Let's hear it for monogamy

"Monogamy is not a hard-wired biological directive humans must follow," asserts the attorney and award-winning author Wesley J. Smith.

"Only humans can create cultures that are or are not monogamous. Only humans can make the often difficult decision to stick to a single sexual partner. And that is one reason why we are exceptional."

One problem: too many doubting conservatives forget that once we lived in a bloody society where polygyny was the rule, not the exception.

We forget that 85 percent of societies have practiced polygamy, but thanks to a number of factors, including the spread of Christian values, normative monogamy liberated millions of women and children from sexism and misogyny.

Some of us forget too – or aren't informed – that monogamy is contagious. Take Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim-majority nation, where polygamy is in trouble, or Malaysia where monogamy is gaining a fan base.

Of significance, a survey coordinated by two German-based cultural organizations revealed that many young Asians are opposed to polygamy (from 73 percent of 1,060 polled Malaysians to 86 percent of 1,496 Indonesians), a major cultural shift for the Asia-Pacific region.

Why polygamy fell is one of the most underreported stories of our time. But it's a story that's worth telling to progressives who preach that heterosexual monogamous marriage is just simply another expression of multicultural love.

In all truth, it's much more valuable, especially for vulnerable women and children.

"Within the anthropological record, there is a statistical linkage between democratic institutions and normative monogamy," too state the authors of The puzzle of monogamous marriage.

Think about that the next time you're told that protecting the time-honoured tradition of male-female unions doesn't matter.