Monogamy is not natural

[Orion23]

One of the recurring themes of this website is why do men cheat. While there are many reasons, the underlying reason is simple. Monogamy is not natural. It is a practice that society has made "the norm". If you look in nature, few species (and none that I can think of offhand) are monogamous. I know that some people will say that things in nature do not apply apply to humans because we are more advanced. To that I say that humans, regardless of how "advanced" we seem, are still animals. The same basic urges drive us no matter how sentient we are.

That being said, I know that monogamy is attainable. It is an act of discipline but it can be done. And, sometimes a relationship can make a man (or any person) so content that being monogamous is the only option and nothing else even comes close. However, I also know that some (or apparently most) people lack discipline and are a slave to their urges. And, it all goes back to them not being strong enough to deny the fact that monogamy is not natural.

[j pierre]

absolutely. mongamy is not natural. its just the humans made the institution of marriage and made social and ethical norms that require us to conform to monogamy.

however we as advanced and complicated animals do require long term relationships. not just casual sex like animals.

in the animal kingdom the primary purpose of sex/mating is reproduction. therefore the sex behavior of animals is such that the outcome is est for reproduction (the purpose of sex).
the dominant males end up mating with several females. a large number of males get no female at all. this ensures that the females are imgregnated by strong dominant males with good quality genes.

females of our specie ie women are also programmed to mate with the strong most dominant and hence conventionall attractive guys. bcos these guys willl provide the best genes for her child.

if thats the case then monogamy would be a myth and only a handful of males would be having sex with all the women.

but fortunately for most humans also have an additional desire.....ie to have a long term relationship.

but when it comes to casual sex you can see a similar pattern of mating to animals behavior. ie there is always a handful of stud and sexually active guys that have casual affairs with several women. also womens definition of mens attractiveness is very narrow. there are only a few guys who can make them weak in the knees just on the basis of their looks alone.

research also shows that married women are more likely to cheat during the ovulating cycle bcos during this period a woman is most fertile and most ummm horny and their prefernce for men changes during this period... they are more attracted to masculine and highly attractive guys. thats the beauty of nature. it programmed this so it would ensure that women would concieve from such men and the high fertility will ensure pregnancy. result is survival of fittest.

thus my friends..... monogamy is UNNATURAL from an evolutionary point of view.

[courtneyiscool]

it's natural! If monogamy wasn't natural, then what's the entire institution of marriage about? I guess that would mean that marriage vows don't mean much, then.

[Orion23]

Hey Courtney. I can feel the passion behind your post but you didn't provide any evidence or logic in your counter-argument. The concept and institution of marriage, regardless how ingrained into society, has nothing to do with whether or not monogamy is natural. If you look at my post, I assert that monogamy is practiced and an act of discipline. How many other species on this planet do you see getting married? We humans created that concept. It did not organically occur. As far as marriage vows not meaning much, that all depends upon the individuals that have entered into a marriage and is definitely not a uniform situation across all marriages.

[Aisworking2]

I actually am starting to believe this is true. Monogamy in a choice, but it may not be natural.

I recenetly had a discussion with a friend about this. We actually went through the bible and found several prominent figures had several "wives" and this was acceptable. These were kings and other figures.

Just a thought but this may be true....

[ab11cd33]

Logically monogamy isn't coded into our biological code. It doesn't make sense, for a species to multiply a the gene pool must be diverse (many mates) and well utilized (mating often). This is the nature of survival and in necessity this id response enables our species to survive.

Still as a society we have moved beyond eating our own young (a biased and unfair comparison). It may be natural, but neither is a lot of things in our society. It generally believed that evolution is a physical change that makes a creature more suitable to survive in its environment. A fish with legs and no fins is eaten, a dog without a sense of smell will stare. Humans are not physically designed to survive in the wild, we have no claws, no sharp teeth, and our ability to eat grass has long died when the appendix fell into atrophy. Human evolution is not as much physical as it is psychological.

Enabled by our intelligence we have survive, flourished, and conquered this plant. Our biological urges still exist, as they should to an existence, but I would like to think they don't dictate our course as a species. Our number are already so many, we no longer have anything to fear from the beasts and dust that make up our ecosystem. Only a true catastrophe could remove the human race. Monogamy is the correct course to sustain our numbers without overpopulation and disregarding it is the correct course to increase our numbers.

[queue1114]

[queue1114]

[AnimateDream]

Its actually quite evident that monogamy is a significant but not constant part of the human evolution.

Monogamy is rare in the animal world but does occur in about 3-5% of mammal species.

In gorillas a dominant male competes for and controls a large harem of females. There is obvious sexual dimorphism with the male than females as a product of competition with other males. Having exclusive rights to reproduce with the females they do not compete for fertility so they have small testes. Some other apes reproduce freely and often with no competition between males. The males and females are the same size and the males have large testes because of the competition in fertility. Humans you'll notice have a slight sexual dimorphism (men are slightly larger and more muscular than women) but not as much as the gorillas. Human males also have mid sized testes. This implies that men compete over women but only occasionally compared to the gorilla.

In humans the evolutionary need for monogamous pair-bonding lies in the child-rearing. Because of the increasing size of hominid craniums in our evolution, humans had to be born earlier, smaller, and less developed. Thus they spend far longer period of time than most mammals in a very vulnerable and needy state. Women would for clear evolutionary reasons prefer a male capable of helping raise children. For men the evolutionary benefit may be to mate with as many women as possible, but the selectivity of women for a male that would remain loyal pushed men towards the evolutionary path of monogamy as well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monogamous_pairing_in_animals#Monogamy_as_a_Best_Response

So while men still have the drive to mate with as many women as possible, they also have conflicting drives towards monogamy. Women have a strong drive to find a man who will be a good provider. This leads them to prefer a man who will stay loyal to them and preferably a man who will focus all of his resources on her, not split them between other women. Also the rich, famous, and powerful have the allure of a one being very capable of providing for offspring, which may even make them seem a better provider than the more loyal man.

As a previous poster pointed out woman show greater preference for a man with stronger genes (ie strong, rich, attractive), when they are most fertile in their menstrual cycle. And the rest of the time show a stronger preference towards a more paternal and loyal appearing man. This implies there is actually evolutionary precedent for women cheating and tricking men into providing for some other man's children.

So in summary its not black and white. Women are mostly monogamous, and men are kind of monogamous... from an evolutionary stand point of course.

Hopefully this answers a lot of mysteries about the evolutionary psychology of men and women.