Married households as the ideal is now being called into question. The latest debate is about whether it should be that marriage produces better outcomes. The argument is that with the right government policies, any conceivable family structure could be at least as good as marriage.
(Joseph Horton – The Aquila Report) The Gottman Institute is one of the premiere organizations promoting evidence-based approaches to couple/marital relationships. The institute notes that it has” developed an approach that not only supports and repairs troubled marriages and committed relationships but strengthens happy ones.” The approach has been used with both opposite sex and same-sex couples, but the focus has always been on couples.
The institute has published a series of guest blog posts titled Real Relationships. The goal is to “understand and paint a more realistic, inclusive picture of relationships in the world today.” A recent post, titled, “I’m the Polyamorist Next Door,” presents the experiences of a woman, Ms. Winston, who longs for society to see polyamory in a new light: as “people caring for other people, people creating the family that they need, people being human, people being normal.”
There is the appropriate caveat that the guest blog posts do not necessarily reflect the views of the Gottman Institute. Still, the suggestion that polyamory be considered normal portends a seismic cultural shift.
Research