Will this one-by-one system forever be our main thing or do you think we will break monogamy and maybe “team up” as groups or something?
And yeah polygamy is a thing but do you think it will catch on to “the upper class”?
Will this one-by-one system forever be our main thing or do you think we will break monogamy and maybe “team up” as groups or something?
And yeah polygamy is a thing but do you think it will catch on to “the upper class”?
It appears to be pretty stable through history and prehistory around the world, so it’s probably biological. Occasionally cultures allow limited exceptions but they’re usually one-sided. This lines up with my personal experience, which is that some people are capable of being poly, but most people just aren’t.
With the amount of people who cheat, I would say most people are but not ethically.
Ah yes, that’s true. It’s pretty common among monogamous birds too.
As I understand it, they’re still mono because they couldn’t stand it if their partner was doing the same thing.
FWIW, South Africa recently legalized one woman, many husbands after having the reverse be legal for a long time.
Man I have so many hopes for that nation. Big challenges, big potential.
I actually had hopes after Zuma was finally gone, but the current president doesn’t look as corruption-free as I hoped either, and I’m not actually sure if they have any chance while the ANC is still in power (Not that I know much about the other parties, I know the EFF is pretty radical and that my brother-in-law is a candidate for them :D).
Then you have the resurgence of racism and all the economic difficulties coming from their energy issues, when we were there earlier this year, they had about 6 hours of electricity outages every day.
I should do some reading about EFF. It really does seem like both SA and Zimbabwe chose the wrong strategy to righting colonial inequalities. Something in between, like just a tax on white-owned businesses while they’re disproportionately powerful, could be good.
IMO (partially my read, partially what my wife, an SA native, said) the biggest issue was that the ANC got so corrupt, but the vast majority of the population, especially the badly educated parts, kept voting for them because of their part in ending apartheid. I’m a little mad at Mandela, I know why he did it, and he also deserved retirement, but he really should have led the country at least one more term.
That’s exactly what I’ve heard too. Eventually they have to fall; ending apartheid was huge but even the most traditional public won’t remember forever.
That’s… not true? Monogamy was not the primary form of bonding through humanity’s history. It actually is only recently a global phenomenon, mostly due to European colonialism and the spread of Christianity.
You really need to show some data or sources to backup such a claim tbh. It contradicts most of anthropology of bonding and relationships.
Well, here’s the Wikipedia. To be clear, I’m counting a society where elite men might have multiple wives as still monogamous, since that’s not representative of an average member of the population and the wives themselves are still bound to a single partner. Maybe that’s a terminology error but for the sake of this question I think it’s clearest.
And yeah, as someone pointed out there’s an amount of infidelity in every human society, but it’s generally neither endorsed by the legitimate partner or society at large, at least not as an actual relationship.
The wiki says out of ~1200 societies studied only ~180 were monogamous. And that 16% of the monogamous were not strictly monogamous. I don’t know why the wiki would help your case.
If you didn’t read the rest of the paragraph, you should. It was comparing against variants of polygamy, plus 2 cultures that had polyandry, which I discussed elsewhere. Western-style polyamory didn’t even make the rankings. I can only think of one other culture (the Mosuo) that might count.
Like I said, it might be an abuse of terminology to call this all monogamy, but natural language is inherently imprecise and this isn’t an academic audience that can digest heavy jargon.
You’re right, but is it noteworthy that societies with monogamy ultimately outcome teddit.hm others?
Not saying it’s “better” just now successful in an expansionist kind of way.