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From: dgil@pa.reuter.COM (Dave Gillett)
Newsgroups: sci.bio,alt.romance,soc.men,soc.women,soc.singles
Subject: Re: Are Humans Naturally Monogamous?
Message-ID: <593@saxony.pa.reuter.COM>
Date: 29 Nov 90 21:12:35 GMT
References: <1990Nov15.141028.25126@eagle.lerc.nasa.gov> <1990Nov15.194025.27299@ariel.unm.edu> <1990Nov16.203058.7780@ariel.unm.edu> <1990Nov16.211050.8786@ariel.unm.edu> <1990Nov21.231047.5745@ariel.unm.edu>
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In <1990Nov21.231047.5745@ariel.unm.edu> bevans@gauss.unm.edu (Mathemagician) writes:

>I am defining "promiscuity" to be having more than one sexual
>partner at one time.  Therefore, I can have more than one lover
>and still be monogamous if I keep a sexual commitment to only
>one person.  For example, if I am married to one person and
>only have sex with that one person then divorce and marry a
>second person and only have sex with THAT one person, then I
>have been monogamous.


     I think you're redefining terms to pervert (!) the question.  Sure, some
humans are monogamous.  Many more believe they should be monogamous, but would
have to admit that their own lives fall a bit short of this goal.
     The question is not "Are humans mmonogamous?", because we all know that
they're not.  The question is "Are humans NATURALLY monogamous?", because it
involves an attempt to recruit support for the MORAL position that humans
OUGHT to be monogamous, that to be otherwise is UNNATURAL and thus IMMORAL.

     If humans were NATURALLY monogamous, they would mate for life.  Period.
No dating around before marriage; no running around after marriage; no divorce.
"Serial monogamy", such as you describe, is a rationalization, an attempt to
make a behaviour which is NOT "natural monogamy" acceptible as a moral
alternative while continuing to believe that something "other people" do,
which is also not "natural monogamy", is still immoral and unnatural.

     "Natural" implies an inborn imperative.  Your model of "serial monogamy"
allows a person to choose different partners at different times in their lives;
you CANNOT use this as an argument for an inborn rejection of different
partners!  If people "naturally" have the ability to choose different partners
in their lives, then they, equally naturally, have the ability to choose
different partners.
     We invest huge amounts of energy in this culture to encourage (and even
enforce!) monogamy.  If there were any sort of biological imperative for it,
the combination would be unstoppable.  The success rate of our culture in this
area is so low that we must suspect that any biological imperative, if present,
MUST be working in the other direction.
                                                     Dave


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