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From: spg@portia.Stanford.EDU (Stephen Guthrie)
Newsgroups: sci.bio,alt.romance,soc.men,soc.women,soc.singles
Subject: Re: Are Humans Naturally Monogamous?
Message-ID: <1990Oct26.165455.1055@portia.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 26 Oct 90 16:54:55 GMT
References: <1990Oct24.175532.9407@pmafire.UUCP> <15490@netcom.UUCP> <1990Oct26.000754.24765@odin.corp.sgi.com>
Organization: AIR, Stanford University
Lines: 21

>>Without cultural training would human being by there biological nature
>>be monogamous or is it culturally ingrained from childhood?
>
>I think it is culturally ingrained.  Men can impregnate as many fertile
>women as they can have sex with.  This allows men to 'spread their DNA
>around' as much as they can.  Women, on the other hand can only bear one
>child at a time.  Therefore it is evolutionarily(?) advantageous for a
>man not to be monogamous.  In fact, I'll go as far to say that it's even
>better if you can impregnate someone else's woman, because then another
>man is helping your DNA to survive.
>

This was the explanation I've been given that men, on the whole tend to
be promiscous and woman selective in their choice of a mate. Men have
zillions of sperm and it's to their advantage to spread them around as
much as possible. Women have a single egg and have to put a lot of work
into creating the baby, rearing it, etc that they want to be darn sure
that they get the best available specimen to fertilize their egg (thus
animals where a dominant male has privileges with a harem of females).

For interesting implications on this stuff read Dawkins _The Selfish Gene_.