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I might as well argue that women started polygamy so more of them could be with the top males. If you lack all of the things it might take to attract female pa
by stolio 12y ago
I might as well argue that women started polygamy so more of them could be with the top males. If you lack all of the things it might take to attract female partners (health, money, power, social status, charisma, intelligence, humor, etc.) to the extent that you're getting left out of sex, you don't have the clout to design and implement new institutions.
- tormeh 12y agoThere's kinda this thing about numbers, though. 50% of all men is a lot of guys dissatisfied with the status quo. And you don't have to implement new institutions within the existing power structure, you just have to get a group of fellow guys together, run off with some kidnapped girls few will miss and start your own society. Then you invent a religion to justify it, and voila, soon your tribe has reason to go and pillage, burn, rape and convert.
- stolio 12y agoSounds like the plot from Revenge Of The Nerds. Very unlikely because of the same problem as before: the ability to attract females correlates with the skills needed to start a successful new tribe that can compete with the old. The only way I see to save the argument is to say that the "losers" who left, or were more likely pushed out, stumbled upon some favorable ecology, maybe they stumbled into modern day Europe. But then you're back to geographical determinism and so many things changed in society as agriculture developed that singling out male envy as the cause of monogamy requires more evidence than I think you have.