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From: learn@igloo.scum.com (Bill HMRP Vajk)
Newsgroups: sci.bio,alt.romance,soc.men,soc.women,soc.singles
Subject: Re: Are Humans Naturally Monogamous?
Message-ID: <3067@igloo.scum.com>
Date: 30 Nov 90 23:59:28 GMT
References: <1990Oct26.000754.24765@odin.corp.sgi.com> <4836@lure.latrobe.edu.au> <1990Nov29.175013.9812@watserv1.waterloo.edu>
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In article <9812@watserv1.waterloo.edu>  Ann Hodgins writes:

> You are assuming things that I don't think should be assumed.

I believe reading your following leads one to the same conclusion.

> You are assuming that throughout pre-history (when our instincts were being
> developed) all women were able to raise children alone or else all women had
> a male protector who did not care whose children she was raising.

This seems to presuppose that the human being was a spontaneous creation. On
the other hand, it seems that since the human emerged from hominids, that many
if not most of our human "instincts" existed before we did. Given this tidbit, 
and the realization that hominids are, by definition, not human, we cannot make
many assumptions about their morality, nor should we, as they were a different
species.

> I would assume that a woman who did not have a strong pair bond with a man
> would often find it hard to survive, both mother and child might die.
> One other possible strategy for women with children is to bond with other
> women. I would expect that did happen. It happens today.

There is a grand variety of successful gambits. I'm not at all sure I'd
want to do live experiments to determine success rates, nor do I accept the
validity of numerical analysis based on (mis)assumptions.

> There is evidence that animal males (and maybe human males too) will 
> automatically kill a female's offspring before mating with her.

Seems to me to be limited to a very few species. Also, the female of those
species seems to accept the manuever without protest, and she subsequently
mates with the male willingly.

As far as I know, it is only human beings who have a relatively universal
respect for the life of others of the species. Suggesting that human males
are apt to kill previously conceived offspring prior to mating seems a pretty 
demented outlook to me.

Bill.etc  


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