[revx]

Neat article, but very eurocentric. "Inventing" free love here very much feels like "discovering" America.

Currently reading Sex, Sin and Zen by Brad Warner, which offers a (westerner's) take on the relationships between sexuality and Buddhism, which I'm finding fascinating.

IIRC there were also indigenous American cultures that had nonmonogamous marriage/relationship structures but I don't have a source for that off hand.

[eesmith]

> but very eurocentric

And Christian European to boot. Take: "But for centuries in Europe, nobody openly defended, and few dared to imagine the possibility of, greater sexual freedom for both men and women; and no one discussed alternative sorts of relationships. There was one exception: a few authors defended male polygamy, as sanctioned in the Bible."

I know very little about the Iberian peninsula under Islamic rule, but reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abd_al-Rahman_III with "His natural hair was described as being reddish-blond, and he apparently wished to avoid looking like a Visigoth (from many European concubines in his ancestry), desiring to look more like an Umayyad Arab." makes me pretty certain that that non-monogamous {wife + concubine(s)} was established in that part of Europe.

"Polygyny , Concubinage, and the Social Lives of Women in Viking-Age Scandinavia" byt Ben Raffield, Neil Price, and Mark Collard at https://www.brepolsonline.net/doi/pdf/10.1484/J.VMS.5.114355 also points out evidence for multiple wives and concubines in Scandinavia. And it adds "it is estimated that 85 per cent of societies in the anthropological record have practised some degree of polygyny, and many societies around the world continue to do so today".

[blululu]

Kidnapping and raping slaves is not really the same as free love or a polyamory.

[eesmith]

Sure, but "free love or a polyamory" isn't sanctioned in the Bible, which is what that quote was about, in the context of But for centuries in Europe, and I'm making the comment equivalent of an eyeroll for treating "Europe" as equivalent to "Christian Europe."

Here's what I think is the Milton reference, https://archive.org/details/atreatiseonchri00miltgoog/page/n... .

> or it is said, Deut. xxiii. 2. a bastard shall not enter into the congregation qf Jehovah, even to his tenth generation. Either therefore polygamy is a true marriage,* or all children born in that state are spurious; which would include the whole race of Jacob, the twelve holy tribes chosen by God. But as such an assertion would be absurd in the extreme, not to say impious, and as it is the height of injustice, as well as an example of most dangerous tendency in religion, to account as sin what is not such in reality;"

His more in-depth discussion starts at https://archive.org/details/atreatiseonchri00miltgoog/page/n... , investigating each of the relevant verses from the Bible which the Church used to inform its prohibition.

(Note that while Milton died in 1674, the manuscript wasn't found until 1823, well after "Free love was invented in 1792".)

There isn't much about "his German contemporary Johann Leyser" in English, though I've verified that he was a public proponent of polygamy by reading the German Wikipedia entry at https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Leyser .

Further, "Western Polygamy? Some Reflections on Witte’s new book" By Rafael Domingo at https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/55608020/Wittes_On_Pol... comments:

> Witte analyzes the writings of John Milton, Gilbert Burnet, Johann Leyser, Martin Madan, and others who argued that the Bible allowed for polygamy alongside monogamy.

These are not free love nor polyamory.

[gmnash]

The difference in average size of the sexes in humans (sexual dimorphism) is associated with some degree of polygyny (males tend to be larger).

[eesmith]

What does that even mean? Cultures where the population is more sexual dimorphic tend to be have more polygyny?

Or cultures with more polygyny tend towards sexual dimorphism?

Or is this a meaningless correlation?

How is this supposed to explain why the early Latter Day Saint movement were polygamous when they were from the same genetic population as other white Americans in western New York?

Or how Muslim Iberia maintained polygamous traditions despite an increasing genetic contribution from monogamous Christian Europe?

Or how Norse monogamy appears to have increased after the introduction of Christianity, even among the same genetic population?

Or how non-monogamous relationships are increasing in the US even after only 20 years? That's too fast to be caused by a change in population genetics.

Simply put, I don't see how your claim makes any sense. What sources did you use to come to your conclusion?