Xref: utzoo sci.bio:4214 alt.romance:5920 soc.men:24765
Path: utzoo!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mstan!sethb
From: sethb@Morgan.COM (Seth Breidbart)
Newsgroups: sci.bio,alt.romance,soc.men
Subject: Re: Are Humans Naturally Monogamous?
Summary: biology says, "definitely maybe"
Message-ID: <2448@ylum.Morgan.COM>
Date: 27 Dec 90 18:31:07 GMT
References: <6899@uceng.UC.EDU> <9707@b11.ingr.com>
Organization: Morgan Stanley & Co. NY, NY
Lines: 22

from an interview in the Feb. 26, 1990 issue of the New Yorker, with Roger
Payne (an expert on whales), talking about mating behavior:

 "Thirty-three species of primates have been studied in which something is
 known about both the weight of the testes in the males and their techniques
 of mating--whether a given female mates with one male or with several males.
 If you plot a graph of testes weight versus body size, you discover that
 those primate species in which several males mate with the same female have
 testes that are much larger than those in which only one male mates with a
 female..."

 "And how about human beings?" I ask.  "Where do we fall on this chart?"

 Roger laughs.  "Yes, that's the tantalizing question.  If you look at the
 chart, everything with outsized tested is several males mating with a female,
 and everything with small testes is a monogamous species, in which females
 and males are faithful to each other.  Human beings lie right on the border-
 line, and it's hard to predict which side they're going to fall toward."

So I guess that settles the issue...

Seth			sethb@fid.morgan.com