Survey: Only Half of Spaniards Identify as Strictly Monogamous

Dating site for married people announces the end of monogamy

In August 2024, amid summer romance scandals dominating headlines, a report titled Towards a More Diverse and Fluid Monogamy put a figure on the table: only 51% of Spaniards identify as fully monogamous. The study was signed by Ashley Madison in collaboration with YouGov. The detail matters because Ashley Madison is the world's largest dating platform for married individuals.

This generated the headline of the season. Psychologist Lara Ferreiro stated bluntly: "This is one hundred percent the beginning of the end of monogamy." Christoph Kraemer, the platform's managing director for Europe, added that the "binary system" imposed throughout history "does not correspond to the diversity that represents human beings." Two powerful phrases. No proof.

What the data says: 51% in Spain and six out of ten in Italy and Germany

The picture is less apocalyptic than the headline suggests. Half of Spaniards declare themselves monogamous without nuance, and that half is more conservative than their neighbors': in Italy and Germany, six out of ten people do not declare themselves monogamous. In other words, Spain is not leading any affective revolution. It is trailing behind, with the handbrake on.

Nevertheless, the report maintains that the change is unstoppable and points to Generation Z as the group most open to non-monogamous models. According to its authors, the pandemic acted as an accelerator: after lockdown, many women would have started reviewing their desires and well-being. A plausible narrative, interested source, and there lies the tension.

From Nuria Roca to the Escassi case: public judgment has softened

Seven years ago, Nuria Roca and Juan del Val confessed on El Hormiguero that they maintained an open relationship, and the reaction was massive scandal, with headlines and widespread reproach. In 2024, the case of Álvaro Muñoz Escassi and María José Suárez — he claimed a prior open-relationship agreement existed, she denied this version and described herself as a "deceived woman" — was trinc with much more curiosity than indignation.

The most repeated interpretation is that the severity of public judgment has decreased, not because people approve more, but because the issue ceased to be a scandalous rarity to become just another format of conversation. The morbid interest changed sign: before it was sarracena morbidness, now it is gossip morbidness.

Is monogamy unnatural? The argument turns against itself

The star argument of those who defend opening the couple is that monogamy is unnatural. The counter-offensive comes quickly: nature is no more promiscuous than monogamous, and monogamy — or serial monogamy — is interpreted as an adaptive phenomenon that protects prolonged upbringing. In higher mammals, it is argued, promiscuity is not the rule.

The zoological comparison also turns against those who use it: if imitating animals is the goal, each species has its own script and none includes a mortgage. Another response summarizes the logic with wit: if the existence of diseases served to declare something unnatural, breathing would be too. And a third equates monogamy to clothing or agriculture: human customs, not instincts.

Monogamy as a grayscale, not a switch

Sens therapist Tammy Nelson, author of Open Monogamy, argues that monogamy is not black or white, but a scale with many tones. From this comes a list of labels: closed, fantasy, emotional, exclusively sensual, independent, unlimited, segarro, relational anarchy, or separate monogamy. Each describes a different distribution of what is shared and what is not.

The problem with so much taxonomy is that it turns a discussion about cohabitation into a discussion about nomenclature. Naming nine ways to organize oneself says nothing about how many work.

The economic factor nobody puts in the headline

Money appears where least expected. A family sharing housing, expenses, and care lowers the cost of living; separate economies do not. Some take the reasoning to the extreme and argue that normalizing cohabitations of more than two adults would allow paying a mortgage among four or five. It is out of tone, but points to something true: affective decisions have direct consequences on household spending structures.

There also circulates an uncomfortable argument: under a formal polygamy regime, the distribution would be even more unequal, with a few concentrating interest and a part of men outside the system. It is posed as a sociological warning, not as data.

And the children? The question that disconcerts everyone

It is argued that a child with separated parents and new partners may have a wider network of adults than a couple barely tolerating each other. The objection is that long-term data series are missing: no one has trinc cohorts of children raised in these models for twenty years to compare results.

That is where everything gets stuck. The report measures declared intentions, not cohabitations. How many open couples last a decade and how many go back is a figure that does not exist, because no one has measured it. The percentages of what people say they would accept are high. Those of what people actually live are unknown.