Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!linac!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!uunet!zds-ux!gerry
From: gerry@zds-ux.UUCP (Gerry Gleason)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Are Humans Naturally Monogamous?
Message-ID: <507@zds-ux.UUCP>
Date: 29 Nov 90 03:47:03 GMT
References: <1990Oct24.175532.9407@pmafire.UUCP> <15490@netcom.UUCP> <1990Oct26.000754.24765@odin.corp.sgi.com> <4836@lure.latrobe.edu.au> <1990Nov22.191009.20772@watserv1.waterloo.edu> <3343@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM>
Reply-To: gerry@zds-ux.UUCP (Gerry Gleason)
Organization: Zenith Data Systems
Lines: 40

In article <3343@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM> falk@peregrine.Sun.COM (Ed Falk) writes:
>I think it's more of a power thing among humans than anything genetic.
>In most of society; men hold the cards and use that power to keep women
>from sleeping with other men ("sleep around and I'll divorce you and
>you'll starve.")

>Sometimes the situation is reversed.  Where I went to school, there
>were very few women and they held the cards.  It was not at all unusual
>for a woman to be sleeping with several men and insist that some or all
>of those men to be monogamous.

Yes, but the male power argument also would argue for men, at least powerful
ones, to have more than one wife.  Monogamy would tend to suggest that
women are more in control, if anything, since she will always be 100%
tied up with raising the offspring anyway, and pair-bonding increases the
chances that the offspring survive, so it is always in the females best
interest.

_The_Naked_Ape_ puts forward some interesting, if somewhat speculative
theories for various human traits.  For example, it suggests that hairlessness
is related to a higenic consideration; that is, it's easier to keep parasites
of without the hair.  In this case, I think the explanation put forward here
are better (better cooling in tropical conditions, or a semi-aquatic adaptation,
possibly a little of both).

The arguments on the evolution of sexual behaviors is much better.  I wish
I remembered more details, but he talks about the fact that women are
sexually receptive all the time, and that humans are very social animals
to the extent that co-operative behavior is almost definitive.  Polygamy
would be dangerous to the cohesiveness of the group and co-operative
behavior, and since the females don't go into "heat", it's not even
practical for males to have sex with any available female, because each
act has a low probability of success, and while he is doing this, the other
males are doing so as well so he isn't able to increase the number of
offspring by this strategy.

Of course, you can get into all kinds of which came first arguments with
these ideas.  Oh well.

Gerry Gleason