Monogamy May Have Evolved To Prevent Infanticide 256
sciencehabit writes "Human males and females have a strong tendency to live together in monogamous pairs, albeit for highly varied periods of time and degrees of fidelity. Just how such behavior arose has been the topic of much debate among researchers. A new study comes to a startling conclusion: Among primates, including perhaps humans, monogamy evolved because it protected infants from being killed by rival males."
Re:Oh Please (Score:4, Interesting)
No, science is not religion, in the way you're implying it is. Science works by creating theories (either from educated guesses or observations, often both) and testing them.
If it can't be tested, it's not science*.
*Of course, one thing is not being capable of measuring something - the fact that light is affected by gravity took a while to test, for instance. That doesn't make it impossible to test.
Re:Oh Please (Score:5, Interesting)
Here is a quote from Euripedes a writer from Ancient Greece where they had polygamy:
A second wife is hateful to the children of the first; A viper is not more hateful.
Re:startingly obvious (Score:2, Interesting)
Males who abandoned their offspring tended not to see their genes spread further.
African-Americans seem to be (population-wise, though not monetarily) surviving quite well in their current environment [rollingout.com].
Re:Oh Please (Score:4, Interesting)
" From a purely genetic standpoint there is no benefit to monogamy for a strong male."
From a genetic standpoint Monogomy is a disadvantage for a strong male. A strong male should be humping everything in sight to spread his genetics far and wide.
That is how it works in nature. A male lion has a pride of females for this exact reason.
Re:Think of the Children (Score:2, Interesting)
The younger, the heather (particularly in the past), the better offspring.
The age of consent has been raised over the years to be far far past when the child bearing age starts.
Evolution did not create paedophilia, changing morals and laws (imposed by Western Christianity) created paedophilia.
Re:Yes but... (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, yeah, misogyny is the buzz-word of the day ... which really means "if you challenge anything that could be construed to challenge a woman in any way for any reason, I'll pull out the misogyny card so that I don't need an argument". The term is about as robust as "discrimination" (which means "to choose"). The power of words...
Anyway, a friend of mine taught in Papua New Guinea for about 10 years back in the 80s. He lived there for that time (other than the occasional holiday). He was not a missionary - he was there for education programs. This is roughly what he told me a few years back (and re-confirmed when I asked him again)...
The men tended to stay with the men, the women tended to stay with the women. There was only a loose "sexual" association between men and women - and the offspring (when the men got randy) belonged to the community rather than a couple. The kids would go with whatever adult they wanted to stay with, sometimes months at a time. Over time, this social structure was forcibly changed by the missionaries to reform these hethens.
Now, this social structure was not monogamous in ANY sense of the word and involved little or no infanticide. Interestingly, it mimics (loosely) some aspects of Indonesian culture, although Indonesian culture has also been "westernised" to a degree, although I did see this sense of "community" that you don't get in the west ... front doors left open, people just coming and going into other's houses, kids staying at other families' house for weeks at a time - it was amazing to see.
Feel free to call me a misogynist too, since it's popular to throw buzzwords around. Whenever I hear the "m" word, my "wanker alert" light goes off.
Re:Yes but... (Score:4, Interesting)
That's the drawback of the mod system, sometimes it reinforces a cultural/sexual/religious/political bias to someones personal agenda, rather than modding the content.
Personally I think monogamy happened because, after the sex, now you have to see to the needs of two or more screaming ,weepy, hormonal women who want to eat, have new clothes, go to the river/fire/gathering NOW! Right damn NOW! Early man could even see the need to filter this down to one at a time in spite of sex.
Then Cheating was born, which later spawned lawyers, so even a good fix still has an unavoidable drawback.
Re:But that doesn't explain (Score:4, Interesting)
It's worth noting that one of the reasons for severe decline of lions has been slowness evolutional response to human hunting factor (they seek mainly alpha males). Essentially every time one dies, the entire pride suffers a bout of infanticide, which is the key reason for decline of lions in the areas where they are hunted. If it was just alpha male deaths caused directly by humans, lions as species would have far less problems.
It's a pretty good microcosm of small tribal community and is somewhat relevant to humans as well.
Re:Yes but... (Score:2, Interesting)
Is the term "misogyny" too vague? OK. Perhaps the mods objected to the use of the B-word. Also, the post hinted that women should be compelled to have abortions, which is as bad as prohibiting them from having abortions.