Detangling Romance and Partnership

romance and partnership are different

• co-parenting, sharing finances, living together all of these things can be done without romance
• when you start to think about who you want to support and hear about their day everyday and revel in the mundane that goes beyond romance and is more about partnership friendship etc

even contemporary advice acknowledges this

• “just because you love someone doesn’t mean you’re supposed to be with them”
• at the core of this advice is the distinction between romantic love and potential for lasting partnership
  • love is not enough for a relationship to work out, so why do we stress this idea of romantic love so much for marriage?
  • people would argue love + something else is what makes it a good partnership, but why not just isolate that something else?

romance is used as a proxy

• for trust/intimacy of running a household (finances, chores, etc) together
• for enjoyment during time spent together, of which is very important if you were to live together/spend large amounts of time together

Marriage has historically been about power-ish.

• The Ancient Greeks and Christians would marry people of similar class to get good life and reproduce
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_in_ancient_Greece
• I think it more has to do about the establishment of the family and heritage. Inheritance of power/divine right is very important.
  • Evolution by kin selection would probably agree with this statement

Evolutionarily, it seems like monogamy doesn’t have to be the case.

• “Pair-bonding began in the Stone Age as a way of organizing and controlling sexual conduct and providing a stable structure for child-rearing and the tasks of daily life.“ (Source)
  • This seems like a dubious claim
• It also seems like it would be better to have multiple adult caregivers
  • https://www.amazon.com/Mothers-Others-Evolutionary-Origins-Understanding/dp/0674060326
• There is likely some kind of evolutionary pressure that is unique to humans that caused convergent social evolution of monogamy.
  • I do not think that it is biological, but more cultural.
  • https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnthropology/comments/1ikk7d/comment/cb5kxjd/