Two observations:
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A male can mate with multiple females within a short timeframe, thereby maximizing his offspring. A female cannot do the same; a female can only spread her genes once every nine months. Thus, from an evolutionary perspective, it is more reasonable for a male to have multiple female lovers than vice versa.
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Long-term relationships are kind of a hit-or-miss ordeal. A child only needs to be raised by both father and mother for a few years. After a certain point, the mother can fend for herself and her child just fine without the father. Thus, there really is no point in continued romantic involvement between the father and the mother unless more offspring are produced.
Taking the above into account, I would have to say that both monogamous relationships and marriages are without a basis in human nature.
krazy kaju, what explains the widescale adoption of monogamy with the rise of argiculture?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygamy#Patterns_of_occurrence_worldwide
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygamy#Patterns_of_occurrence_across_religions
I think there is some cultural taboo, and that monogamy should be favored, but I have no problem with polygamy.
I think there is a difference between polygamy and polyamory.
Polygamy is when men have long-term relationship or children with multiple women. In Islam and Mormonism, for instance, it is pretty much understood that you are locked in with vows and that leaving would mean ostracism. It is basically the male advantage. Whereas polygyny, one woman and more than one man, might mean that the men are in the stable.
Whereas I think polyamory is more about open relationships… no contracts, no family, no obligations, no jealousy, etc. Pretty much eternal college student. There is no distinction between ones in which the man has more partners or the woman. So it is more likely fairer to both’s interests.
I don’t necessarily see it as post-agricultural. The Piraha indians in the amazon, for instance, have marriages.
I have no moral objection to polygamy or polyamory or monogamy. Or monoamory, as it may be. Though, it doesn’t seem to be people who are as ‘sexy’ as the title of this thread seems to indicate. (Though, I don’t deny that some people are just that sexy.) Or perhaps more would do it. I bet if you searched craigslist, you wouldn’t find a single person that seemed like someone you’d want to sleep wtih… much less have a long-term ‘trust’ relationship with several other partners. It kind of creeps me out.
Natural is for nature worshipers, who cares about their apologetics
I wrote a blog post on this subject a long time back, you can read it here. I wasn’t familiar with the Austrian idea regarding the “ideal mix” of factors of production when I wrote the post, so it goes into too much detail where that whole idea could be quickly summarized. Hoppe has discussed this topic (briefly) in his lecture “From the Malthusian Trap to the Industrial Revolution.” Essentially, the human family permits privatization (or internalization) of the costs of reproduction. The author of the linked article characterizes this privatization in terms of possessiveness or male status competition (collecting property, servants, wives, etc.) but this is a mistake. It has nothing to do with status per se. Internalization of reproduction costs (onto males) is beneficial for exactly the same reason that internalization of any cost is beneficial - it forces the decision-maker to feel the benefits and costs of his actions.
In a tribal society, as described in the linked article, reproduction and child-rearing is “communal” but this leads to “over-population”, that is, a state of affairs where population is controlled only through starvation, killing, and so on. When you introduce the human family, the male feels the costs of his own reproductive decisions (more kids = more expense) and he now must choose the right number of children to have. Have too few and your genes may die out. Have too many, and your children may starve and your genes may die out.
If the development of the human family is seen as an evolutionary innovation over tribal reproduction, then polygyny is the completion of that arc from monogamy. That is, we have first tribal reproduction, then monogamy, then polygyny. The standard narrative reverses the last two because it associates polygyny with tribal promiscuity and monogamy with private property exclusion (exclusive claim by the female on the male’s genes). But this is the result of a failure to incorporate the obvious asymmetry between males and females pointed out above. Biologists call this “reproductive anisogamy” which means that the act of reproduction is a hell of a lot more costly for the female than the male. The result is that, by taking multiple wives, a man can be more reproductively successful.
The real change from tribal culture to monogamy and polygyny has to do with female promiscuity, not male promiscuity. In order for the costs of reproduction to actually be internalized onto men, especially in the face of paternity uncertainty, it is the female who must mate with only one male. If a man mates with many women, all of whom only mate with him (as in the case of a polygynous harem), it is known that he is the father of all the resulting children and his investment into those children is an investment into his own genes. But if a woman mates with many men, then paternity is unknown and no male will want to invest resources into the resulting child (his genes “fear” that he may be propagating another man’s genes). A great deal of ugly human behavior can be explained from just this one insight.
When looked at in this light, you can see that forced monogamy is essentially a kind of “price-control” on reproduction, limiting the number of women with which a man may reproduce to one. But, as biologists have long observed, humans have never stopped being polygynous, we just do it “one at a time” in forced-monogamy societies. Evolution doesn’t care whether you reproduced with three women all at the same time or three women in a row, either way, the promiscuity and polygyny genes get propagated.
In fact, I believe that guilt regarding human sexuality (the feelings of guilt experienced by those who engage in non-monogamous sex) is the psychological well from which communism draws. “One man, one woman” is not so different from “one man, one house, one car” or even “one man, one vote.” Sexual freedom is not an end in itself but it is a necessary waypoint on the journey to human freedom. Until individuals are free to form any sort of sexual arrangement* they please, we really won’t be able to break the forces which oppose human freedom more generally.
Clayton -
*With the obvious understanding that every sexual arrangement does have real, legal consequences especially once you start producing children.
