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Open marriage
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===Definitional issues=== The meaning of open marriage can vary from study to study depending on how the particular researchers have set their selection criteria. Individuals might claim to have open marriages when their spouses would not agree. Studies and articles that interview individuals without taking their married status into account may not receive accurate information about the actual "open" status of the marriage. Blumstein and Schwartz asked more than 6,000 couples whether or not they had an understanding allowing sex outside their relationship. Interviewed individually, the partners in some couples gave very different responses to this question; the respective replies from one married couple were * "We've never spoken about cheating, but neither of us believe in it. I don't think I'd ever forgive him. I don't think I'd be able to. I don't know. I haven't met up with that situation." (Blumstein & Schwartz, 1983, p. 287).<ref name="Blumstein, Schwartz, 1983"/> * "Sure we have an understanding. It's 'You do what you want. Never go back to the same one.' See, that's where it's going to screw your mind up, to go back the second time to the same person." (Blumstein & Schwartz, 1983, p. 286).<ref name="Blumstein, Schwartz, 1983"/> Couples may have an open marriage in principle, but not engage in extramarital sex. Studies that define open marriage by agreement alone will tend to report a higher incidence than studies that define open marriage by agreement and behavior. Spaniel and Cole found that 7 percent of couples would consider participating in an open marriage, but only 1.7 percent of couples reported having open marriages that actually included extramarital sex.<ref name="Spanier, Cole, 1975">Spanier G.B., & Cole, C. L. (1975). Mate swapping: Perceptions, value orientations, and participation in a midwestern community. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 4, 143β159.</ref> Blumstein and Schwartz found that 15 percent of married couples share an agreement that allows extramarital sex, but only about 24 percent of men and 22 percent of women (or 6 percent and 5 percent of the total, respectively) who had such an agreement actually engaged in extramarital sex during the prior year. <ref name="Blumstein, Schwartz, 1983"/> Researchers have applied open marriage in overly narrow terms, as when Hunt used it specifically to mean swinging couples who meet with other swinging couples to swap mates.<ref name="Hunt, 1974">Hunt, M. (1974). Sexual Behavior in the 1970s. Chicago, IL: Playboy Press.</ref> Open marriage is usually defined in terms of legally married, opposite-sex partners, and thus data collected may not generalize to other kinds of open relationships. For example, cohabiting couples tend to show higher levels of involvement in extra-relational intimacy compared to married couples.<ref name="Blumstein, Schwartz, 1983"/><ref name="Forste, Tanfer, 1996">Forste, R., & Tanfer, K. (1996). Sexual exclusivity among dating, cohabitating, and married women. ''Journal of Marriage and the Family'', 58, 33β47.</ref><ref name="Treas, Giesen, 2000">Treas, J., & Giesen, D. (2000). Sexual infidelity among married and cohabitating Americans. ''Journal of Marriage and the Family'', 62, 48β60.</ref> Gay male couples show very high levels of open relationships compared to straight couples.<ref name="Blumstein, Schwartz, 1983"/> There is a lack of content regarding studies and educational programming in open marriage and diverse relationship structures.<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal|last1=Levine|first1=Ethan Czuy|last2=Herbenick|first2=Debby|last3=Martinez|first3=Omar|last4=Fu|first4=Tsung-Chieh|last5=Dodge|first5=Brian|date=2018-07-01|title=Open Relationships, Nonconsensual Nonmonogamy, and Monogamy Among U.S. Adults: Findings from the 2012 National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior|journal=Archives of Sexual Behavior|language=en|volume=47|issue=5|pages=1439β1450|doi=10.1007/s10508-018-1178-7|issn=1573-2800|pmc=5958351|pmid=29696552}}</ref> Due to this, there is much uncertainty regarding the topic. Common misconceptions of nonmonogamy<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://public.ebookcentral.proquest.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=1574426|title=A Therapist's Guide to Consensual Nonmonogamy : Polyamory, Swinging, and Open Marriage|last=Orion|first=Rhea|website=[[ProQuest]]|access-date=2019-02-27}}{{Dead link|date=September 2021 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> include that it violates principles of all religions, and that it is equivalent to polygyny (one man having multiple wives) or polygamy (a marriage of many).<ref name=":1" />
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