Human Flourishing and Sexuality

Do Moral Rules Really Protect Us? What History Says About Sex, Culture, and Collapse
I read this fascinating paper based on a massive book written back in the 1930s.  An Oxford anthropologist named J.D. Unwin studied 86 different civilizations and asked a simple but profound question: Does sexual freedom affect how cultures rise and fall? His book Sex and Culture is over 600 pages, but his findings are surprisingly clear—and eerily relevant for us today.
What Unwin Found

• Sexual restraint → thriving cultures. Every time a society valued sexual self-control (especially waiting until marriage and keeping lifelong commitments), that culture grew in creativity, strength, and prosperity.
• Sexual freedom → cultural collapse. Whenever a society abandoned sexual restraint, within three generations that culture slid into decline—losing its energy, rational thinking, belief in God, and eventually collapsing.
• The strongest combination. The cultures that flourished most required premarital chastity and lifelong monogamy. Only three societies in history ever achieved this, but they led the way in art, science, architecture, and more.
• The time lag. Change didn’t happen overnight. It usually took about 100 years (three generations) for the effects—good or bad—to fully show.

How This Relates to Us
Western society experienced its own sexual revolution starting in the late 1960s. By the early 2000s, waiting until marriage had become the exception rather than the rule, divorce and cohabitation were widely accepted, and lifelong marriage was no longer the cultural norm.
According to Unwin’s timeline, we are now entering the generations where decline should be most visible—and many trends fit the prediction:

• Decline of lifelong marriage. Modified monogamy (serial relationships) is now the norm.
• Decline of faith. Belief in God has dropped sharply, while superstition and “post-truth” thinking are rising.
• Decline of reason. Rationalism is being replaced by relativism and emotion-driven “truth.”

Why It Matters
Unwin didn’t claim to know why this pattern repeats, but he noticed that when sexual energy is restrained, it seems to be redirected into building families, communities, and civilizations. When it isn’t, cultures turn inward, focusing only on personal pleasure until they eventually lose their vitality.
Modern researcher Mary Eberstadt adds another layer: the breakdown of the family has left people without a strong sense of identity, fueling loneliness, mental health struggles, and social division. In her view, the unraveling of family life—sparked by the sexual revolution—is at the root of many of today’s cultural crises.
A Takeaway for Today
What if moral laws, especially around sexuality, aren’t about restricting joy but about protecting it? Just like operating instructions for a machine, they may look limiting on the surface but are actually designed for our long-term good.
Unwin’s research shows that history repeats itself with “monotonous regularity.” Every culture that loosened its sexual restraints eventually collapsed. If that pattern holds, we’re on a dangerous path. But if we take these lessons seriously, perhaps we can choose a better road.