this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2023
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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.
Man I have so many hopes for that nation. Big challenges, big potential.
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.
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.