Modern life, loneliness and a Poly living

Whilst on the BBC website (riling against the Philpott case) I noticed a new article called 'Is Modern Life making us lonely?' 

I have spoken out quite a bit on how much my current life style is such a shock to my system. The living alone plus not working thing was hard enough, the enforced confinement due to the project is another nail in the coffin of me ever thinking I would make a good hermit, monk or prisoner, I am, definitely a social being.

So, what does the article say?  Well one thing that is very disturbing is the fact that in the UK 13% of people live alone, 24% in Denmark and the other northern countries the level was under 20%, contrast this to the Southern European countries and that figure is much lower with Malta at 7%.

So what is it about Northerners that makes us more inclined to live separately and put ourselves in this position of loneliness?  Well there is a cultural set of behaviours that has to do with familial responsibility and the expectation of living with and taking care of elderly parents and children's first priority being to their families.  Somehow in the North there is more value placed upon independence away from the birth family unit, we think it weird and immature for an adult over 25 to still be living at home.

The proportion of adults living alone in England and Wales almost doubled between 1973 and 2011, from 9% to 16%, according to the ONS.
Of the 16%, 28% are aged between 35-54 years old, but one study suggests people of working age who live alone increase their risk of depression by up to 80% compared with people living in families.

And with this toxic government in the UK with less home building, trying to cut the amount of children people have and little to no support for families (unless of course they are both working so then they can have strangers take care of their babies) and the bedroom tax forcing people into smaller homes, it  seems the social trend TPTB are encouraging is towards more social isolation, not less.

But Poly relationships can help, not entirely of course but in some ways.  Firstly, of course, Poly relationships do break up, so it may not prevent you from ending up pregnant and/or raising kids alone.
Poly won't necessarily help those who are socially inadequate and cannot find partners, Poly or Mono.

But for many of these situations, especially the 'Old lady living with her cats' stereotype that was mentioned in the article, men do tend to die before women and therefore to have two or three sister wives/metamours/other partners being able to give group support in their dotage is a wonderful idea.  Think the Golden Girls but just....a tad more intimate.
Also the terrible problem of social isolation that some new mother's suffer with, well having other people around can help that too. 

Loneliness is the cause of so much personal pain, sadness and sometimes depression.  Isn't it about time that we challenged the status quo of how we set up social systems rather than try to fix the symptom of this sick society?