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From: rqdms@lims03.lerc.nasa.gov (Dennis Stockert)
Newsgroups: sci.bio,alt.romance,soc.men,soc.women,soc.singles
Subject: Re: Are Humans Naturally Monogamous?
Message-ID: <1990Dec3.183326.979@eagle.lerc.nasa.gov>
Date: 3 Dec 90 18:33:26 GMT
References: <1990Nov15.141028.25126@eagle.lerc.nasa.gov> <1990Nov15.194025.27299@ariel.unm.edu> <1990Nov16.203058.7780@ariel.unm.edu> <593@saxony.pa.reuter.COM>
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In article <593@saxony.pa.reuter.COM>, dgil@pa.reuter.COM (Dave Gillett) writes...
> 
>     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.


I tried to make this same point earlier in this thread in much simpler fashion 
(perhaps to the detriment of the point ;-) ... hope you have better luck than 
I did...


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* Dennis Stockert              *  The meek shall inherit the earth;   *
* rqdms@lims01.lerc.nasa.gov   *  the rest of us will go to the stars *
****************************************** Aviation Week **************
*  No one that knows me would mistake my opinions for those of        *
*                 any respectable organization                        *
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