Who is Monogamy For? Part One

The kids? Men? Your erotic fulfillment? Some wonderings

Aug 15, 2023

“I just can’t get behind monogamy. It’s settler imposed. Until you have worked hard for your monogamy in a non-monogamous society don’t tell me it was your choice.”

-Dr. Kim Tallbear in Decolonizing Sex on the All My Relations Podcast, S 1 E5.

Monogamy culture has such a stranglehold on dominant north America that we don’t realize we have a choice in how we construct our relationships.

In the world view of the America that raised me (and everyone I know) monogamy has come to mean sex, love, marriage, family, happiness, wealth and contentment. Much like whiteness, heterosexuality, and masculinity, monogamy has been the unspoken default for a very long time.

And this isn’t by mistake. Monogamous marriage has long been sanctioned by both the church and the state. While most of us applauded the legal protections that were afforded to gay and lesbian couples when same sex marriage was legalized, there were plenty within those communities who also wondered how state sanctioned permission(s) so-to speak, actually furthered the cause of some of the more radical tenants the gay and lesbian (and to a greater extent), the LQBTQIA+ community stand for. As when Maggie Nelson writes in The Argonauts as she muses about the more radical queer communities frustration and grief over:

…the assimilationist, unthinkingly neoliberal bent of the mainstream GLBTQ+ movement, which has spent fine coin begging entrance into two historically repressive structures: marriage and the military.

A community of people that has long been at the forefront of things like disrupting racism, while advocating for intersecting communities like the disabled community, the kink community, and of course the polyamorous and non-monogamous communities. As many scholars and activists point out, the queer community in particular has much to teach mainstream America about making family outside the bounds of blood relations; often built out of of complete necessity having been exiled from families (all too often by hypocritical Christian families who still think homosexuality is a sin). I’m grateful all the varying communities of which I continue to learn from- not the least of which is the LGBTQIA+.

man in black shirt and blue denim jeans walking on purple and yellow carpet

What is Non-Monogamy?

For the sake of this piece of writing I am using non-monogamy, open relating, polyamory and relationship anarchy fairly inter- changeably. This is a gross conflation of terms, and for the sake of simplicity I’ll be mostly using non-monogamy or consensual non-monogamy or CNM.

However, here’s a good definition pulled from Wikipedia:

Non-monogamy (or nonmonogamy) is an umbrella term for every practice or philosophy of non-dyadic intimate relationship that does not strictly hew to the standards of monogamy, particularly that of having only one person with whom to exchange sex, love, and/or affection. In that sense, "nonmonogamy" may be accurately applied to extramarital sex, group marriage, or polyamory.^[1] It is not synonymous with infidelity, since all parties are consenting to the relationship structure, partners are often committed to each other as well as to their other partners and cheating is still considered problematic behavior with many non-monogamous relationships.^[2]

My path to non-monogamy, polyamory, open relating

I was in my 20s standing on a street corner in San Francisco talking about my love life to my friend Jenna and her guy friend. Of course I was in San Francisco! I was complaining to them about how I was in love with two different men, one back at home in my hometown of Columbia, SC, and one who I had been long distance corresponding with for close to 4 years, who had moved from the pacific north west to the mission district in San Francisco, only months after I’d moved cross country to Santa Rosa, an hour north of the city.

"You know… you might be polyamorous…” Jenna’s friend said thoughtfully.

This would have been 2006. I was 24 years old and escaped South Carolina by signing up for a year long service position with AmeriCorps (formerly known as VISTA volunteers) in beautiful Sonoma County. I was just 6 months out of an abusive relationship with an alcoholic musician 12 years my senior that had consumed my life for more than a year. Part of his abuse included shaming me and calling me slut any time I even so much looked at man who wasn’t him. However, a few years prior to this toxic affair, I’d met and fallen in love with the man (who I would eventually partner with and make a child with), who was calling me to the West Coast. Though, the weekend before I was scheduled to drive cross country, I met another man, who I fell for head over heels; who, through a series of daily 4 hour phone calls, epic burned CDs and love letters mailed to me cross country, offered to move to CA to be with me. I juggled talking to both of them, feeling torn and conflicted.

"Polyamorous?” Though I heard the word, which means "many loves,” I had no idea how to construct my life to reflect a state where I could confidently date, love, and have sex with multiple people in an open and honest way. I knew no one doing this. I only knew people who were either single, partnered, or just sleeping around with multiple people and never being honest about it. Ultimately, the man back in SC made an ultimatum-"Him or me?”- and I chose the man on the west coast.

