The onset of the coronavirus pandemic last year brought a number of major shifts to our daily lives. No more could we enter the grocery store without a mask, gather with family and friends, or even go to school. Plentiful changes made over the past year have left many to question casual sex – and to seriously wonder if or how they will meet, date, and marry. Life pre-pandemic presented its own difficulties when it came to finding the one. The decline of marriage and high rate of divorce, a myriad online dating options, the reality of casual sex, ghosting and other confusing practices, all offered temptations to give in to the no-strings attached mentality or abandon finding a mate altogether. However, as loneliness and polarization have afflicted our society over the past year, the pull toward deeper human relationships in the forms of companionship and community has grown ever stronger.
The Moral Dimension of Abstinence
Pandemic life has also, ironically enough, revealed the necessity of abstinence as a tool for moral deliberation. Ironic because numerous health organizations over the past few decades have expressed skepticism about the utility of promoting abstinence to young people, and those who have promoted it have often been accused of myopia about teen sexual activity. But in 2020, the CDC and numerous university health centers like that of Harvard were essentially forced to admit that abstinence is the most effective form of stopping the spread of disease, and that real moral deliberation about having sex in a pandemic is required in order to keep oneself and others safe. On the question of whether to have sex with someone living outside of one’s home, the CDC’s Sex and COVID-19 guideline bluntly states “the safest choice is to not have sex with a person outside your household at this time.”
The Virtues of Monogamy
Along with offering abstinence as the best option for fending off the virus, most official guidelines have also either implicitly or explicitly held up monogamy as the safest form of effectively preventing disease and also a moral imperative. The CDC implied that one should not engage in promiscuity for the purpose of preventing infection, since “the safest sex partners are those who already live with you and are at low risk of infection.” The Princeton University Health Services guidelines on sexual health during the pandemic are even clearer. If you “choose to engage in in-person partnered sexual activities, it is recommended that you only have one partner and agree to be monogamous with one another.” At a time when the cause for polygamy has garnered greater national attention, the affirmation of the good of monogamy, even if for the sole purpose of disease prevention, is notable.
Marriage: A Formative Institution
As Yale’s “Safer Sex During COVID-19” sheet explains, “our [sexual] choices impact not only ourselves, but also our classmates, colleagues, and the entire […] community.” Our sexual choices impact the world around us in quiet, spiritual ways. Whether we choose to abstain or not, to marry or not, to have multiple partners or not, these choices have the power to either positively or negatively contribute to the state of our society. The vast majority of people still desire to find and stay with one with whom to share the rest of their lives – not simply to rid themselves of the risk of infection. As has been repeatedly shown through experience and study, marriage is society’s formative institution. Don’t be fooled by voices demanded the end of marriage and monogamy. The pandemic has not squelched our desire for love and commitment, and the recent guidelines testify to the natural fact that monogamous marriage best suited for the health and flourishing of men and women, their children, families, and communities.
