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rubenesque68
New Member
USA
6 Posts |
 Posted - 07/16/2001 : 02:22:13
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Polygamy is the rule rather than the exception in animals, so why do humans try to resist this evolutionary trend? The whole idea is to get out there and spread your genes to as many mates as possible to provide viable offspring, this ensures for genetic variety and new stronger combinations. As to humans, we have had many past societies that practiced polygamy. So why do we remain virtually monogamous?
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bestonnet_00
Skeptic Friend
Australia
358 Posts |
 Posted - 07/16/2001 : 03:56:04 [Permalink]
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Probably social reasons, it was advantagous at first for monogamy to exist at some period of time during our species development.
Then it just stuck with us.
Radioactive GM Crops.
Slightly above background.
Safe to eat.
But no activist would dare rip it out.
As they think it gives them cancer. |
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@tomic
Administrator
USA
4607 Posts |
Posted - 07/16/2001 : 04:06:54 [Permalink]
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I think it could be argued that the monogomy is partly an illusion. Very few people have a single partner in life. And many, many people have more than one partner at a time. I think that while our culture likes to pat itself on the back because we are so good and monogamous the reality is that hardly anyone is truly monogamous.
@tomic
Gravity, not just a good idea...it's the law! |
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Bradley
Skeptic Friend
USA
147 Posts |
Posted - 07/16/2001 : 11:15:34 [Permalink]
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See Twain's "Letters from the Earth" for an interesting take on this issue. He makes a rather convincing case for allowing a woman to have as many husbands as she wants. Forget Solomon and his "wisdom." Any man who thought he could keep satisfied a thousand women (seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines according to the Wholly Babble) had to be either a grandiose egotist, an egregious ass, or (most likely) both.
"Too much doubt is better than too much credulity."
-Robert Green Ingersoll (1833 - 1899) |
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rubenesque68
New Member
USA
6 Posts |
Posted - 07/16/2001 : 15:39:36 [Permalink]
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quote:
I think it could be argued that the monogomy is partly an illusion. Very few people have a single partner in life. And many, many people have more than one partner at a time. I think that while our culture likes to pat itself on the back because we are so good and monogamous the reality is that hardly anyone is truly monogamous.
@tomic
@tomic! Could you be speaking of serial manogamy rather than polygamy? This is the sequential breeding with a mate for a single or a limited number of matings before a new mate is found. This is in humans, though not usually expressed in this way. I think we would say that this is promiscuity or "fear of committment" LOL
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rubenesque68
New Member
USA
6 Posts |
Posted - 07/16/2001 : 15:57:39 [Permalink]
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I find it facinating that in the animal kingdom that both sexes have found ways of perpetuating their own genes while eliminating the competitor's chance of the same. Scent markers repel another male from mating with the same female, sperm plugs block anothers "seed" from reaching the ovum and fertilizing the egg, an overwhelmingly flooding volume of sperm, and in the same measure the sperm that are never meant to reach the ovum but hang back to eliminate the competitors sperm, and the multiple orgasm capabilities in females allowing more than one mate to breed her. Think of why dogs "hang up" during a mating session. The male dog's penis actually swells at the tip to allow a head start for the sperm to get to the ovum ahead of the competitors sperm. Interesting stuff here!
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Lars_H
SFN Regular
Germany
630 Posts |
Posted - 07/17/2001 : 05:06:22 [Permalink]
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quote:
Polygamy is the rule rather than the exception in animals, so why do humans try to resist this evolutionary trend? The whole idea is to get out there and spread your genes to as many mates as possible to provide viable offspring, this ensures for genetic variety and new stronger combinations. As to humans, we have had many past societies that practiced polygamy. So why do we remain virtually monogamous?
Saying that Polygamy is the rule in the animal kingdom is a big generalization. There are lots of animals that mate for live or at least with one partner at a time. If you go by quantity alone then you will find that the majority reproduces by laying an uncanny amount of eggs. I don't think that the insect kingdom is a good example for human social system.
Speaking of polygamy as an evolutionary trend and asking humans to adopt it on those reasons, shows a fundamental lack of understanding of evolution.
Polygamy is not inherently better suited to further the spread of your genetic material in the environment humans live in. (Otherwise we would have adopted it.)
The decision to live in a polygamic relationship itself is in my opinion a personal one. If people are happy living in a relationship I don't care how many males and females are in it. Neither should the state the church or the neighbores.
I just don't see it working for myself. (probably more because of social conditioning then biological instincts)
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Tokyodreamer
SFN Regular
USA
1447 Posts |
Posted - 07/17/2001 : 08:19:36 [Permalink]
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quote:
Any man who thought he could keep satisfied a thousand women (seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines according to the Wholly Babble) had to be either a grandiose egotist, an egregious ass, or (most likely) both.
It sure would be fun to try though! 
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Ma gavte la nata! |
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Tokyodreamer
SFN Regular
USA
1447 Posts |
Posted - 07/17/2001 : 08:22:01 [Permalink]
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quote:
Polygamy is not inherently better suited to further the spread of your genetic material in the environment humans live in. (Otherwise we would have adopted it.)
On this note, what are your thoughts on why a woman can have a baby (or babies) once every 9 months, but men are ready to impregnate another woman within minutes of the last (evolutionarily speaking)?
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Ma gavte la nata! |
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Orpheus
Skeptic Friend
92 Posts |
Posted - 07/18/2001 : 10:14:09 [Permalink]
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How about a communal marriage as viable alternative to polygamy?