It would be another 4 years before I ventured down the path of actually attempting open relating, the summer my son was 2. Rupturing my long term relationship with my son’s father, we attempted to skill ourselves by reading the classic book on open relating, The Ethical Slut. Unfortunately, again we had very little support, and many many outside gawkers and gossip due to us practicing non-monogamy in the small island community we lived in. It was a time of immense exhilaration and horrific sadness, my earlier abusive trauma rearing up, and wound up with me being left, about to be kicked out of our rental, with a still nursing toddler, no job and no place to live in the middle of winter. One day I hope to interview all the people involved, my ex, the woman he left me for and now runs a business with and has 2 other kids left, the two lovers I took during that time…. but I’ve yet to do so…. to me much of the pain of that time was simply swept aside, never to be curious about again or reconciled. But perhaps there is really nothing more to say- I am simply a non-monogamous creature and my ex and his wife are not. The lens I take really depends upon the day and what cultural and historical contexts I’m viewing the dissolution of our partnership in- not to mention the lack of postpartum support I had, a traumatic birth, no sex drive for nearly two years, the undiagnosed postpartum depression and suicidal ideation, and that in the first year of becoming parents we lost jobs and housing. It’s enough to stress any young couple.

And yet, if we lived as a more collective society, such stresses wouldn’t utterly wreck us as they do in an individualist society such as modern day America…

Why non-monogamy?

I’ve come to believe that like sexual orientation, some of us are are just born this way. Non-monogamy is also very much context dependent. I live in Whatcom County in Western Washington close to a liberal mid-sized mostly-white college town; one of our recent claim to fame’s, thanks to Tucker Carlson lying on camera regarding sex education classes, (resulting in white supremacists vandalizing this small business), is our popular local sex shop and education space Wink Wink, a female owned business, whose owner, Jenn Mason, is serving her second term on the Bellingham School Board! "Pleasure is our revolution” is Wink Wink’s tag line.

Contrast that to rural South Carolina (a red state where sex education is still primarily abstinence based, if taught at all) where my parents live and the only place to get a job is at the Wal-Mart, the chicken slaughterhouse or Dollar General. There is no night life so to speak, and of course, it being a small town in a red state, if you were to date around or heaven forbid outside of your marriage, you’d quickly be branded a slut, and who knows what recriminations you’d face. If there is an establishment that provides you not only with ware like lubricants, fun lingerie, dildos, strap-ons, condoms, and emergency contraceptive, PLUS a neighboring education space that has hosts not only classes for teens, parents, but holds panels on things like open relating. Is this any thing like that in my home state of South Carolina? I doubt it. But please, I’d love to be wrong about this.

Thus, practicing non-monogamy, is risky business.

Such is the long standing sway of marriage (all its legal protections), and the perception that accompanies partnership, especially for cisgender heterosexual (and cis-het appearing) people. Compound the practice of non-monogamy with age, ableism, race, and class, and you’ve got even more potential for recrimination and reproach. I also want to say that marriage and committed long term relationships are wonderful things. Yet, if we were to live in ways where more people committed to one another, perhaps less marriages would end in divorce. My version of non-monogamy is more about disrupting the hierarchical power we assign to The Couple, and placing coupledom in a web of mutually beneficial and obligated relationships. This looks like each person being respected, adored, and supported for their unique gifts and personalities. This looks like all parties committing to educating and re-skilling themselves in generative ways- from communication tools to anti-racist and de-colonial work to domestic household work and resilience work like seed saving and growing food. This looks like parents no longer raising children in the isolationist hellscape that is modern America. It looks like instead of friendship breakups, that you commit to hang in there. It looks like divorce proofing your marriage by expanding what your definition of fidelity is.

My non-monogamy is also polyamorous in that I love many many beings- from friends to family to my more than human kin like Coyote, Banana Slug, Cottonwood, Flicker, Red Tail Hawk, Nettle, Big Leaf Maple, Nooksack River, and I want them to be well.

That I understand I cannot be well if they are not well.

My view of relationships are also rooted deeply in my animistic lens and understanding of how mutually dependent we are, how hard especially humans are on the places we live, and how learning to move beyond the nuclear family, seems one solution to living with less in terms of the intensive consumption of resources the global west is doing.

