Conversation Class

November 6, 2021
Today’s subject: Marriage, Monogamy and other institutions

HOMEWORK CHECKING

BRAINSTORMING

- Marriage is an institution.
- “Marriage serves the man, but is a disservice to women.”
- There are different types of love.
- It is impossible to love one person at the time.
- Monogamy is on Human's Nature.

LISTENING - Polyamory by Leon Feingold (TEDxBushwick)

- Is it possible to love one person at the time? What examples are given?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtdsZ8B7JQY

VOCABULARY
1) Engage
To be engaged with someone./ To be engaged on something.
“We’ve been engaged for about 5 months now.”/ “She’s been so engaged with this project.”
2) Commit
To be committed to someone.
To be committed to something. “I’m committed to this relationship. I want to make it work.”
3) Marry/ Marriage
We’ll get married next week. I’ll do anything to marry that guy.
Our marriage was a mistake.
4) Wedding
Our wedding ceremony will be very simple.
Look at the newly-weds.

Polyamory: Beyond the confines of monogamous love

Monogamy is still very much the norm in today’s societies, but different types of romantic relationships
are gaining ground. In most societies around the world, people dream of finding “the one” and forming a
committed relationship with that one person — for life. Movies and books are filled with “happily ever
after” stories involving soulmates that were simply “made for each other.”

Yet, over the past few decades, more and more people have been speaking out, saying that monogamy is
not for them. One form of nonmonogamous practice that has been attracting attention in the media is
polyamory. But what is polyamory, really, and how does it differ from other nonmonogamous practices?

When speaking to polyamorous people about how they would define polyamory, the same reaction came
up over and over again: “It’s probably the hardest question to answer.” The difficulty comes from the fact
that polyamorous relationships can take various forms. They can be with one partner being the main
partner, or all partners have equal standing. Moreover, a person could be in separate relationships with
different partners or in a relationship in which all or several partners are also romantically engaged with
each other.

The word “polyamory” comes from the Greek root “poly,” meaning “many,” and the Latin root “amor,”
meaning “love.” Quite literally, it means “many loves” — being romantically involved with multiple people
at the same time. Despite noting how hard it was to define polyamory, this was actually what all the
polyamorous people who spoke with us said: Polyamory is about spreading the love.
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/325880#The-hardest-question
VOCABULARY SNACK – Connectors
Complete the sentences with the connectors extracted from the article.

Yet But Moreover Despite

a) I warned her last night about all the stores being closed today, ________, she insisted on going to
the mall.
b) My friend invited us to her parents’ wedding anniversary, ________, we had made a reservation
at a restaurant for that same day. ___________ on the day after the anniversary we’ll catch an
early flight to San Francisco.
c) The manager has announced that __________ the many efforts to keep all the company’s
employees, they’ll be cutting down on staff to avoid bankruptcy.

Rewrite the sentence with “despite” using “In spite of”

WATCHING - Can You Be In Love with Multiple People? | Middle Ground

Watch the first 5 min of the video and choose one of the statements to talk about. Take notes on the
participants’ opinions and prepare yourself to share your own.

1) Humans are naturally polyamorous (up to 3:11)

A lot of people in Polyamory use the rates of Divorce to justify why they are polyamorous.
Polyamory is just sex with multiple partners.
Does it have to be equal?
2) I am in love (up to 05:08)
Love relationships teach you to love yourself.