Are we meant to be monogamous?
 

Are humans really meant to be monogamous?

Is cheating part of our makeup or are we like penguins...meant to find one mate and stay with them forever?

Are religious people more or less likely to give into monogamy than atheists?

Is it true what Gene Simmons says about marriage? "Marriage is called an institution. They lock people up in institutions" (that quote might be a little off from the original)

depends on who you are, where you come from and how you were raised

the human mind can be molded into many shapes

I happen to find the married life nice, but I have tons of friends that can't stay faithful to save their life

funny though, my parents are still together after 30 years, but I don't have any friends with parents that are together anymore

I don't think humans are "meant" to do anything, to be honest...

As animals...no. Our sexual organs were designed to procreate...spread our seed...and do so with as many females as possible in order to keep the species around.

Thus sprach Darwin

Monogamy, insofar as evolution is concerned, relates directly to offspring. Whether or not we are intended to develop pair-bonds largely depends on whether or not our species' offspring requires the investment of a single, or both parents.

When each gender is viewed separately, we can see that each has developed a different reproductive strategy. Males have the ability to reproduce all the time, well into old age. Therefore, over time males have adopted a strategy that involves copulating with as many females as possible in order to send their genetic fodder into future generations.

Women, on the other hand, can only reproduce for three months out of the year (taking into account the nine month pregnancy term). Also, they lose their reproductive ability at older ages. Given this limited time period to reproduce (in comparison to their male counterparts), females have developed a reproductive strategy that involves one of selectivity. They can't afford to copulate with every male they come across, as males can with every female they come across, because they have a relatively short time frame to pass on their own genes and so each and every pregnancy has to count.

Part of this female selectivity involves finding a mate that is willing to invest resources toward the resulting offspring. In the ancestral environment, a lone mother trying to care for one or two children wouldn't make it very far. However, a mother AND father caring for their children in a harsh terrain would have had a much better chance at survival. Not only would a female have to find a male that is of superior genetic stock, she'd also have to find a male that would stick around after the dirty deed. In evolutionary terms, this would be pair-bonding.

So in essence, yes, our evolutionary programming has hardwired us to pair-bond for the sake of our offspring. Whether or not this is still applicable to our contemporary society is up for debate. We no longer live in the harsh, ancestral environment that the generations before us did, so perhaps long-term pair bonding is not as necessary as it once was.

my seed is quite spread, but I'm ready to stop spreading my seed and just shag more women ;-)

I think it just depends on your state of mind. When I was younger, I wasn't about having just one girl. But my mindset has changed and I'm more comfortable with the monongamous lifestyle now. Shit changes, ya know.

Ehm, nope. We don't produce enough seed for that. Chimps are a good example of apes with genitals made for fucking around - they have huge balls and produce lots of seed, so they can orgasm a lot and have a good chance of getting equally promiscuous females pregnant. Gorillas, on the other hand, have tiny balls - their seed doesn't need to compete with the seed of others, since the females generally only have sex with the single dominant male in their group.

Humans fall somewhere in between the two extremes.

Men aren't. Women are.

haha, I just spit a little liquid reading that...

or maybe my ex-wife is an exception to the rule, hahaha

Actually, your ideas on the evolutionary strategy of females are a bit outdated. These days, the idea is that while females often paired up with a single mate because of his abilities in providing for her, they often sought out other genetic material when at the height of their fertility. That is to say, they paired up with the good providers, and got pregnant with the genetically superior non-monogamous types. Experiments have shown that women's taste in men changes when they are ovulating, making them more susceptible to the "charms" of high-testosteron, macho individuals.
As for men, one would assume they'd have several different evolutionary strategies, not just one.

I don't really trust evolutionary psychology and biology all that much, though... Reconstructing evolutionary history by using ambiguous experimental data seems a rather error-prone strategy to me.

Gene Simmons is a very smart person , he says alot of right things

Even in biology and evolution, never rule out the "sluttiness" factor. :warning:warning :pimp

Yes, I have read similar research. Some theorize that women cheat for this reason (find a stable, invested male, but become impregnated by the high-testosterone type). Sort of a have your cake and eat it too thing, though I wouldn't be quick to cast moral judgment on it. Some of these same researchers would consider rape as a viable reproductive strategy (in the animal kingdom, of course). Still, the idea of pair-bonding with an investing male is pertinent to the discussion.

Your criticism of evolutionary theory as backward-looking is valid, but I do enjoy it and feel that it explains much of our behavior.

Yup, the Slut Rule, haha

god bless 'em when you're on the receiving end, haha

Easier now
 

Monogamy is much easier now that I don't work in New York city anymore. There was hot ass in almost every cubic foot of my office's neighborhood. I was tortured, but now I don't think about it as much. Whether that's a good thing or not, I don't know.

I don't think humans were meant to be monogamous, but my woman is my best fucking friend, so I'm monogamous for now.

It's for some people and not for others. I think ideally most children prosper under the care of at least a mother and father, if not an extended family, which is the way people used to be raised prior to modern nuclear family structures.

As for evolutionary biology, there are plenty of women that don't seem to be all that discerning when choosing a mate. And for monogamy, my guess is that women cheat nearly as much as men.

According to this article http://english.pravda.ru/society/sex...-sex_tourism-0 600,000 married women travel to various countries (Southern Europe, Carribean, etc) to have sex romps each year.

No we are not if we didn't we wouldn't get crushes on people. Growing up my parents always went on about how they thought someone was hot and ray ray... and before I knew it after about 15 years my step dad is cheating on my mom.

If they were communicating about thier needs and eagers it would not have been cheating since I consider cheating when you are not up front and honest with the other person or other people you are with.