Going on 15 years with Nettle- one of my beloveds

Mis-Conceptions

Here are some of the biggest mis-conceptions I’ve encountered about non-monogamy and relationships since first venturing into it in 2011, and practicing it regularly since 2018:

Non-monogamous people are sex crazed and will sleep with anyone anywhere- so watch out! News alert- You can be asexual and be non-monogamous.. Part of the misconception here has to do with a very narrow definition of sex- again the default being the cis-gender heterosexual one or PIV- penis in vagina sex. This also plays off the trope that women are less sexual and men are designed to sow wild oats so to speak. Also, as Dr. Emily Nagoski blew my mind, (news to me), in her brilliant book Come As You Are , sex is not actually a biological drive- a drive is something that if you do not get you will not survive- a drive for hunger or thirst for example. It’s actually an internal motivation system. Please watch the link to her talk as the science here is in direct contrast to the age old defense of rapists (marital rape especially comes to mind) everywhere and abusers who get off on "a crime of passion.”
AND- while I don’t think I am a sex crazed person, I do seem to have a high internal motivation system to pursue a life of pleasure, sexual diversity, and I think about this stuff all the time! Which, having done so much reading, self-education, writing, thinking, and experimenting, I do think I am more open sexually (mentally more than anything) than the average American. Anyone who’s been grappling and being their own research subject for over 20 years would probably have similar results.
It’s a phase. As a terrible older female therapist said to me on Lopez Island years ago…. "You’ll grow out of it. You probably won’t have any energy for this kind of lifestyle when you’re older.” (side note- please do your fucking due diligence with therapists, many many many most of them have no training in sexuality, and so carry loads of their own biases-I have had many many therapists, who now, looking back, caused further harm by projecting on to me their own sexual ignorance, shame, and bias).
You are unhappy in your Life - whether solo by choice or partnered or some other iteration, those of us who seek a variety of intimate relationships are misunderstood to be miserable, greedy, looking for fulfillment outside of our own life or marriage, and that if we were happy, we wouldn’t seek outside relationships and experiences. This is utter hogwash obviously since most people engage in all sorts of outside relationships and experiences- hobbies, friendships, civic and faith activities etc etc.
STI’s and disease are rampant in non-monogamous people. To the contrary, research suggests that those of who practice consensual non-monogamy, because we are more sexually open and skilled at communication, we get tested more frequently, use protection, and in general practice safer sex. This when compared to monogamous couples who cheat on on another.
We are freaks of modern nature who are so evolved emotionally we don’t feel JEALOUS! Jealously gets a bad rap in any romantic relationship, but I also think it’s a potent space for self-reflection, emotional and communication growth. I also think some personalities are more prone to jealousy- due to my history w/ how my first attempt at open relating caused massive rupture and heartbreak in my life, I have more insecurities around this than my husband. Though both of us have been jealous of our outside relations at one time or another. I guess I don’t see why jealously should prevent a person from living.
Non-Monogamous People (women in particular) are so hip & open you can tell them anything- Aka dump on them. This dynamic is a symptom of misogyny plain and simple. I was talking with another NM friend, and she told me this awful story of how this ex-lover of hers started critiquing her body out of the blue under the guise of his "process” and "radical honesty” about what he’d been conditioned to think of as "attractive.” I’ve dated men who are more than happy to date me knowing I’m married, but then are too cowardly to tell the other women they start dating that they want to be NM- that’s when I tell them to hit the road. Anyone who is trying to live their NM truth has done a lot of work and too many people want to reap the benefits of our sexual and emotional capacity and openness- FUCK THAT. So yeh emotional labor happens in all forms. Like being open does not mean I do not have boundaries. NM in a white supremacist capitalist system is rife with gendered imbalances and potentials for misogyny- yet often they are so subtle, and I’ve been socialized as a care-giving female, they can be hard to miss. (In part two of this series I’ll share some specific scenarios as examples).

2013 running my Sex & Love Advice Booth at the Lopez Island Farmer’s Market.

Why not have your cake and eat it too?

