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Comment by tifik | Hacker News Reader

How do you address jealousy? Im very much on board with the idea in general, and have given it quite a bit of thought, but I’ve never been fully sold on the idea that jealousy is fully based on social constructs

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I find it funny that poly relationships will insist on talking about feelings but get very uncomfortable at any sign of jealousy or attachment.

In a poly I would guess people need to feel attached to a group not a single individual, in a sense loving all people in the group almost equally. Mostly, we are not raised that way and culturally it would be unconventional, to say the least.

Loving people equally is impossible. Even poly people have a 'primary' introducing hierarchy and preference.

A group of people sleeping together is not a stable community. It's filled with people who are trying to sleep with other people inside and outside of the group who are vocal about being able to spend time, money, and effort on others for sex. There's nothing binding a group like this together besides sex.

Even normal community activities like volunteering or sports clubs have drama and people who end up hating each other. Add sex in the mix and you've created an explosive dynamic.

I tend to agree. I was describing how I think it could work and how I suppose it worked before. Nowadays, when contact with many people outside of the group is ubiquitous, I think it's next to impossible, but maybe there's people out there that make it work. Good for them, if they found a way.

Family is the original community

Depends on how far back you go.

It helps to deconstruct what jealousy is. Is it the fear of losing someone to others? Or is it possessiveness? He or she are mine like property? Or we are simply conditioned to react like that given certain situations that triggers jealousy? I found it’s easier to deal with jealousy once I understood the source of it and treat jealousy like a symptom not the cause.

These are good insights, but I meant how do you adress it within the concept of a non monogamous society.

First you'd have to know what it is that you want to address, right?

How do you address the feeling that the non-committed person you're sleeping with

1) Does not prioritize you

2) Finds somebody they like more than you

3) Not actually happy with you but still uses you

4) Is going to get STDs from other people

5) Will have less and less time for you because of others

6) Believes children can be raised "by a village" instead of their own hard work

7) Wants to involve other people in your life

8) Births a child with somebody else (maybe?) as the parent

9) The mere thought of them with another person grosses you out

I tend to believe self-assured people do not become jealous as they don't terminally depend on a relationship. This of course depends on age, how social someone is or the population size in the area. This is a general human problem, the traditional answer of "ownership" has problems of its own.

All good points, but this doesnt really answer my question. If we imagine this hypothetical non-monogamous society, with no social constructs incentivizing monogamy, jealousy being in human nature would remain a driver towards monogamy. I imagine historically this is how most religions arrived at propagating monogamy. In christianity and judaism for both genders, or in islam for female monogamy, as jealousy was such a common driver of conflict that may even escalate into wars. Enforcing monogamy as the moral choice has some merit, if it avoids bloodshed, though obviously ideally people capable of being in non-monogamous relationships shouldnt be punished for being in one.

"Historically" is a narrow term, we don't know much of our 50k years of history, or what we know of, societies handled this very creatively. Like how sleeping with outsiders was not a taboo due to needing new genetic material, or that childrens would be raised communally as parents might often die or not present to do other tasks. I don't see this inevitability of monogamy - my kitchen table theory is that the current state of >mostly monogamism< was driven by a globalising world (even 1-2k years ago) that favored imperialism, standardization, expansion, relied on the heavy physical labour while being very resource constrained. Religions placating chivalry and honor were a supporting policing tool.

All of the "classical sins" could be described as are human nature regardless of relationship type. Note that as an alternative I don't just think of flat hierarchy polyamory here, any non-heteronormative relationship or constellations that revolve around a "main relationship".

In a world of industry standards, automatization, light and flexible work hours, easy communication and high mobility I think we need to be creative again. Especially how this above evolution seems to reach its limits, and "scale to the moon" does not seem to work (dead internet) and we're in dire need of small, informal communities again. I see much more openness to this from the younger western generation.

Replying to myself in case my point isnt clear - Im postulating that monogamy being some sort of “default” is inevitable, given enough time to evolve, regardless of how you setup the starting parameters.

People who do not depend on relationships simply don't enter into relationships.

For everybody else, there is the normal and perfectly human feelings of jealousy, attachment, fear or loss, and feeling associated with self-confidence.

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