In 1912, the Provisional Law of the Republic of China officially abolished polygamy, just over a century ago. Worldwide, "monogamy" can be traced back to ancient Greece more than 2,300 years ago. What is the original intention of this ancient system? How many dramatic mutations or even deteriorations have occurred since then?

The Origin of Monogamy

Building a marriage in love and managing love through marriage are both polite and legal choices for modern people. The premise for us to accept such an agreement is that "monogamy" is the almost universally recognized "trinity" of sexual, emotional and family relationships between men and women. Finding passion in marriage has become what it should be.

But things are never that simple. As early as the 3rd and 4th centuries BC in Athens, which created "monogamy", Solon's code added a hint of compulsion to the agreement on the relationship between husband and wife: the husband must have sex with his wife at least once a month. three times.

The citizens of Athens arrogantly called themselves "free men". In addition to having sex with boys as a fashion at the time, they also confidently defended their various non-marital passionate lives, "We have mistresses to enjoy pleasure; keeping concubines is for In order for them to take care of us every day." In contrast, marrying a wife "is only to have a legitimate offspring and a loyal female guardian of the family" (Demosthenes' Defense "Refutation of Niela").

In the theaters at that time, although there were also dramas in which wives complained about their husbands' "infidelity," it was mostly because the wife's fall from grace would cause the children to lose their status as legitimate heirs, and the mother and son would be in the dilemma of being enslaved by others. Euripides' "Medea" is such a tragedy. According to the provisions of Solon's Code, if an Athenian man commits rape driven by greed, the punishment he receives is not as severe as abducting a boy.

It was under such folk customs and institutional conditions that the sage Aristotle proposed the original "monogamy" morality: it is a shameful act for a husband or wife to have sexual relations with an unmarried partner. Given that "mutual fidelity" between men and women was still a completely foreign thing to the Greeks, Aristotle was hardly a lonely moralist of his time.

"Other half" is used to refer to a marriage partner or partner, and it is still used today. It even has a layer of romance attached to it. The two parties, who are the objects of each other's lust, were humans and gods as one in the beginning. This was the idea of ​​the ancient Greek dramatist Aristophanes, but it was originally used to explain male-male love. Because if a boy has only half a male body, then he may fall in love with a man.

The quarrel recorded in the "Symposium" more than 2,000 years ago may still have the greatest impact on mankind's view of love in history. Also present in this conversation was Xenophon, who advocated "women taking charge of the household" and Plato, who appeared as a positive moralist. Aristophanes' remarks were strongly challenged by Plato. He points out that lust for the boy's body, and the ensuing boredom, inevitably causes trauma.

The love of the body and the love of the soul have been in opposition since then, but what is quite funny is that this "Platonic love" was developed between unmarried men and women in later generations.

The fulcrum of lust is consideration for the honor and dignity of the beloved, and reasonable stubbornness in resisting the suitor; and on this path to find true love (named by Socrates-Plato as "the discovery of the true meaning of love" ), men and women of later generations found that the baits sprinkled along the way became more and more diverse. Demands for contracts, property, heirs, and even identity may become reasons to prevent people from finding their "other half."

Couple Glory Group

The "monogamous" relationship has gone through a long time in the West from its creation to social recognition. It was not until the Roman era that marriage agreements required the approval of officials or priests, and it leapt from a private family contract into a civil system. After studying the epitaphs of the time, we found evidence that marriages under non-aristocratic regimes were relatively stable.

The first discovery of the address "you" to one's spouse is found in a letter written by an ancient Roman to his wife: "You cannot believe how much I miss you: firstly, because I love you, and secondly because we are not yet separated." By the time I get used to seeing you, my feet can’t help but be led to your room”. The affection between this newlywed couple is what we modern people can understand as "love in marriage."

From the ancient Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius to the Stoic Musonius and others, in the written records left behind, we can see an expression that is almost similar to the modern view. Ethics was named "husband and wife glory" at the time. The "Principle of Fidelity" in "The Precepts of Marriage" draws people's attention to the fact that "the smell of a perfume can make people crazy, and when the husband has relations with other women, the wives will also go crazy."

Men voluntarily admit that "loyalty" is a marital obligation, but at the same time it is out of a sense of moral restraint and self-discipline. Specifically, the mistake of adultery is that it tears up the relationship network between men. The famous "Adultery Law" of ancient Rome severely punished the abduction of other people's wives, thereby causing humiliation to the husband, but the behavior of adultery with unmarried women was not included. this column.

In the entire empire based on the military system of the Corps, "loyalty" is attributed to "husband and wife glory" rather than to "husband and wife glory group." The essence of marriage ethics is similar to the derivative of brotherly morality. In Chinese saying, "Friends and wives must not bully".

"Chastity belt" and debauchery

Exclusive sexual love was monopolized by marriage, and restrictions on pleasure between husband and wife became more and more specific. Until the French Revolution, three well-organized and important codes controlled various sexual practices. They were canon law, Christian canons, and civil law. . The marriage relationship is the center of all kinds of restrictions, and worries about the wife's "fidelity" have also brought about a series of absurd inventions.

