There once was a Traditional Model of relationships based on avoiding out of wedlock births. This system worked. That it was not perfect is only a valid criticism if you can name a system which would be perfect. The old system did work but the birth control pill killed it in 1960 and the old system is never coming back. The Career Model of relationships does not work and cannot work. Relationships are too different from careers, the right decision for one is not the right decision for the other. The Harem Model works, in a way. Not everyone will call it a failure, though most will. But what about the children produced by harem living? Do any of the children wish they had a real family? My guess is all of them do. These are the current options. I admit some people are still making the Traditional Model work for them. But so few, this is only an answer for people who choose to be cultural outsiders. There wouldn’t be a mainstream culture if the majority of people did not desire to be in the majority. Human nature is unchangeable, most people want to be in the mainstream. So the Traditional Model remains the answer for the few who are happy with outsider status. What we need is a new model for the mainstream. Anything less is a failure for the majority of people. We need a Romantic Model.
The Romantic Model admits birth control makes premarital sex without out of wedlock children possible. Responsible use of birth control will prevent unwanted pregnancies. Religious people will not be happy about this admission, we leave them out of the discussion. Simply accept they will never like the Romantic Model and move on. The Romantic Model admits there will be no punishment in hell for premarital sex. If there is an afterlife you will be punished for the times you harmed another not the times you harmed yourself. The original reason premarital sex was declared a sin was due to the creation of out of wedlock children. This fact is attested to in the older theological writings. St. Aquinas has a lengthy and interesting explanation of why premarital sex is a mortal sin and the entire argument is about the children produced by premarital sex. If you logically apply St. Aquinas’ theology to premarital sex with birth control than there is no sin. It is harming others that will be punished in the afterlife and with birth control premarital sex is no longer damning, this can be shown by referring to the original theological arguments themselves.
The Romantic Model admits a one night stand will not ruin your life or your future relationships, one drop of casual sex does not spoil the pot. There will be no abusive treatment of those who have casual, uncommitted sex, no insults or shouting. What the Romantic Model asks for is honesty, with others but even more importantly with yourself. Have all the casual sex you want, but be honest. From our intuition when we are young and from our experiences when we are old we all know that each time you fall in love you fall less. We all know this, it is time to admit we all know this. The main argument against this is that this trend only happens because we believe it will happen. But it is human nature and cannot be changed. We evolved before birth control, we evolved when sex always resulted in children. So we would emotionally bond with those we had sex with for the sake of the children. We would join with them emotionally and take their emotions in and making them happy made us happy and this taking in of feelings allowed the parents to care for each other in a way that would let them raise the children. We evolved before the pill, we evolved when sex and having children were one and the same. And children need a home, not a house. So we evolved to emotionally bond with the other parent and create a home. These tendencies are programmed into us by evolution and can never change. We are permanently this way. But some think if we stopped believing we are this way we would stop. But the truth is that which has power over you even if you do not believe in it. Falling less in love each time has power over you even if you don’t believe it. What we need now is honesty, we are programmed this way, we have to admit it.
We are programmed with a finite supply of Romantic Connection Potential because we evolved to have very few breeding partners. We did not need the ability to emotionally bond with many. Humans have the internal resources for dozens of friends, but we can only fall in true love once or twice. We only evolved to have enough Romantic Connection Potential for a few true loves because that is all we needed. The optimum breeding years are not that many, in the world we evolved in the small number of true loves was enough. Trying to make the number larger because birth control was invented will always fail. The truth is that which has power over you even if you do not believe in it. Evolution always has power over you. We evolved to have a finite ability to bond with breeding partners in a way strong enough to make a home. This finite source belongs to us and we are all free to do with it what we will. There will be no punishment in the afterlife for misspending your Romantic Connection Potential, punishment is for harming others not harming yourself. Hell is for criminals not fools. We are all free to use our own Romantic Connection Potential as we choose. But let us choose wisely, let us choose in open admission of what we know while young from intuition and what we know while old from experience, you fall less each time. Make the romantic decisions you want to make, but make them with eyes open. Birth control changed everything but birth control changed nothing. Human nature cannot change, it is truth and will not change for you but will still have power over you. It is human nature that you were born with a fixed amount of Romantic Connection Potential. Be romantic in how you use it.