open marriage

From open +‎ marriage.

open marriage (countable and uncountable, plural open marriages)

1. A marital relationship in which each partner agrees that the other partner may have sexual relations with other people as he or she sees fit.

   Hypernym: open relationship

   • 1973 January 8, “The Sexes: Swinging Future”, in Time‎^[1], archived from the original on 18 December 2011:

     "Most people have been married more than once, and adultery is universally tolerated. Open marriage would simply legitimize what we already live."

   • 1975 March 17, “Suzy Chaffee: The Liberated Beauty”, in Beaver County Times:

     "Marriage is only possible for me if it's an open marriage".

   • 2002 August 22, Barbara Whitaker, “Neighbor Guilty of Murder Of Girl, 7, in San Diego”, in New York Times‎^[2], retrieved 5 August 2011:

     Both said they had an open marriage, having sexual relations with others.

   • 2025 October 24, Alexis Petridis, “Lily Allen: West End Girl – a gobsmacking autopsy of marital betrayal”, in The Guardian‎^[3], →ISSN:

     While you can’t tell where poetic licence has been applied, its narrative arc traces accepting an open marriage along certain guidelines (“He had an arrangement, be discreet and don’t be blatant,” Allen sings on Madeline, “there had to be payment, it had to be with strangers”) only for the relationship to explode when it transpires that the husband isn’t abiding by the rules.

• “open marriage”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.