Cohousing-L Mailing List: More ZEGG to cohousing

[Martin Tracy (mtracy]

Michael Elph Morgan writes

>Sub-groupings? yeah... go on...

Well, it seems that one of the most destructive events in community
building is the appearance of sub-groups like cliques.  Members of the
group who are not members of the subgroup may feel that they're missing
out on something, and members of the subgroup may leave the group entirely.

*Those wedding bells are breaking up that old gang of mine.*

No kidding.  We have been practicing falling in love for about two and a
half million years.  Even gorillas do it, and a sexually active couple may
disappear from their tribe for weeks on a so-called
"safari".  For more details, see Fisher's Anatomy of Love.

Falling in Love
---------------------
A very exciting experience, highly sexual, usually one-way, and lasts
about two years.  Has nothing to do with true love.  For more details, see
Scott Peck's The Road Less Traveled.

Since falling in love leads to having children, we have probably been
selecting for it like crazy.  Falling in love and feeling lonely are among
our strongest survival traits as a social species.  Think about it.

So how does a small community prevent members from falling in love, inside
or outside the community, and forming an exclusive subgroup of two?  If
your village is a rural commune, or a small island off the coast of
Croatia, geographical isolation keeps you together.  Alternately, you
might form a same-sex celibate group.  Monks live together communally, and
some monasteries are hundreds of years old.  Or you might have sexual
sharing with strict rotational partnering, like Kerista.  Or form an
extended family of couples with children.

Zegg's solution, from what I understand, is to encourage daily
communication among its members.  Since their sexual sharing is voluntary
and unplanned, couples do form from time to time.  If the group feels that
the couple is investing energy mostly on themselves, to the exclusion of
the group, they will gently confront the couple.  Never underestimate the
power of peer pressure!  This pattern has worked for them for several
years.

Want more?

Martin Tracy -- mtracy [at] netcom.com