Since my divorce many years ago I've twice been in a relationship which was so close that I classified it as a marriage. This even though neither was the conventional type.
The first was a three way relationship with a bisexual woman and a Lesbian, S and C. We went to parties as a triple and S introduced C and me as her spouses. I spent as much time with C as with S, for we had much in common. I loved her as much as I loved S.
After almost ten years I met someone I came to care for deeply. We dated for a time, but both of us were turned on by a different type. We quit dating but remained close. When her guest house lost her renter she suggested I move in. I paid two rents for a couple of months so that my former spouses could find someone to move in and pay a third of monthly expenses.
After twenty years I moved out because I met someone I wanted to live with and the guest house was too small. That lasted two years. Six years have passed and I still am with my second "wife" in all but sharing a bed, though I still live alone. She is only eight miles away and I spend much of most weekends there. Her family treats me as part of their extended family.
I'm sure these and related patterns repeat millions of times elsewhere, and have for all of history. Communal marriages are an old form, rebirthed in the Hippies '60s in the Western world, for instance. So far most of these "marriages" have no legal support. I speculate that they some day will be, that they are the wave of the future.
Have you had or have such marriages, or whatever we may eventually call them? Or have direct knowledge of them? Do you foresee other kinds coming into existence?
I'll speculate on one that may arise. I guess we'll eventually discover means to be forever physically young. The number of children will have to be limited, maybe by licensing. We may develop a form of communal marriage where a village will have just a few children who are legally in everyone's extended family. The village may be physically close. But I can foresee villages where transportation and communication are so advanced that family members live far away from each other, yet function as if they live next door.
And a child may know hi/r great-g-g-g'mother personally.
Lots of room for SF writers to explore family problems!
The first was a three way relationship with a bisexual woman and a Lesbian, S and C. We went to parties as a triple and S introduced C and me as her spouses. I spent as much time with C as with S, for we had much in common. I loved her as much as I loved S.
After almost ten years I met someone I came to care for deeply. We dated for a time, but both of us were turned on by a different type. We quit dating but remained close. When her guest house lost her renter she suggested I move in. I paid two rents for a couple of months so that my former spouses could find someone to move in and pay a third of monthly expenses.
After twenty years I moved out because I met someone I wanted to live with and the guest house was too small. That lasted two years. Six years have passed and I still am with my second "wife" in all but sharing a bed, though I still live alone. She is only eight miles away and I spend much of most weekends there. Her family treats me as part of their extended family.
I'm sure these and related patterns repeat millions of times elsewhere, and have for all of history. Communal marriages are an old form, rebirthed in the Hippies '60s in the Western world, for instance. So far most of these "marriages" have no legal support. I speculate that they some day will be, that they are the wave of the future.
Have you had or have such marriages, or whatever we may eventually call them? Or have direct knowledge of them? Do you foresee other kinds coming into existence?
I'll speculate on one that may arise. I guess we'll eventually discover means to be forever physically young. The number of children will have to be limited, maybe by licensing. We may develop a form of communal marriage where a village will have just a few children who are legally in everyone's extended family. The village may be physically close. But I can foresee villages where transportation and communication are so advanced that family members live far away from each other, yet function as if they live next door.
And a child may know hi/r great-g-g-g'mother personally.
Lots of room for SF writers to explore family problems!
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