Xref: utzoo sci.bio:4006 soc.men:23925 soc.women:30078 soc.singles:74138
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!qucdn!saundrsg
Organization: Queen's University at Kingston
Date: Thursday, 29 Nov 1990 14:24:14 EST
From: Graydon <SAUNDRSG@QUCDN.QueensU.CA>
Message-ID: <90333.142415SAUNDRSG@QUCDN.QueensU.CA>
Newsgroups: sci.bio,soc.men,soc.women,soc.singles
Subject: Re: Are Humans Naturally Monogamous?
References: <5869@crash.cts.com> <1990Nov29.180827.10813@watserv1.waterloo.edu>

To use perhaps excessively computational metaphors, people have almost
no ROM (if it's instinctive, it's present in more or less the same percentage
of the population in any given area throughout the species), and a lot of
EPROMs.  You *can* wipe the EPROMS and load them from RAM, but it is a lot
of work (~= pain, heartache, thought, time, energy) and is probably not
worth it for most folk.   If one's EPROMs make one sufficently unhappy,
however (survivors of all sorts of violence, etc.), it *is* worth it.


*Marriage*, of some description, is common to most human cultures past
a certain level (villagers, instead of pure hunter/gatherer, and up).
The forms of the marriage are so clearly relatable to economic factors
that it seems silly to describe monogamy as 'instinctive'.

Graydon

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Monete me si non anglice loquebar.          saundrsg@qucdn.queensu.ca
                                            saundrsg@qucdn.bitnet