I’ve come to understand that sex is special, sacred, AND totally common place and fun. It’s both a big deal and NOT a big deal.. It’s a fun pastime to do with another consenting adult. We applaud things like mountain biking, jogging partners, tennis doubles, book clubs, community choirs, but two people who get together semi-regularly as fuck buddies? Or even just as cuddle buddies? Heaven forbid. But in many ways those activities are similar to sex- we sweat, we pant, we exert ourselves physically while bonding with another human, we make feel good hormones, we release stress. So what’s the big deal if I’d rather have a sex date than a mountain biking date? I dunno, I’ve done some mountain biking, but sex is way more fun! Thus, I’ve developed a: "why not try it?” attitude over the years. While this has landed me in a handful of less than peak experiences, (like with any pastime, not all sexual interactions are going to be phenomenal), with more practice, the more I learn to communicate, the better I am about stating what I want and setting boundaries, the better my odds for having a good time.

I had my first ever partnered orgasm at the age of 20- which sort of unlocked this key for me- to realize I had this powerful capacity for pleasure with others right within my own body. However, the accompanying emotional maturity has taken nearly as long to develop. Had I been raised in a sex positive, pleasure focused culture that taught me from middle school that monogamy is a choice, while centering female pleasure and clitoris education, as well as fertility education (it’s dismal how many grown ups don’t understand the window of conception, fertility fluid and tracking etc)- my early promiscuous days would not have been shrouded behind the courage-inducing booze I so freely consumed, and I doubt I would have been raped, or wound up in an abusive relationship, the legacy of which, still continues to haunt me on very rare occasions. But this is the cost of capitalism is it not?

Marriage, Monogamy & Alloparents

Right wing politicians are famous for nostalgia- bemoaning the fact that marriage is on the decline and that only a return to traditional values will right the country. Divorce rates skyrocketed during the pandemic, yet Republicans refuse to fund social nets that might help marriages thrive- healthcare… cough cough…. gun control… paid family leave… climate change regulations… taxing the rich… the amount of stress most couples are under, especially those raising children in America, is high right now. Historian Stephanie Coontz, whose book, Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage, which I read during or right after my five year partnership to my son’s father crumbled, explains that historically marriages were more of a political movement than a romantic one. Marriage was to build community, forge cooperative networks, make peace between clans, tribes, neighbors, more often than not the two individuals getting married had no say on their mate - marriage was based on entirely different parameters than today’s modern version of marrying for love. In addition Coontz writes:

In many societies of the past, sexual loyalty was not a high priority. The expectation of mutual fidelity is a rather recent invention.
In a study of 109 societies, anthropologists found that only 48 forbade extramarital sex to both husbands and wives.

Coontz speaks to the modern day right wing wish to go back to traditional values (values she writes never really existed, since marriage norms differ around the world) muses that she doesn’t believe

They hope to reinstitutionalize mariage as the main mechanism that regulates sexuality, legitimizes children, organizes the divsion of labor between men adn women, and redistributes resources to dependents.

And

In hunting and gathering bands and egalitarian horticultural communities, unstable marriages did not lead to the impoverishment of women or children as they often do today. Unmarried women participated in the work of the group and were entitled to a fair share, while children and other dependents were protected by strong customs that mandated sharing beyond the nuclear family.

This understanding of sharing between non-married people is akin to allo-parents, which I discuss more below. While I appreciate Coontz’ work, and it was instrumental in some of my thinking, I do think her book is not critical enough of the role of capitalism. Thanks to a writing class with Amanda Montei I was more deeply acquainted with Italian American scholar and writer Silvia Federici’s work a couple years ago. In this 2017 episode of the Revolutionary Left Radio podcast, host Brett O’Shea interviews

Federici about her 2004 book Caliban and the Witch (I book that I admit I have yet to finish). Federici confirms that capitalism cannot exist without the control of women- in particular their reproduction and their sexuality. The witches in the 16th and 17th century were accused of being baby killers, just as those of us seeking safe and legal abortion today are called as well. Federici tells O’Shea that in order for capitalism to work that, "Sexuality plays a deep role in the work discipline. To create a disciplined workforce you have to discipline men’s sexuality and women’s sexuality above all.” From this extends the invisibilizing of domestic work- the sphere typically assigned to women. We have provided enormous amounts of unpaid labor for the machine of capitalism where the home is still considered the center of the working class.

