I think the nuclear family is a nasty economic prison, and getting
nastier by the minute as exploitation deepens and the battle for free
time (time not consumed by either selling or reproducing one's labour
power) becomes redder in tooth and claw. I don't think sex is that
much of an issue in itself, although I understand that everyone gets
antsy now and then. People use adultery first as an escape valve and
later as a wrecking ball. But the real goal I think is not sexual but
economic freedom: getting out of an absurdly inefficient and
psychologically stressful domestic arrangement. For that matter, if
the pressures of paying the bills, raising the children and keeping
the place from turning into a complete pigsty were significantly
relieved, I think many people would be a lot more easy-going about the
occasional extra-marital sexual/emotional excursion - as the moneyed
classes in fact have always been.
Dominic
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