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[–]Pidjesus7 points8 points  (5 children) | Copy Link

Humans aren’t meant to be in long term exclusive relationships with one person, our pea brains just can’t do it

[–]SophisticatedBean[S] 5 points6 points  (4 children) | Copy Link

Not really. It seems humans are largely monogamous. This just provides more evidence that novelty is important and that females are more promiscuous than commonly assumed.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (3 children) | Copy Link

Humans have historically been polygynous: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14817-polygamy-left-its-mark-on-the-human-genome/ Civilizations changed this, introducing monogamy. Monogamy can be seen as an artificial barrier and there are authors who argue (convincingly, I'd say) civilization can not survive without it.

[–]SophisticatedBean[S] 16 points17 points  (2 children) | Copy Link

Humans are naturally moderately polygynous, but nonetheless they mostly form long-term pair bonds. A minority of men has multipe wives and produces most of the offspring, while most men have just one wife (around 65%?), and some no wife. Hence "mostly monogamous, moderately polygynous".

This is consistent with there naturally being a ~2:1 or 3:1 reproduction sex ratio that one can infer from mitochondrial DNA and the Y chromosome, simply because some men have much more offspring and also a series of multiple wives, access to more resources, better quality food and hence lower offspring mortality. With the invention of farming, there was a brief period in which it was around 17:1, likely due to a power concentration to few powerful farmers who monopolized most of the women. But this was unstable, so cultures that enforced monogamy prevailed, which reduced the inequality to around 3:1 or less.

https://psmag.com/.image/c_limit%2Ccs_srgb%2Cq_auto:good%2Cw_925/MTI4ODMwNDQ5ODU3MzY5MzYy/men-women-reproducingpng.webp

https://genome.cshlp.org/content/early/2015/03/13/gr.186684.114.abstract

For the distribution of # of offspring for different hunter-gatherers and modern societies see this:

http://doi.org/10.1086/203674

Monogamy was never perfect and people of course had affairs and divorces (there was a recent paper about this, will add later if I find it), but saying that humans are fundamentally incapable of exclusive long-term relationships seems like stretch.

[–][deleted] 5 points6 points  (1 child) | Copy Link

I really appreciate your grounded, unemotional take on things and your regular posting of relevant information. Keep up the great work man!

You can kill a man, but you can't kill an idea.

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