Monogamy is not natural — but is ideal

There’s an obvious analogy in nutrition. We’re designed to crave sugar and fat because those were relatively scarce in the wild. Obviously not a good thing once technology allowed easy access.

In a similar way, we are simultaneously ravenous sexually and desperately jealous because, for the vast majority of beings on this planet over the last few billion years, life was very hard and fairly short. In a highly competitive and trecherous world, this double-standard wasn’t chosen, it was simply required for survival. Individuals were compelled to reproduce as much as possible by way of the most fit partner available, but also driven to prevent partners from reproducing with rivals.

In a prehistoric life span of only 20 to 30 years, where days were filled with a great many other struggles, opportunities for reproduction must have been few and difficult. In the modern world, where technology yields long, healthy lives, large amounts of free time to indulge in our wildest fantasies, and easy access to thousands of potential partners, like junk food, it’s not a good thing. (In fact, it seems that all social problems are rooted in primitive emotional anachronisms, our embrace of violence being the worst of all.)

Though difficult at times, monogamy is the popular ideal because it just works better. It is merely another evolutionary development that wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t beneficial for practical reasons, as well as being a way to satisfy the old urge to prevent our mates from being with anyone else. To quell the ancient desire for other partners, fantasy is more than enough for anyone with a healthy imagination, and can be particularly exhilarating if those caveman fantasies are shared with your spouse. Pure honesty coupled with deep committment works like a charm.

For those out there who are committed to blind and selfish indulgences…, unless you’re extremely wealthy (nice work Hef!), you’re very likely to change your opinion if you manage to live beyond your 40′s or 50′s. Faced with heart disease, you’re apt to give up the Twinkies and bacon. And, faced with the inevitable ravages of old-age, one devoted spouse is going to start looking really good.

Denise: “Additionally, adherence to monogamy keeps down the rates of sexually transmitted diseases, problem pregnancies, and children raised in unstable situations.”

Anonymous: Birth control is also a viable solution to two of those problems. Rubbers are a good solution to all 3.

(Denise) No one advocates the responsible and consistent use of condoms and other contraceptives more strongly than I do. I believe in a multi-pronged approach to problems. Both sexual restraint and contraception are necessary to decrease sex-related problems.
Children do best when raised in stable situations which means parents who are committed to each other. Marriage is the best — albeit highly imperfect — mechanism to ensure the stability that children need to grow up in safe and healthy environments.

Anonymous: I don’t see how monogamy (unnatural state for either gender, in your words) is a good ideal. Repressing natural emotions in order to stave off a negative emotion (jealousy) in others makes little sense, since only those who are severely insecure would feel jealousy in the first place in a culture that views sexual liberty and fully enjoying life as a good ideal instead. I don’t think you’ve given a good argument why monogamy is a good ideal.

(Denise) Jealousy, like the tendency to desire multiple sexual partners, is not something culturally imposed. It evolved naturally. In men it evolved as a mechanism to decrease the likelihood of supporting another man’s child (the tendency of many men to get sexually aroused by a wife’s infidelity evolved for the same reason: the male body is sending out reinforcements of sperm to compete with the previous male’s sperm). In women it evolved as a mechanism to decrease diversion of resources from a woman’s children to another woman’s children.

Denise: “We can rise above our biological tendencies, but we should not be too surprised when people act on them.”

Anonymous: I am not surprised and I don’t think anyone really is, but it sounds like you are trying to defend hypocrites who preach one thing yet practice something else. I’m not surprised by hypocrisy, nor by someone defending hypocrites, but “being unsurprised” doesn’t take away from the immorality and deceit of being hypocritical. Most people don’t condemn right-wing sex-freaks for being sex-freaks, but for the hypocrisy of making/supporting laws that impede sexual freedom for others while living with a great deal of sexual freedom themselves.

(Denise) I am pointing out that monogamy is the correct ideal and marriage the best way toward this ideal. Nothing is foolproof or perfect.