Recent Poly History?

[clairegoad]

Originally Posted by sage

I appreciate your efforts. I'll check out the site.

just one thing about your reference: the guy seems to be saying that polyamory is just a weak off-shoot of polygamy.
Common usage and connotations of a word are much more important to me. Polygamy is an immediate turn off. It's illegal for one thing (i.e. being married to more than one person) so it starts off from a negative place. For me it brings up images of women in headscarves and long skirts all producing off-spring and taking day about with some controlling religious zealot. Or I suppose also the traveling salesman juggling a few wives in a few different cities who have no idea the other exists.

It seems we are creating a new paradigm?

There are actually three posters in that old USENET quote. The last poster was trying to understand, but was too bogged down with the old terminology to understand. He was trying to understand polyamory through his understanding of polygamy- and his online Websters.

And that's the way it is when we're faced with new words.. we try to make sense of them. And after we've heard them, seen demonstrations, and learned more, the essential meaning changes.

There are slightly older posts...This one just amused me.

I'm not sure its a new paradigm, I suspect it has been around, but not labelled. Every couple has friends, sometimes the boundaries blur. Is that a true poly relationship? Not really, but it's the genesis of one.

[River]

The fact that polyamory (the term) differs from polygamy (the term) in the emphasis on marriage is important. Heck, most of us couldn't be polygamous even if we wanted to! And -- my guess -- most polyamorous folks don't think multiple legal marriage contracts are necessary.

[Edward]

Whether or not marriage is 'necessary' for polyamory (not in my case)...it would be nice.

[solarwindsfly]

I agree with Ariakas that lack of choice seems to set the difference for me. I really dont care what it is called as long as there is a choice and no children involved. I would encourage people to think through what they want and to take time to learn before they get involved. Big thing... labels I dont care about but choice is the element that is necesity!!

[MonoVCPHG]

I don't think multiple legal contracts are important. I do think greater flexibility in certain legal rights/allowances are. For instance, I do not believe an employer should have to modify the amount of benefits provided to a person who has more than one spouse/partner. I do believe if that person is entitled to spousal benefits than that employee should be able to allocate those resources however they chose. In other words; I have at least one partner that qualifies for me to get benefits. Now, if I personally chose to spread those benefits to several partners then that should be fine. There is no extra cost to the employer for example.

[clairegoad]

Another piece in the "polyamory - where did the word originate?" discussion..

http://sites.google.com/site/orlandopoly/


Polyamory (n) - poly - from the Greek word meaning "many"; amory - from the latin word amor, meaning "love". Literally, this word means "many loves". The practice and/or belief of romantically loving more than one person at a time.

The two essential ingredients of the concept of "polyamory" are "more than one" and "loving." That is, it is expected that the people in such relationships have a loving emotional bond, are involved in each other's lives multi-dimensionally, and care for each other. This term is not intended to apply to merely casual recreational sex, anonymous orgies, one-night stands, pick-ups, prostitution, "cheating", serial monogamy, or the popular definition of swinging as "mate-swapping" parties.
~Morning Glory Zell (coined the term in 1990)

[otter]

Polyandry was seen a lot in the Norse and Celtic. When you where never sure if you husband was coming home from the raids it made since that the house and children belonged to the wife. There are stories of a lot of brothers sharing a wife so they could keep her in style and comfort.

[redpepper]

Originally Posted by otter

Polyandry was seen a lot in the Norse and Celtic. When you where never sure if you husband was coming home from the raids it made since that the house and children belonged to the wife. There are stories of a lot of brothers sharing a wife so they could keep her in style and comfort.

cool! I never knew that before.