Thus, men stand to gain more from this arrangement than women from the orgasm gap to the gendered gap in the division of care work in the home- women are losing out, and too few men are doing jack shit about it. Consider this too, from Psychology Today, Lawrence Joseph writes in a piece called Is Monogamy Natural?:

A cross-species analysis suggests that fathering only evolves when there is monogamy. Why is that? The answer appears to be paternity certainty. It only adds to a male’s reproductive success if he can be reasonably confident that he is raising his own children rather than another male’s children. So, for fathering to evolve at least the females need to be faithful so the males possess paternity certainty.
But why then should males be monogamous if they could be more reproductively successful by inseminating multiple females? The answer seems to be that it only pays for females to be monogamous if females possess some certainty that the males will stick around to help nurture and protect the offspring. There’s no benefit for females being sexually exclusive when the males are practicing a mating strategy of "love them and leave them," requiring single mothers to fend for themselves without paternal assistance. Bi-parental care would only evolve if both males and females were willing to practice monogamy.

Which brings me to a term "allo-parent” that has grown in popularity in recent years… from

Gen Dread

writing in a piece called Parenting beyond the nuclear family questioning the nuclear family to an herbalist influence, Amber Magnolia Hill who I used to follow online, wondering about similar things in a podcast episode from 2018 called Without a Village to major news syndicate CNN. Allo-parents are anyone who is not the primary caregiver who also cares for your kids. All-parenting is the new hip way to fight the loneliness of parenting in the anthropocene.

In 1975, socio-biologist Edward Wilson coined the term “alloparenting” to describe the practice of individuals other than a mother or father caring for an offspring. Since then, researchers from a variety of backgrounds have investigated our cooperative breeding style, or the way young humans require a group of caregivers, as primatologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy puts it, and how that shaped us as a species. - Elissa Strauss, CNN

The thing is - while I am all for more white people grappling with and “waking” up to the ideal that the nuclear family is bollocks, black and indigenous and communities of color have been saying this and practicing this for ages! I cannot remember where I read this, but a black writer was being interviewed about systemic racism in the form of child protective services in the 50s and 60s- she spoke to how this one black community would move children around- spending time with all their relatives, not only out of necessity, but also to build in a wealth of relations around those children- but then these white social workers shook their heads white CPS workers shook their heads, because this model Lakota scholar Dr. Kim TallBear’s work centers on the issue of kin and making, as well as what she has named as "settler sexuality.” To me, what many white people grappling with issues around the failings of modern motherhood especially all stem from a certain WASP lens that we are trying to buck off, having not been raised with any lived sense of anything BUT the nuclear family- so it’s still all happening in this very theoretical sense, not in actual lived practice, while we still reap the benefits of white privilege- safe secure housing, education, business opportunities (please read Peggy McIntosh’s piece Unpacking the White Knapsack).

I know I’m not being fair, but I feel frustrated.

In her Substack, Dr. Kim Tall Bear writes

Some think that the 21st century state has moved beyond coercive tactics that construct non-whites as Others to be either killed or assimilated. Ongoing military and police violence against those others disrupts that fantasy. But so does talk of diversity, inclusion and multiculturalism if we look closely. We see small tolerances for say Indigenous languages, the beating of drums and burning of sage in carefully contained moments. But this represents an idea that Indigenous people should be included into a nation that is assumed to be a done deal, its hegemony forever established. Now, like in 1862, Indigenous people tend to have less interest in incorporation into a (liberal) settler world than in pushing for thriving Indigenous societies.
I propose making kin as an alternative to liberal multiculturalism for righting relations gone bad.

As a Mother, my perspective has been and will always be, how can we share more so our children will benefit? Share resources so our planet suffers more. Share one another so people are less lonely. Call me crazy, but I’d rather sleep with a friend who hasn’t had sex in years out of a friendly love than for them to be alone at home watching porn online. I’ve never understood the egoic fragility I’ve witnessed time and time again when someone else’s child is having a boundary checked by another parent. My default view of the world seems to be more collective than most. Though this doesn’t mean I speak up half the time I see problematic shit happening, but I do try to practice regularly speaking up about red flags I see. I am also grateful for relationships in my life where honesty is practiced regularly.

Dr. Kim Tallbear wonders how we can further undermine settler marriage. Consensual non-monogamy is one powerful way to do so. So is depending on your friends more. Anything that pushes back against the ethos of prosperity gospel and rugged pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps, also undermines settler marriage.

