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Interesting. I've just finished reading Sex At Dawn which explores human sexuality from an evo-psych point of view, particularly the link between us and Bonobos

by weeksie 16y ago

Interesting. I've just finished reading Sex At Dawn which explores human sexuality from an evo-psych point of view, particularly the link between us and Bonobos. I have a healthy amount of skepticism about most evo-psych but the book made a very well argued point about the natural state of humanity being non-monogamous, and that early hunter-gatherer societies were mostly non-monogamous, one variant being the polyandrous kind of relationships described in the article. Though most of the examples had a more free-ranging variant, similar to Bonobo groups where there were very few rules about who slept with whom, regardless of marital status.

hugh3 16y ago
Matt Ridley's The Red Queen also discusses this particular culture, being one of the extremely small number of polyandrous (one wife, multiple husbands) cultures ever known to have existed, in contrast to the extremely large number of polygamous (one husband, multiple wives) cultures. Interestingly, in the small number of cultures where it does exist, the men are always brothers -- presumably this is the only way to get the situation to work without the men killing each other and/or children which they suspect to not be theirs. I haven't read Sex At Dawn, but human mating really has very little in common with bonobo mating. The human drive to pair-bond is actually incredibly strong (even in polygamous cultures the man almost always has one primary wife), and if I recall correctly, nearly unique among mammals (though common among birds).
- weeksie 16y ago
  Actually that's what made Sex at Dawn so interesting, they explore a number of hunter-gatherer societies (Amazon, Africa, China . . . ) and they are predominantly non-monogamous. They might have the concept of marriage, but often it won't be something that is recognizable when compared to the typical modern view. I.e. the marriage ceremony includes having sex with all of the men in the village. They go on to make a very strong argument about the similarity between us and Bonobos. As I said before, I'm not sure I buy everything but they made a very strong argument. And yeah, monogamy almost never occurs in nature. Even penguins who are supposedly monogamous only stick together long enough to have kids, then they rejoin the dating pool.
  - hugh3 16y ago
    If we really had much in common with bonobos, we wouldn't have a concept of marriage at all. Everybody would be willing to mate with everybody at all times; whereas humans only want to mate with people they're attracted to. The mere fact that men care whether their sex partners are good-looking tells us that pair bonding is pretty deeply ingrained in our psyches. While females have a stronger incentive to make sure the men they mate with are of the highest quality (since they could be stuck carrying and caring for their kid for a long time), men invest little in mating so in the absence of pair bonding should be willing to mate with any female unless they expect to find a better female in the next few hours. Instead, men tend to be picky about the physical characteristics of the women they're willing to mate with. I think the conclusion of The Red Queen on this subject was that humans are somewhere between monogamous and polygamous; men are polygamous when they can get away with it (i.e. when they're powerful enough to get away with taking more than their fair share of women) and monogamous when they can't. Women have little desire to have multiple husbands, but do want to mate with the best quality men, so will often marry lower-quality men but have affairs with higher-quality ones. Strict monogamy no, but pair bonding as a deep-seated instict yes.
    - prodigal_erik 16y ago
      > in the absence of pair bonding [men] should be willing to mate with any female unless they expect to find a better female in the next few hours Are you sure they aren't? Craigslist "casual encounters" for the bay area had eight hundred m4w ads today, very few of which seem to have any criteria beyond "female" (in comparison, there are only a hundred w4m ads, and those are fairly selective). And I've seen some scary looking hookers out there who haven't quit for lack of customers. I think many men try to seem more successful or safer by acting more picky than they actually are.
    - weeksie 16y ago
      The point the book makes is that as we transferred from foraging to farming the entire dynamic shifted. As hunter-gatherers there was not competition for resources and it didn't matter who the genetic father of a child was. In most foraging societies today people don't care about paternity and treat all the children in the village as their own. In several Amazonian tribes they believe that children are made from an accumulation of semen in the mother and husbands often offer their wives to other people in the village. The shift to farming meant that population density increased and competition for goods meant that wealth began to concentrate. With that there was a reason to ensure paternity. So yes we made a shift, but looking at our existence for the majority of the time that we've existed as a species we can see why we have always had a very tough time with monogamy. Also, the idea that women have little desire to have multiple husbands is not true at all. Women are just as promiscuous as men are and when given the freedom are more than willing. Again, I highly recommend Sex at Dawn because the views that you're expressing are the exact ones that it addresses point by point.
m-photonic 16y ago
That one "Is There Anything Good About Men?" talk from a few years ago mentions some DNA research that shows that modern humans have twice as many female ancestors as male ancestors (with the corollary being that the average male with an enduring genetic line reproduced twice as often as the average female). If that's true, it's hard to imagine ancestral humans being anything near strictly monogamous. http://www.psy.fsu.edu/~baumeistertice/goodaboutmen.htm http://www.psy.fsu.edu/~baumeistertice/goodaboutmen.htm

