Mononormativity or mono-normativity is an assumption that monogamy is more normal, more natural, or healthier than ethical non-monogamy, as well as the societal enforcement of such an assumption. It has been widely tied to various forms of discrimination or bias against polyamory.
Background
The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction estimated that there were half-a-million "openly polyamorous families" in the United States in July 2009. Additionally, 15–28% of heterosexual couples and about half of gay and bisexual people have a "non-traditional" arrangement of some kind as reported in The Guardian in August 2013.
Mononormative society
A large majority of the Western world can be thought of as legally or socially biased towards monogamous ways of living. Feminist scholars Dossie Easton and Janet Hardy explored the consequences of sex-negative, monogamy-centric socialization in their work The Ethical Slut, writing; How do you dig up and examine a belief that you don’t even know you hold? The idea of lifelong monogamy as the only proper goal for relationships is so deeply buried in our culture that it’s almost invisible, we operate on these beliefs without even knowing we believe them. They are under our feet all the time, the foundation of our assumptions, our values, our desires, our myths, our expectations "Mono-normativity" as a term is thought to have been coined in 2005 by German queer studies scholars Marianne Pieper and Robin Bauer, later defined by Bauer as the assumption that "couple-shaped arranged relationships are the principle of social relations per se, an essential foundation of human existence and the elementary, almost natural pattern of living together." The concept has been increasingly cited by psychiatrists and other professionals as a point of concern when countering systemic discrimination and improving legal or social representation for polyamorous people. University of British Columbia professor Carrie Jenkins explored the impacts of mononormativity in a book titled What Love Is: And What It Could Be, later discussing her own identity as polyamorous and drawing a distinction between "pro-polyamory" and "anti-monogamy".