A Cultural Moment of Confusion
Polyamory is having a cultural moment. Television series, influencers, and even academic voices are urging us to view multi-partner relationships as enlightened, inclusive, and “authentic.” What used to be seen as a symptom of instability is now promoted as an act of courage. But beneath the marketing lies a pattern of harm—emotional, psychological, and spiritual—that no amount of rebranding can erase.
What the Research Reveals
As a recent Institute for Family Studies article argues, the research on relationship stability and human flourishing overwhelmingly points in one direction: exclusive, monogamous commitment provides the strongest foundation for love, family, and social trust.
Polyamorous arrangements, by contrast, tend to amplify jealousy, insecurity, and transience—each person always half-in and half-out, always guarding the heart against inevitable fracture. These are not mere cultural preferences but reflections of what human beings are: creatures made for faithful, embodied union, not perpetual negotiation.
The Children Caught in the Crossfire
And what of the children who grow up in such environments? When the boundaries of parental love are constantly shifting, and the circle of attachment expands and contracts with adult desire, children are left to navigate uncertainty they did not choose. Stability, predictability, and fidelity—the soil in which trust and identity take root—are replaced by emotional flux.
No ideology can change the fact that children need permanence, not a rotating cast of caregivers. The data confirm what natural law and Scripture have long affirmed: that a child flourishes most fully within the secure love of his or her mother and father joined in faithful covenant.
Covenant, Not Contract
From a Christian perspective, this isn’t simply about sociology or statistics—it’s about theology. Marriage, in Scripture, is not a contract of convenience but a covenant of total self-gift. It mirrors God’s own unwavering love for His people: exclusive, faithful, and fruitful.
The prophets describe Israel’s infidelity in marital terms because covenantal love cannot be divided without distortion. Christ, the Bridegroom, does not share His Bride with others. The Church is loved wholly, not fractionally.
Theological Clarity in an Age of Confusion
Polyamory, then, is not only emotionally unstable—it’s theologically incoherent. It denies the very symbolism our bodies were created to express: that real love gives itself to another completely, not partially; that fidelity is not a limitation but the condition for joy.
The Christian vision of love is not endless novelty but steadfast communion—the kind of love that binds itself to another “for better or for worse,” and in doing so, becomes an image of divine faithfulness.
Recovering the Truth About Love
We are called to recover this vision—not as mere nostalgia for an older moral code, but as a recovery of the truth about ourselves. Our bodies and our souls both bear witness: we are not made for dispersion but for covenant, not for multiple lovers but for a love that mirrors the One who says, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
Read the full piece at the Institute for Family Studies:
👉 It’s Time to Push Back Against the Glamorization of Polyamory
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