by weeksie 16y ago

hugh3 16y ago

Matt Ridley's The Red Queen also discusses this particular culture, being one of the extremely small number of polyandrous (one wife, multiple husbands) cultures ever known to have existed, in contrast to the extremely large number of polygamous (one husband, multiple wives) cultures. Interestingly, in the small number of cultures where it does exist, the men are always brothers -- presumably this is the only way to get the situation to work without the men killing each other and/or children which they suspect to not be theirs. I haven't read Sex At Dawn, but human mating really has very little in common with bonobo mating. The human drive to pair-bond is actually incredibly strong (even in polygamous cultures the man almost always has one primary wife), and if I recall correctly, nearly unique among mammals (though common among birds).

weeksie 16y ago
Actually that's what made Sex at Dawn so interesting, they explore a number of hunter-gatherer societies (Amazon, Africa, China . . . ) and they are predominantly non-monogamous. They might have the concept of marriage, but often it won't be something that is recognizable when compared to the typical modern view. I.e. the marriage ceremony includes having sex with all of the men in the village. They go on to make a very strong argument about the similarity between us and Bonobos. As I said before, I'm not sure I buy everything but they made a very strong argument. And yeah, monogamy almost never occurs in nature. Even penguins who are supposedly monogamous only stick together long enough to have kids, then they rejoin the dating pool.
- hugh3 16y ago
  If we really had much in common with bonobos, we wouldn't have a concept of marriage at all. Everybody would be willing to mate with everybody at all times; whereas humans only want to mate with people they're attracted to. The mere fact that men care whether their sex partners are good-looking tells us that pair bonding is pretty deeply ingrained in our psyches. While females have a stronger incentive to make sure the men they mate with are of the highest quality (since they could be stuck carrying and caring for their kid for a long time), men invest little in mating so in the absence of pair bonding should be willing to mate with any female unless they expect to find a better female in the next few hours. Instead, men tend to be picky about the physical characteristics of the women they're willing to mate with. I think the conclusion of The Red Queen on this subject was that humans are somewhere between monogamous and polygamous; men are polygamous when they can get away with it (i.e. when they're powerful enough to get away with taking more than their fair share of women) and monogamous when they can't. Women have little desire to have multiple husbands, but do want to mate with the best quality men, so will often marry lower-quality men but have affairs with higher-quality ones. Strict monogamy no, but pair bonding as a deep-seated instict yes.
  - prodigal_erik 16y ago
    > in the absence of pair bonding [men] should be willing to mate with any female unless they expect to find a better female in the next few hours Are you sure they aren't? Craigslist "casual encounters" for the bay area had eight hundred m4w ads today, very few of which seem to have any criteria beyond "female" (in comparison, there are only a hundred w4m ads, and those are fairly selective). And I've seen some scary looking hookers out there who haven't quit for lack of customers. I think many men try to seem more successful or safer by acting more picky than they actually are.
  - weeksie 16y ago
    The point the book makes is that as we transferred from foraging to farming the entire dynamic shifted. As hunter-gatherers there was not competition for resources and it didn't matter who the genetic father of a child was. In most foraging societies today people don't care about paternity and treat all the children in the village as their own. In several Amazonian tribes they believe that children are made from an accumulation of semen in the mother and husbands often offer their wives to other people in the village. The shift to farming meant that population density increased and competition for goods meant that wealth began to concentrate. With that there was a reason to ensure paternity. So yes we made a shift, but looking at our existence for the majority of the time that we've existed as a species we can see why we have always had a very tough time with monogamy. Also, the idea that women have little desire to have multiple husbands is not true at all. Women are just as promiscuous as men are and when given the freedom are more than willing. Again, I highly recommend Sex at Dawn because the views that you're expressing are the exact ones that it addresses point by point.

m-photonic 16y ago

That one "Is There Anything Good About Men?" talk from a few years ago mentions some DNA research that shows that modern humans have twice as many female ancestors as male ancestors (with the corollary being that the average male with an enduring genetic line reproduced twice as often as the average female). If that's true, it's hard to imagine ancestral humans being anything near strictly monogamous. http://www.psy.fsu.edu/~baumeistertice/goodaboutmen.htm http://www.psy.fsu.edu/~baumeistertice/goodaboutmen.htm