Love is abundant, and every relationship is unique
Love and respect instead of entitlement
Find your core set of relationship values
Heterosexism is rampant and out there, but don’t let fear lead you
Build for the lovely unexpected
Fake it til’ you make it
Trust is better
Change through communication
Customize your commitments

-Andie Nordgren, Relationship Anarchy

You Don’t Own Me

As a homeschooled kid in the 80s and 90s in Columbia, SC, the radio station I loved the most was Oldies 103.1 (RIP). Older friends are often surprised when they hear me sing along to every word of a Otis Redding or Sam Cook song. Thus, Lesley Gore’s feminist anthem You Don’t Own Me, (this live version from 1964 is amazing) comes to mind of one of the more positive messages of the love torn 60s pop soul music that I adore to this day.

To forget that marriage, historically and legally, continues to be about ownership irks me. I’m one of a handful of women I know who did not change their last name when they got married. I have one friend whose husband actually took her last name! And one other couple I know who looked at their families names and combined two to make a brand new last name. However, the norm stands that women, no matter who empowered they seem to be- owning businesses, homebirthing their babies, traveling the world, continue to take their spouses last name. I understand the desire for cohesiveness, but still this practice is rooted in the legacy of women as property for men. I am not legally wed to my spouse, we were hand-fasted in a public ceremony, and for all intents and purposes are wed, but regardless I am not changing my name- our daughter has 2 last names, no hyphen, which felt like a compromise to me since my son bears only my last name (which yes, is my father’s name, but you’ve got to start somewhere). So there is very much this resistance in me to conform to any type of arrangement where I am property. While simultaneously I enjoy the benefits of a partnership- mutual support, financial support, friendship, sex (when we’re not too tired), emotional support, collaborative power, parenting, my spouse and I both readily admit and know the flaws inherent in the structure of male female marriage and co-habitation. We regularly muse how nice it might be to live in separate gendered spaces- me with the femmes, him with the men, and then we’d visit regularly.

Globally, 1 in 3 women experience violence at the hands of men. And its younger women who are most at risk. So it seems that the more we as women and femmes can be free, the better. It’s terrifying right now in America, to once again have reproductive access horrifically denied, while pro-lifers care only about expanding gun sales and controlling minds by feeding them the propagandist curriculum as evience as Prager Univeristy’s alarming curriculum for Florida public schools. Men simply have no fucking clue what the average woman lives with and they won’t care so long as capitalism persists. And black, brown, and indigenous women's lives bear the brunt of the worst of capitalism and settler colonialism, and are long over due for reparations and Land Back for generations of harm.

2 year old Aubrey feeling free and fully in love with Creek unabashedly

I Love to be Free

There’s way to neatly wrap this up. I can feel my ADHD tendencies (“just one more thing I want to tell them! oh and what about this! and oh remember that?”) as I try to and so I remind myself and you dear reader that I am attempting to put into words words for the first time some things I’ve been thinking, reading, and learning about for a long time.

It feels pat to end with the word free, since free, unfortunately, like the word sovereignty, has become co-opted by libertarian white racist hippie conspiracy thinkers and their adjacent co-conspirators- racist right wingers who think violence and absolution of accountability are the answers to all bounds of civic minded mutual obligation and service.

But that’s the word that comes to mind when I think about my desire and innate longing to love and fuck who I want, when I am able too. And it’s that line that comes through so plaintively from Lesley’s Gore song- "I’m free and I love to be free.” Thus, calling upon etymology, it’s helpful to consider the history of free and what that word actually conjures. This is the free that I wish for myself and others.

free (adj.)
Old English freo "exempt from; not in bondage, acting of one's own will," also "noble; joyful," from Proto-Germanic *friaz "beloved; not in bondage" (source also of Old Frisian fri, Old Saxon vri, Old High German vri, German frei, Dutch vrij, Gothic freis "free"), from PIE *priy-a- "dear, beloved," from root *pri- "to love."
The sense evolution from "to love" to "free" is perhaps from the terms "beloved" or "friend" being applied to the free members of one's clan (as opposed to slaves; compare Latin liberi, meaning both "free persons" and "children of a family"). For the older sense in Germanic, compare Gothic frijon "to love;" Old English freod "affection, friendship, peace," friga "love," friðu "peace;" Old Norse friðr "peace, personal security; love, friendship," German Friede "peace;" Old English freo "wife;" Old Norse Frigg, name of the wife of Odin, literally "beloved" or "loving;" Middle Low German vrien "to take to wife," Dutch vrijen, German freien "to woo."

Tears of Things

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