The "chastity belt" is undoubtedly a leader. This device, made of silver or gold foil and lined with cotton pads, folds up front and back like an airtight helmet, covering the sensitive areas from the crotch to the lower abdomen. What leaked out of the narrow keyhole was not a cold light from the eyes, but the sour urine that had been held in for a long time. The only key is either in the hands of the husband or the mother-in-law. Some girls wear this cold thing from the age of twelve until the groom opens it.

This pair of "chastity" shackles are now in the collections of the International Museum in Munich, Venice, and the Royal Collection of Treasures in Madrid. Florence and Bergamo from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance were well-known "producing areas" for it.

But no amount of gold or silver locks can shut a heart yearning for "romantic love". The unfettered knight class has become the protagonist in the entire "fornication society" stage. The knights carry guns and ride horses, chasing ladies and ladies everywhere. In the end, most of them cannot form a marriage, so they require the woman to remain chaste for the sake of love.

The most ceremonial scene is the reunion of the masked knight and the shackled lover, the "blowing out the candles". According to the "Women's Encyclopedia", this was the most popular method of verifying innocence at the time. If the woman could "blow out a candle that had just been extinguished and make it burn again," it would prove that the girl was still intact and had been saved by her lover. The fire in my heart.

Eskimo Wife

Once the West became a Christian world, the orthodox status of "monogamy" became unbreakable. Except in the "under-civilized" areas on the frontier, ethics had to adapt to the actual local conditions. Nansen, a German who traveled to the North Pole in the 15th century, once recorded the "sins" of the northern border people. "The Greenlanders committed the seventh commandment most (not to commit adultery)...the inheritance of inheritance, family history and genealogy are important to them. The meaning is limited, the most important thing they value is the children."

Eskimo wives had more open sexual freedom than women in European countries at that time. This was taken for granted and only reaffirmed one point: the institution of marriage was initiated to create conditions for ethnic reproduction in stable social relationships. On the contrary, national reproductive anxiety in a specific period may open the door to convenience in the ethics of couples.

The Nuremberg Parliament on February 19, 1650 passed such a resolution. The announcement stated: "In view of the fact that the population died in large numbers from swords, disease and famine during the bloody Thirty Years' War, the interests of the Holy Roman Empire require the restoration of the population... Within the next ten years, every man must marry two wives."

There are countless examples in human history of public power intervening in reproductive policies due to wars and other reasons; but the Nuremberg Act of 1650, which directly changed the marriage system, is a weird one. As for whether there was an ethical disaster later, there is no record in history.

The fear of non-marriageists

Dissatisfaction and even despair about marriage being arranged by the social system have given birth to "DINK" and even "unmarried" groups under modern conditions. However, this is not a new thing under the sun. As early as the late Roman Empire, hedonism and cynicism He and the Stoics were at loggerheads over whether they approved of marriage.

Hedonists and cynics are opposed to marriage. Their argument is that if marriage is only for the purpose of procreation, people can be like animals, first united and then separated. The Stoics objected that once people were considered members of a community, the duties of being a human being were included in the totality of duties and obligations: and marriage was one of the obligations through which individual existence attained universal value.

Even the Stoics acknowledged a particularly frightening aspect of marriage, down to being subject to “domestic worries,” including “having to heat the pot of water, send the children to school, do the work for the father-in-law, provide the wife with wool. , oil, bed and cup”. But are these requirements inconsistent with a requirement that is consistent with personal morality?

In a work titled "Marriage as an Obstacle to Philosophy," a late Stoic argued that marriage is a drag on life, and that its burden lies in weighing up marriage in a game of pros and cons. In the end, those who worried about this (the hedonists and the cynics) gave in: if marriage got in the way of personal life, it was only because the circumstances were not ideal.

If you really want to get rid of the embarrassment of childbirth caused by marriage, there may be a realistic way out, which is to be the child of an Eskimo!

Utopian sex

If Aristotle's appeal for "monogamy" morality in "Politics" is still just a personal utopia; then Plato, in "The Laws", based his moral utopia on the marriage relationship above.

For the first time, marriage was comprehensively examined from the perspective of being beneficial to the community. Plato's requirements seem to be quite harsh today: marriages should avoid marriages between rich people; newlyweds should be carefully inspected; and the husband should be stipulated throughout the childbirth period. Only the legal wife is allowed to be impregnated during the age, and there is no other sexual relations.

Sex and marriage have always been placed in an important position by the constructors of Utopia. In contrast to Plato's moral utopia that strictly adheres to "monogamy", the early communist experimental field planned by Thomas More in the 15th century, although it has no restrictions on the relationship between men and women. They have a more open attitude towards marriage, and even the "trial marriage" system has been introduced into this kingdom where everyone is for himself.

The former elevated both parties in the marriage relationship to an equal status far beyond the reality at the time, while the latter aspired to an unprecedented fair distribution of sexual resources. Though they are thousands of years apart, the two have something in common: sex that takes place in Utopia must be scrutinized by everyone's eyes.

Paradoxically, the only leeway left under the high moral pressure of Plato's Republic is that if extramarital sexual relations have escaped the eyes of men and women in the city-state, they may not be investigated and punished.