The Origins & Implications of Monogamy

What are the origins and implications of monogamy?

Are people naturally monogamous?
Or is it something society has to instill in us?

It’s difficult to say what natural would mean in this context.

I think human sexuality is highly variable.
Some individuals have strong monogamous instincts, some have weak ones, and a few don’t have any.
With many it depends, at the right place/time, with the right person, especially when children are in the picture, they will have strong monogamous instincts that may even last their whole lifelong.
And with some, they may have strong feelings of jealousy, but feel few-no qualms about cheating, so long as they can keep it a secret.
And with others, it may be the opposite, they might never cheat on their spouse, even if they were tempted to, but would be quick to forgive their spouse for cheating on them.

People can also make calculative decisions on their own, without social intervention, like I may no longer have feelings for this person, and could easily cheat on him or her, but I want to stay together for the sake of our children, or because we took our vows, and I feel it’d be immoral to break them, or for financial reasons, or because we get on so well, we make good companions, even thou I’m no longer very attracted to them sexually and/or romantically, and so they may repress their temptations.
And then in some cases, they might stay together purely because it’s socially unacceptable to part.

So I’d say it varies, some of the couples who do stay together, stay together for instinctual reasons, and in other cases, calculated reasons, and in others still, purely because it’s expected of them, and probably in most cases, it’s a combination of all three.
I’d say it’s both natural, calculated, and nurtured into us, it’s a complex interplay between these three forces, like human behavior usually is, and each relationship is very unique.

In the past thou, in the west and other parts of the world, we tended to value monogamous relationships over polyamorous ones, or attempt to get everyone to conform to monogamy, even thou that’s not the way everyone felt, why is that?

I’m sure there are multiple reasons, and I’d like to explore some of them here, soon.

I personally think monogamy is preached a lot more than it’s practiced. It’s like with any other moral custom. People love to preach while overlooking their own hypocrisy. Why? Because if you can convince others to adhere to a certain morality, that gives you more control. In the case of monogamy, you secure for yourself a mate who will be less likely to be disloyal to you. It comes at a price: you have to practice what you preach, but that’s only to avoid charges of hypocrisy. At the end of the day, however, the main drive is to convince others to follow certain rules, which gives you leverage over them.

Welcome back Gib! … missed your insightful commentary. :smiley:

Since monogamy works for a few species of birds we can’t claim it to be completely (un)natural … certainly (un)natural for the human species though.

Isn’t there lots of (un)natural behavioral stuff imposed on the human species? All this forced human behavior falls under the umbrella called “civilization” … despite the fact that lots of it is far from “civil” … no?

You forgot geese. LOL

Whether natural or unnatural, there will always be a causal root to the behavior. That cause will most likely be different from one species to another. In our case, I’m saying, it’s mainly to secure loyalty in a partner.

Somehow double posted (even though I only hit submit once… weird). :open_mouth:

I got that once when I had malware on my pc. hope its not that but you should double check. sometimes it means someone is watching you and has remote access to your machine, so its like two people are clicking at once when you post on the net. as I say, its probably not that, maybe a glitch in the software, or a lightweight script ~ one which will stop if you have higher security settings and change your passwords frequently.

What’s the best way to expose the malware?

Or I actually did hit submit twice and I’m refusing to admit I make mistakes. :laughing:

^^ lol yes

I got one called eyebot which presented itself as part of a game and a means to stop cheats, once I clicked yes it disappeared. usually I can find them on the disk by looking at the running processes, but this one didn’t show up anywhere. …had to format the machine.

You mean reformat your hard drive?

yes. I just let windows do it if you have win 10, go to the advanced tab and look for extra options, and pick the one which gets rid of everything and puts a fresh copy of windows on there. I wouldn’t do that unless you are totally sure though, if it is adware you would see ads popup even with the blocker on, that’s a tell tale sign. there is also a program called stinger [free google it], and Kaspersky do a free anti root kit. these options i’d do first.