Aswad
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Joined: 4/4/2007
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Just a quick note...
There's actually several models to compare: monogamy, polygyny, polyandry and endogamy.
Leonidas commented elsewhere that in about 40% of the cases (where he lives, 20% national average), when a child is born, the man who thinks himself the biological father, is not. He also pointed out that, from a male perspective, the two viable strategies for propagation are (a) having a mate and preventing it from becoming pregnant by others, thus ensuring that the child carries one's own genetic material, and (b) attempting to impregnate as many mates as possible, which leads to uncertain paternity, but compensates by offering many opportunities to procreate.
For a woman, the maternity of her child is not in question.
It follows that evolution would be driven by a balance by the attempts of men following strategy A to "weed out" infidelity, and the benefits to women from seeking as many couplings as possible. As a result, one might expect that two dominant "wirings" would prevail: mono and poly. Meshed with the two male strategies, you get a mix of monogamy and cheating. In societies with the appropriate culture for it, cheating might be possible to replace with polygyny, polyandry or endogamy.
Up to the point where a pervasive culture became possible, evolutionary psychology applies.
In this timeframe, we can examine the strategies in question, as procreation is the goal.
Monogamy confers some benefit on the woman, and limited benefit on the species, but significant benefit on the male. Since women don't wear neon signs proclaiming whether they are inclined towards infidelity, this means the male needs to take steps to insure the paternity of the offspring, which is pretty much how I think we arrived at patriarchy after awareness of men's role in producing babies became known and so forth: men establish control over their women, so those who are inclined towards infidelity can be successfully isolated from other potential mates. When this becomes a social institution, the evolutionary advantage dissipates, but that is irrelevant to the discussion.
Polygyny confers a little benefit on the women (help with child-rearing, etc.), significant benefit on the species, and significant benefit on the men. It no longer matters quite as much whether the women are inclined towards infidelity, although it is still likely that measures will eventually spring forth that insure the paternity of offspring, conferring the additional benefit that only men who can provide for several women will have much opportunity for mating. Men are expendable, as far as propagating the species is concerned, and in situations where war or predators raise death tolls, this model makes a lot of sense.
Polyandry confers social benefits on the woman (but requires a society that can suppress male infidelity), no benefit on the species, and no benefit on the men. Whether a woman is inclined towards infidelity only determines the number of partners chosen, and there is no need to consider the paternity from the POV of the one who gets to choose (the woman). This has the unfortunate problem that propagation of the species encounters a bottleneck, making it unviable regardless of the resources that are available, unless the average number of children per woman exceeds the average number of men she has. In some social structures, that can work, but I don't think a premodern society could keep it up for very long without also allowing polygyny, since childbirth is a common cause of death in premodern society.
Endogamy, where one is monogamous within a group, but not monogamous with a single individual, confers benefits on the women, the species and the males. It provides a strong group bonding, confines the matter of paternity to a group which does not distinguish paternity on an individual level, makes infidelity irrelevant inside the group, and allows procreation to proceed at any pace, while the group is fairly resillient to the loss of individuals. STD transmission is limited. Some endogamous configurations may resemble polygyny, if there is an alpha/beta dynamic, such as with wolves.
As I recall, there is significant evidence that Homo Neanderthalensis practiced endogamy without an alpha/beta dynamic.
Anyway... just some thoughts on it.
It does not appear to me that poly is unnatural, whether in the emotional sense or the sexual sense.
But neither does mono appear unnatural, in either sense.
My personal guess is that about 1 in 5 men have the wiring for multiple-male relationships, while about 4 in 5 have the wiring for multiple-female relationships. Similarly, I would guess about 4 in 5 women have the wiring for multiple-male relationships, while about 2 in 5 have the wiring for multiple-female relationships. This leaves the "true poly" rates, by my guess, at 4 in 25 males and slightly less than 1 in 3 females. The legacy of patriarchal societies obsession with paternity in societies without polygyny probably drives these figures way down by way of social conditioning.
Again, that's just my guess.
_____________________________
"If God saw what any of us did that night, he didn't seem to mind.
From then on I knew: God doesn't make the world this way.
We do." -- Rorschack, Watchmen.
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RE: Monogamy - Natural or Socialized - 
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