Are polyamorous relationships financially inevitable in Singapore?

The Rice Media has a really good article on polyamory lately. You can visit the link here.

I was really entertained by the article but this was not my first exposure to polyamory in Singapore. 

My first exposure was with someone I met while getting my Bar exams. This girl who worked along with me on an assignment claimed to be polyamorous and it triggered an interesting conversation. She said she's dating two men, sometimes simultaneously. One man is about her age in his twenties and another guy is an uncle who is much older like me. I remember my first reaction was not to judge her. In fact, I asked her how she coped with jealousy which I thought was built into the male psyche. She said there was none and in triple dates, the uncle even pays for the young guy.

As I'm a lot more interested in the numbers, I tried to decode the relationship at that time. I thought the uncle was the guy who provided the bankroll for a young couple and, in return, maybe gets to take part in the action.  This is not the kind of 3P a guy would be able to accept conventionally.

The fact is that thanks to the pandemic, not everyone is entitled to the same economic outcomes based on the effort they put into their careers. A software developer is almost untouched by the pandemic, but an artistic performer probably has 80% of income wiped out. This means that a certain segment will thrive with an unusual amount of savings in investments and some will end up depleted.

If we focus on real estate, we can be looking at low-interest rates and delayed buildup of BTO homes, all recipes for a spike in real estate prices. Landlords will take this opportunity to increase rents.

As such polyamory can supplant a traditional marriage from the finance space. 

a) Polyamory solves the problem of expensive real estate prices.

Polyamorous folks can buy larger flat and participate in the upside but as tenants in common as opposed to joint owners. This preserves their rights and lets them benefit from higher real estate prices. If six people buy a jumbo flat, the mortgages may be manageable using CPF-OA for each person. 

b) Polyamory reduces daily expenses

Polyamorous folks gain massive benefits from economies of scale. They can easily participate in the group buy arrangements and buy in bulk from warehouses. I studied some statistics and household expenses per head go down by quite a bit as the numbers of members of the household increase.

c) Polyamory reduces housework

Polyamorous folks get benefits in childcare. As these groups are large, not everyone can contribute to the household financially so some can volunteer their time to raise the kids. This is not a new thing. Before the Church dismantled polygamous families, some women want to join a clan because their share of the housework and child-rearing is shared with other women. For a similar reason, the men may find it easier to hunt in a pack. 

Polyamory is the disruptive technology that can upend traditional families as it is really tiring to manage multi-generational households from a financial perspective in a city. I predict that early adopters may slant towards those with contract jobs and creative artistic pursuits. 

I also realise that the question in my title is not answered. 

My expectation is that Gen Z will surprise everyone with how open-minded they are. If they can normalise something like cryptocurrency, incorporating polyamory would be a cinch.