[Exenith]

I also have doubts that the benefit is due to monogamy. Hell, I have doubts that the benefit is due to a relationship. It could merely be because the people have a close companion.

How many friends do you sleep in the same room with, wake up to, go to work with, and have fun with? None, right? The thing is, that situation was the norm for most of humanity. It's not a surprise that so many people are neurotic. It's not a surprise that it makes us a bit happier to have that situation partially fulfilled.

I'd like to see a study comparing the happiness of close-knit, tribal, polygamous communities with close-knit, tribal, monogamous communities.

[swombat]

I'd like to see a study comparing the happiness of close-knit, tribal, polygamous communities with close-knit, tribal, monogamous communities.

Just to nit-pick - I'm not sure how that study would help you in making your decisions. After all, you are not living in a close-knit tribal community, but in a vast and complex global community. What works in the context of life fifty thousand years ago may very well be disastrous in today's radically different world.

So, what you really need is a study comparing the happiness levels of polygamists and monogamists in today's society, controlling for factors like how deliberate the choice is (as pointed out in the parent comment, some polygamists are so because they can't get a long-term relationship, rather than by choice). I.e. the study referred to in this article - but done properly.

</nit-pick>

[collyw]

I think the point is to at least try to have a control for the experiment. Social experiments like these are going to be difficult to eliminate all other variables, but this is probably as close as we are likely to achieve.

[enraged_camel]

>>I also have doubts that the benefit is due to monogamy. Hell, I have doubts that the benefit is due to a relationship. It could merely be because the people have a close companion.

It could also be that those who are happy are more likely to end up in a relationship.

[eli_gottlieb]

Last I heard, most close-knit tribal communities are actually more-or-less monogamous. The main binding structure is the extended family, not extended sexual networks.

[barry-cotter]

They're serially monogamous, not life long exclusive pair bonds. Not that those don't exist but they're mostly a minority pursuit.

The below quotation gives a flavour of what it's like for the Irish non working class, living in or applying for social housing. From what I've read of the book Promises I Can Keep and Charles Murray's Coming Apart it's pretty close to the situation in the US non working class, with the no college working class trending that way.

==

I don’t care if you break up with your significant other, spouse, or what it was, or who was at fault, but if I get one more file like the soap opera I have just been handed this week (you may wish to take notes)…

…wherein Household A comprised of B, C and child D and Household Q comprised of R, S and children T and U have both had applications in for a couple of years for social housing.

(i) Household A’s application failed because the parties B and C were not in communication with us as to whether they wanted to proceed. B did not answer our letter, C did; they’ve since split up and are at different addresses. More letters on our part to the new addresses. B doesn’t answer but C does, he still wants to apply for a house because now he’s with a new partner and they have a new baby. Fine, that’s what we’re here for.

(ii) Household Q’s application has been approved. Except that R and S have also since split up, but they never bothered to tell us, and I only discovered this because

(iii) C and S are now cohabiting. And have a new (third) application in for social housing. All of which means:

(iv) We don’t know where B is; we presume she took child D with her wherever she is now. Maybe she will or maybe she won’t apply for social housing on her own behalf. R’s application which has been approved now has to be nullified or something of the like because the circumstances have changed. R may be cohabiting with a new partner and with a new baby of their own; we don’t know and will have to find out.

Meanwhile, C and S and her children T and U and their new baby W are all in a fourth new address, have a new application in as Household Y, and will have to be processed as soon as we disentangle Household A’s application, deal with terminating Household Q’s application, and enter Household Y’s application with the two persons from A and Q that the computer system – which was not designed to deal with the game of “musical chairs” when it comes to swapping your partners – won’t let us assign C and S to a new application because they’re already on the system with their prior applications.

And that means delay, which means C and S (and possibly R and/or B) will be on the phone yelling at us about being on the housing list with years and why the delay when they’re qualified they’re going to the local paper, their local councillor, their local representative about this!

You can see why I’m all NO CANOODLING UNTIL YOU SORT YOURSELVES OUT AND GIVE US ALL AND I DO MEAN ALL THE PERTINENT DETAILS IN A TIMELY MANNER, I trust?

[jtheory]

Eh, read between the lines here. That's written specifically to seem confusing & crazy. It's not. Two families split up because one partner from each formed a single new couple.

That's all that happened. It's only "complicated" in the writer's mind because the two families had put in applications in the same apparently-awful social housing computer system.

The complaint about needing this info "in a timely manner" is a bit ironic... the original two applications have apparently been pending for "a couple of years" before the story even begins.

[sliverstorm]

Or it could even be that only happy people can hold down a relationship.

[potatojerky]

> I'd like to see a study comparing the happiness of close-knit, tribal, polygamous communities with close-knit, tribal, monogamous communities.

Not a study, but National Geographic did an in-depth piece on the Hadza people in 2009 that you may find interesting. It's available on their web site in full. If I remember correctly, the journalist described them as 'serial monogamists', having many monogamous relationships throughout their lifetime.

[Dewie]

> How many friends do you sleep in the same room with, wake up to, go to work with, and have fun with? None, right? The thing is, that situation was the norm for most of humanity.

I do not like the idea of sleeping in the same room as other people on a regular basis and in general being around them most of the time. I need some privacy or else I get cranky.

Distance makes the heart grow fonder.