emanation of psyche

Fair. Maybe the issue is not so much "can this person handle this particular non-standard arrangement" (they probably can or they wouldn't be in it) but pushing people to be open to all the degrees of freedom "which you would be if you were cool and not a prig"...I don't know.

tbh OP doesn't scan as talking about psychologically handling arrangements so much as "flourish" sounds economic, i.e. the norm being lionized is the one where every man gets a sex/housekeeping/childrearing slave assigned and this provides him a stable base to pursue wealth from

OP may well believe that, but on their face the words could mean that social pressure to pair off (in any kind of pair) in a long-term committed relationship helps to foster the material success of a nation through the emotional stability of its households.

*nodnod* it just feels ass-backward to me. under circumstances of impoverishment we formed pairbonds and stuck with them even when they fucking sucked, to survive. so now that we're not so impoverished we need to... act as though we were, because the norm was just so great?

https://twitter.com/chaosprime/status/970887344403501056 …

Was/are pair bonds *only* an economic solution? Were they *simply* the equivalent to having two incomes? Could the norm of *commitment* in pair bonding not have served emotional needs, despite incidental or possibly transient disagreements or difficulties?

i mean, i definitely think it did, but that the needs served must have been served asymmetrically or increased egalitarianism wouldn't be so destructive to it if a behavior fulfills everybody's needs that well people will figure out to do it even without a gun to their heads

I'm happy that people aren't bound to bad relationships- but I think a revisiting of the idea of commitment *in this freer, more egalitarian context* might be fruitful. Both men and women may get emotional stability (or something less Folklore Psychology) out of bonding.