That's not necessarily true. Just last night my wife and I watched "Dr. Marsten and the Wonder Women", a movie about Dr. William Moulton Marston, his wife Elizabeth and their mutual lover Olive. The women stayed together even after William died. So it can work out. But it's extremely rare, and not just because of social pressures. It's hard enough to find two people who are mutually compatible. The problem of matching people up gets exponentially harder as N grows.
I'm not familiar with Dr. Marston, but Wikipedia tells me he was "an American psychologist, inventor of an early prototype of the lie detector, self-help author, and comic book writer who created the character Wonder Woman."
He was in a long-term polyamorous relationship with two women, but that only adds support for Erik816's point that polyamorous relationships benefit high-status men... do you disagree that Dr. Marsten was a high-status person during his lifetime?
No. He started out that way (a college professor) but he was fired when his relationship with Olive became known. He then struggled for a long time before inventing Wonder Woman. But even then, comic book author was not a "high status" profession in 1940.
But my point is this: saying that polyamorous relationships "work out great if you are a high status male" implies that they invariably do not work out great if you are a female, and the Marsten family is a data point that refutes that (implied) part of the claim. It might be the case that polyamory generally works out better for high-status males than anyone else, but so what? Playing football generally works out better for men than for women too, but that's no reason not to let anyone who wants to try to play football.
I think he is implying they dont work well for low-status males. Males in particular are known for getting violent in desperate efforts to accrue the status necessary to secure a mate. It’s not like marriage is perfect because some low-status males will always fail to find a partner but if you make that a significant percentage of the population I would expect society to destabilize.
Maybe it would force some males to work on self-improvement...
Also, remember that, over the age of 30, women outnumber men. By the age of 50 or so, there's a clear majority. Older women would be better off if they shared mates.
Finally, remember that polyamory is not the same as polygamy. It could also benefit men who want more space in a relationship, or have had failed relationships because of this, since with polyamory your partner doesn't have to be upset that you don't spend so much time together, as they can spend time with their other partner(s).
I was really talking about the type of poor man that ends up in gangs im places like Chicago. I remember a podcast that talked how even pretty heavily punished violent crimes like murder actually helped some of these men gain social status(I can’t quite find the reference right now).
Part of my argument is that in the right circumstances the partially sexually mediated drive for status in males turns violent. It seems like things like marriage and monogamy restrain this impulse and we all benefit from it.
Notice that I really don’t see marriage or monogamy as centrally enforced but rather as an emergent pattern of behavior that has been adopted by most societies and then codified into law. I presume it was this widely adopted because the individuals doing the marrying believed it was the best option at the time.
Overall I would say that although the institution has to evolve to accomodate women’s control over their reproduction and the vast economic potential women have to offer, we are probably not so special and different now that we ought do away with it.
Regarding your point about aging, I actually think that should take a back seat to the wellbeing of children. It still seems to me like monogamy and marriage are the best vehicles we have today for raising them. Even if polyamory could potentially provide some benefits to the parents, I think those are the type of sacrifices that people gladly do for the well-being of their children.
So basically it seems that you're saying that women need to be willing to suffer and live in lousy relationships so that they can keep shitty men from turning violent and also so children can grow up in idealized 2-parent families (many with these men with violent tendencies).
The way I see it, the reason our society seems to be falling apart now is that women now have power and wealth, and aren't forced to settle for lifelong marriages to shitty, abusive men and being relegated to being full-time mothers whether they want that life path or not.
Case studies make for bad statistics. I wouldn't want to make the rules for all of society just because it allegedly worked out for one group(?) of people.
The Marsten family lived at a time when societal acceptance of alternative lifestyles was much lower than it is today, and it caused them a lot of grief. Polyamorous relationships don't work for most people (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17320556) but that's not a good reason to adopt rules that discriminate against the minority for whom it does work.