What I mean by this is when a lot of people who happen to care for one another get together and perhaps raise kids etc. (something along the line of the Kibbutz system, but not quite). This would probably be aided if all concerned were bisexual.
Advantages would include a diverse and interresting environment for kids to grow up in, always having at least one parent at home, no end of sexual diversity, and serious economic security...
Find your own damned answers! |
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ljbrs
SFN Regular
USA
842 Posts |
Posted - 07/18/2001 : 20:09:10 [Permalink]
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Some behaviors are very, very dangerous, even in marriage (if one of the partners is *fooling around*). The long, long list of possible diseases proves that. It must be scary out there.
ljbrs
Perfection Is a State of Growth... |
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comradebillyboy
Skeptic Friend
USA
188 Posts |
Posted - 07/19/2001 : 13:25:30 [Permalink]
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some of us are monagamous because we are too lazy to cheat; i thik of this as the domestic theory of inertia.
comrade billyboy |
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Bradley
Skeptic Friend
USA
147 Posts |
Posted - 07/20/2001 : 15:23:50 [Permalink]
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Somehow, I don't think that the overwhelming majority of practitioners of polygamy (whether concurrent or serial) actually have procreation in mind.
"Too much doubt is better than too much credulity."
-Robert Green Ingersoll (1833 - 1899) |
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Greg
Skeptic Friend
USA
281 Posts |
Posted - 07/22/2001 : 22:06:24 [Permalink]
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quote:
How about a communal marriage as viable alternative to polygamy?
What I mean by this is when a lot of people who happen to care for one another get together and perhaps raise kids etc.
There are some analogues to this type of behavior in nature. It is somewhat akin to a wolf "society". Of course with wolves, the alpha male is allowed to mate with the alpha female and that's it as far as procreation goes. The other members of the pack however, share responsibility for feeding, nurturing, and raising the pups produced as if they were their own. The wolf society is probably the most "loving" and nuturing in all of the animal kingdom.
Greg.
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Slater
SFN Regular
USA
1668 Posts |
Posted - 07/23/2001 : 13:25:12 [Permalink]
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It doesn't really do any good to look at "the animal kingdom" to answer questions on our sexual mores. The differences in the behavior between a Pearly Nautilus and, say, a Gibbon are unrecognizably vast.
We should be very close to Chimps in our family structure were it not for purely social influence.
Our family social structure in America comes straight out of the Near East with our religion. Odd because so few of us actually hail from those parts and we are ill prepared to live that way.
The Near East mind set seems to revolve around the accumulation of possessions. This may be related to the desert conditions they were forced to live in. It is not by accident that this is where money was invented. Strangely enough even people become possessions of other people. Most notably wives are the property of their husbands.
This was not the case in the Norse, Germanic or Celtic countries.
Ireland is a good example because the superimposed culture is so different from it's own native one, sexually speaking.
In classic (Pagan) Ireland marriage was not only a contract it was a series of contracts. There were seven different classes of marriage. Based mostly on the differences of social standing between the husband and wife as to which they would pick. A rich woman might decide to have several husbands or take on temporary husbands. Queen Medb (pronounced Maeve) in the famous Irish epic offers sex as part of the deal to acquire the Donn Cuailgne.
The king is only angry because she out smarted him not because she "cheated".
The same legend shows another classic social position of women. Cuchulainn, a version of Hercules, goes off to study to be a warrior. Being half god, he picks the greatest combat school to attend. That of the woman warrior Skye (the isle of Skye was named for her and her school).
In Ireland as in most of Western Europe people did not gain status by the accumulation of possessions, but rather by their generosity. It was much more important to give your wealth away than to keep it. This even extended to the giving away of ones children (in marked parallel to the customs of Polynesia)
Sexuality was a basic part of religion. If you ever get to Tara you will find on one of the mounds a relic called "The Stone of Destiny". It dates back to about 500 years before Egypt's pyramids. It is a five-foot tall erect stone phallus, the center of Druidism, the holy of holies.
Today in Catholic (Near Eastern culture) you can find men with six children who have never seen their wives naked. Sexuality is now banned from religion.
Yikes, no wonder we drink.
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One thing I found interesting about family structure was all the moaning and groaning Republicans were doing a few years back about traditional family values.
Now of course they never came out and said it but they were complaining about blacks. The black men weren't marrying the women. The women would have illegitimate children by a series of different men and leave the kids for their grandparents to raise. The men and the women didn't even socially interact that much.
This was terrible! It must change! We (meaning they) must change, and return to traditional family values.
Of course those of us who have spent some time in Africa were in on the joke. These ARE traditional family values, which have served them well for countless generations. They were just not WASP culture.
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So to understand why we have sexual relationships the way we do look to institutions and not evolution.
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The brain that was stolen from my laboratory was a criminal brain. Only evil will come from it.
Edited by - slater on 07/23/2001 13:27:26 |
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Snake
SFN Addict
USA
2511 Posts |
Posted - 07/23/2001 : 13:57:01 [Permalink]
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quote:
Polygamy is the rule rather than the exception in animals, so why do humans try to resist this evolutionary trend? The whole idea is to get out there and spread your genes to as many mates as possible to provide viable offspring, this ensures for genetic variety and new stronger combinations. As to humans, we have had many past societies that practiced polygamy. So why do we remain virtually monogamous?
Hey! Hey! Watch it buddy! Who you calling monogamous? I have never been if I could help it. How boring to have only one partner. And are you trying to convert everyone to be Mormon or what? |
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