So different people bond differently with each other. For some the bond is one to one, for others it is more dispersed. Though it seems through repetition a culture begins to carve out a dominant bond-form. Free love, polyamory, open relationships...all these alternatives to dominant culture's monogamous relationship are championed by those seeking to emancipate themselves from the tyranny of ossified cultural institutions.
For some it works. For others not so much. Some types of personalities are just fine hopping from one person to the next, and if the receiving personalities are compatible and enjoy the same activity, well then excellent. Other personalities require more concentrated, lasting bonds.
It is curious how we can take one form of bond out of many and then amplify it by proclaiming its righteousness and multiplying it across the population of a civilization through institution. For as long as the population assents to the ideology attached to a given bond, many different types of people can partake in the institution.
I'm not sure these alternate bonding methods signify any kind of progress; they don't work for everyone. They do seem to be adaptive at a time when there is a great instability that reaches down to the individual level. One can disperse their affections, which can protect against the dissonance generated from the intimacies of unstable individuals.
Stable intimacy in most cases seems to require confidence in one's own character, and confidence in the character of another, and trust in that other's confidence in one's own character. Ingredients like these aren't always all present in a disintegrating society, unfortunate to say, though some people can still do it in any circumstance. And maybe such intimacy can be achieved whether the love is concentrated or widely dispersed. I don't really know. It would depend on the individual experiencing it.