I have nothing against polygomoy/polymory per-se, and agree its probably not what our bodies were evolved for. But our bodies also wernt evolved to drive cars, sit at computers, live in air-conditioned houses, etc. So while monogamy may not be what we evolved for, it will probably be the norm as long as we live in civilized conditions(I doubt anybody here wants to see us return to a hunter-gather lifestyle)
Interestingly, biologists have found that humanity is already evolving to meet our new enviroment. The problem is its a very slow process, but in a few million years or so(assuming humans and human civilization survive that long) we probably will be adapted to living a monogamous lifestyle
we probably will be adapted to living a monogamous lifestyle
We won’t be adapted to such a thing, we’ll be dead, all that matters is what you are “adapted” for. Science is a valuable employee but a worthless owner.
A survey once had a third of people claiming to have secret partners.
With my appearance I could probably pull off polyamorous relationships if I wanted to, but there isn’t much point, except maybe in the case where I find someone good to live with but bad in bed and someone else bad to live with but good in bed. But if I could do that I could find someone good for both anyway. On the other hand, monoamory is putting all your eggs in one basket. (Pun unintended.) That can be a bad thing in more ways than one.
Any links between private property rights and cheating spouses? I figure one reason why there are so many divorces and cheating spouses is the butchering of private property rights by the state. It seems like most people don’t respect private property rights these days, so it makes sense to me that many spouses cheat partly because they couldn’t care less about respecting the marriage contract.
Yet at the same time people also feel that their spouse is their property. People go as far as killing for it.
@Daniel: Yes, I think there is a connection but it is very complex. Marriage is a set of expectations - rights and responsibilities - that have become a part of law. In the West - with our socialized, centrally-planned statutory law - divorce law* no longer has any mooring to reality. It is largely just a set of dictates handed down by the State, enacted by activist social engineers. The result is the declining marriage rate since anyone in their right mind realizes that it’s insane to get married when the parties to the marriage cannot stipulate the terms of divorce that they would want. So, we are saddled with a one-size-fits-all divorce law that only actually serves the needs of the wealthiest who can afford all the pre-nups and other legal machinations required to protect one’s marriage contract from meddling by the State.
Clayton -
*Note that marriage is really about divorce… getting married is setting up a contract for what happens in the event of separation. The terms of this contract are all-important, they all but determine whether the marriage will work or not.
Clayton:
“In fact, I believe that guilt regarding human sexuality (the feelings of guilt experienced by those who engage in non-monogamous sex) is the psychological well from which communism draws. “One man, one woman” is not so different from “one man, one house, one car” or even “one man, one vote.” Sexual freedom is not an end in itself but it is a necessary waypoint on the journey to human freedom. Until individuals are free to form any sort of sexual arrangement* they please, we really won’t be able to break the forces which oppose human freedom more generally.”
I think you’re on to something. I’ve argued elsewhere that guilt is one of the main psychological factors driving statism.
On the sexual issue, here is what another seductionist named Gunwitch has to say in his pickup guide. Nevermind whether it is accurate, it’s just interesting that others would come to similar conclusions independently [this is for illustration purposes and I again don’t endorse these views or facts; also crass language warning].
"Women think VERY similarly, and operate biologically quite the same sexually as men. Since biblical times, women have been conditioned by society that this is wrong though. They put on a mask that conforms to social norms. The “slut,” “whore” or promiscuous woman who has many sexual partners is actually superior in her lack of suggestibility compared to regular women who maintain monogamous relationships because of societal expectations. Things had not been this way in the human mating ritual prior to the last 2-5000 years. Beta (inferior, less attractive) males who happened to be intellectually superior set up misogynistic arranged marriages, barter systems for financial ownership of wives, religious persecution and moral persecution for women who enjoyed sex with the alpha (superior more attractive) males, as a means of being able to secure sex for themselves with no alpha competition.
"Today, religion, moral conduct, and societal expectations cannot RULE the female sex drive, nor her instincts and her desires by force. This leads us ALL to a problem. Women seek and choose long term relationships with only the most desirable of men. They often try to entrap the alpha male into unnatural sex commitments, while giving the beta male no sex because they want to have one partner, and do not want it to be a beta male. Kinda backfired on them cheeky little shit heel betas didn’t it?
"Now women “cheat” when they want sexual variety and then are scorned by society as “sluts” or “unfaithful bitches”, despite the reality that it’s just natural for a sexually healthy human being to want variety in sex partners.
“It is VITAL to have the understanding that women (sexually healthy non frigid women) LOVE sex and desire it just as much as we do. YET they cannot come out and admit it or be labelled a slut, AND cannot act on it consistently (outside of long term relationships or with multiple partners) with anyone’s knowledge or be labelled the same far faster. Of course, as of late, more and more women are admitting their desire for sex and acting on it more casually.”
I’ve noticed a pretty strong anti-establishment sentiment among the pickup community. Perhaps this means fastseduction.com would be a great place to try to win people over, rather than revleft.
There is a pick-up dude that is a semi-frequent caller to Free Talk Live, so I think you might be on to something with this connection between pickup artists and libertarianism.
Certainly the move away from statism would have been a lot harder before I discovered what I did about relationships.
AJ, what did you discover about relationships?
If human behavior was as controlled by genetic reasons ( and I don’t mean hereditary traits, I mean procretional reasons) as people are talking on here, then why hasn’t every male donated sperm to a sperm bank? There isn’t much cost in terms of time, and low odds haven’t really stopped men from trying to procreate before.
I absolutely second your thoughts on pickup arts and libertarian leanings. Many famous PUAs have made a business out of their theories, they have mastered entrepreneurship and marketing. There’s also some serious criticism of statist feminism in PU circles.
It’s no surprise, really, if you think about the traits and attitudes PU attempts to promote: self-reliance, self-confidence, pursuing one’s own goals, minimizing dependence on others. Sounds a little Randian to me.
So, you are saying that pick-up artists are trying to circumvent psychological programming by beta-males? I thought the pick-up art was for beta-males.