economic utility. It is then it is going to be enforced, because otherwise destabilizing the socio-economic order undermines and debases the choices of those around you. If the ideal can then be eventually developed out of this economic base, fantastic, but it is foolish and erroneous to believe that that happened in the majority of cases.

This radically changed in the US in the late 60s and early 70s with first wave feminism. With women on equal economic grounds, the emphasis on love and compatibility increased. In addition to birth control, the connection between economic concerns, intimacy and pleasure became further detached and the sexual revolution was born. Over the proceeding decades further liberalization of social norms in conjunction with an exacerbating relationship with technology created the modern dating scene that we have today that is exemplified in many universities and large, dynamic cities. A hook-up culture that is largely defined by alcohol, social-status and sexual promiscuity.

There has also been a considerable development among younger cohorts of being more emotionally and psychologically sophisticated, on balance, than their parents and grandparents’ generations, especially men. This is a general phenomenon manifesting in myriad ways, but in the context of our discussion, it is especially important to note that there’s a growing understanding of relational trauma and the psychology behind it.

This is important now adays because this leads to a significant sense of hesitancy in dating long term because it is increasingly evident that one has a significant likelihood of choosing a mate that will lead to some sort of hellish relationship, where all the worst parts of your family of origin are repeated between you and your significant other. A 50% divorce rate testifies to the potency of this phenomenon.

Further statistical evidence of marriage remaining popular among ‘upper classes’, mainly folks with bachelor degrees or higher, with the relative income, denotes the veracity of the understanding of marriage as an economic institution, at least in significant part. We choose our mates based on the beliefs and behaviors they around money, love, child-rearing, their politics and education level. It is also difficult and time consuming to pursue career fulfillment now adays. Having a partner on the same track as you is significantly beneficial. Birds of feather flock together. These are general sociological realities.

The dark side of this phenomenon attests to the 50% divorce rate previously mentioned. Though we often choose our mates for the positive compatibility we share around the domains above, we also choose them because the nervous systems of how we resonate with money, love and family, etc. may stem from a sense of familiarity and comfort, which can be fundamentally formed by relational abuse. Romantic relationships are often the domain where we unconsciously recreate our family system of origin to work through the trauma we underwent hitherto. If this is consciously undertaken as a task, then the couple stands to make wonderful progress. If, as it is for many, done so unconsciously, then we often project our issues onto and demonize our partners, creating that hellish, relationship nightmare.

In summation, it is easy to see that the historical phenomena we’ve been discussing create a current cultural climate that does not make it easy to choose monogamy as the de facto best solution to the question of how to best go about one’s dating life.

There is much allure in the promiscuity of the dating scene nowadays, especially with sexual hygiene the best it’s ever been in conjunction with the most exploratory and open culture ever in western history. Things your local coffee barista posts on her only-fans that you may be able to experience if you have the proper charm to entice her to a hook-up would have gotten her burned and you excommunicated or flogged 500 years ago.

There is also the ability to enjoy the maturation of one’s sexual preferences to then bring into a long-term relationship. Being that one now does not have to limit oneself to one partner or very few over a lifetime, the Joys of sex can be fully explored to one’s content until the desire for a long-term relationship has matured. Tinder, Hinge and the other dating apps provide access to domain of improvement if one is to take a conscious, responsible approach to dating. Learning how to access one’s charisma, desires & desirability with the opposite sex is something that can be very rewarding and will further parlay into relational success.

Now how do we square these modern developments with JBPs robust, if perhaps overly idealistic, monogamy ideal. First, let’s lay out what he believes the roll of monogamy is in further detail.

JBP asserts that in addition to fulfilling the beautiful ideal that we laid out earlier, marriage as a social institution is predominantly about controlling male aggression born out of jealousy and striving.

This is an interesting set up to marriage per se, because it seems to ignore to a degree the economic utility of marriage, although this conception seemingly accounts to it to some degree – if you’re married and have a decent job, then you’re less likely to be violent and jealous if you just have a job. He claims that all polygamous societies are extraordinarily more violent than those that are not. Concomitantly he claims that the answer to the problem of male aggression has always been monogamy.

This last point seems to be most certainly not true. For many cultures, the rulers had harems, as did the nobility. Though to give Dr. Peterson the benefit of the doubt, perhaps he is speaking only of western societies. He also asserts, at least in the attached video, that short term relationships reliably or probabilistically produce ‘violent’ outcomes. Once again, this seems to just not be true, or he is likely referring to strictly criminological data that he does not refer the source of.

I do agree with JBP, and it’s not really a matter of opinion, on several points. One; two parent, monogamous homes, are most certainly better for children than otherwise, sociologically. Two, life is lonely and difficulty and bearing that with someone else over a long term, committed relationship is certainly better than going it alone, particularly if one does not have access to other pillars of an enjoyable life.

He also instantiates that marriage is a vital aspect of society; connecting a couple into an interdependent network of their family and friends, declaring in public that they intend to make a go of it with their best intentions and over the long-haul does seem like a wonderfully important thing.

An interesting aspect of the assertion of marriage being used to control male aggression is that it seems to rest on the implication that the women will be in the role of mothering or ‘taming’ the aggression in the relationship, or at least be a catalyst for that. This seems to be an odd point; in that it seems both unfair to women (men should have at least some semblance of awareness and sovereignty over their ability to relate effectively to others without women being the chief arbiter of their proper display of aggression). It also paints many young men as totally incapable of being able to achieve centering of their emotional state through means outside of a relationship, say through a spiritual practice or a martial art. Dating as well, can also be a tremendously refining process of one’s rougher edges. JBP seems to have no inkling of these other domains existing, at least in this exchange captured in the video.

Later in the video he and Dalrymple discuss why they believe that men hold back from committing to women in marriage. They rightly critique the flimsy excuse that it is ‘just a piece of paper’, when in fact it is so much more. But it seems to me they miss the depths of the problem, particularly for modern men, in choosing to close the door on sexual availability in exchange for monogamy. The reason they seem to miss, which is surprising considering JBP talks about it in other places, is hypergamy.

With the tendency for women to mate up and across hierarchies of dominance, it is no surprise that men nowadays would find it quite risky to settle on one woman when we consider the nature of hypergamy. For men, they are at the bottom of the dominance hierarchy, generally, when they are young and eventually work their way up over a lifetime. A man typically becomes more socially adept, richer, more refined and desirable, over time and up until a point. A man can till be virile and highly desirable up into his mid-60s, perhaps even early 70s. A women on the other hand has her ‘peak’ of value in her 30s, from a biological perspective.

Is it any wonder then, given the dramatic proliferation in the rise of access to sexual encounters and novelty through relaxed social norms and technology, that men would forego a long-term commitment to one woman at the expense of keeping open a nearly endless increasing array of higher quality and quantity mates as they proceed up the dominance hierarchy? Or if he be a stronger man than I, at least feel significant pressure and discontent with his mate of choice? Especially so given the apps are in a evolutionary arms race designed to hack your novelty seeking brain.

This is all fairly cynical and viewed from a materialistic, evolutionary standpoint, ignoring the need for intimacy. Yet it is important to grasp the true depth and novelty of the afore elucidated problem to properly address it (as is a running theme here).

Overall, monogamy is definitely a good thing and on balance I believe it is still the best way to go about living a good life. But it is important to note and deal with the dramatic social and technological changes wrought over the last 60 years. The proposition of marriage is far from as simple as it once was, and that is saying something because it has always been complex.