For humans, monogamy is not biologically ordained. According to evolutionary psychologist David M. Buss of the University of Texas at Austin, humans are in general innately inclined toward nonmonogamy. But, Buss argues, promiscuity is not a universal phenomenon; lifelong relationships can and do work for many people.
“The human mating system is extremely flexible,” Bernard Chapais of the University of Montreal wrote in a recent review in Evolutionary Anthropology. Only 17 percent of human cultures are strictly monogamous.
Monogamy, after all, does not come naturally; it is not the norm unless a society enforces it as such. There are immense benefits to doing so. But it is unclear how well we humans can achieve this aim in the present environment.
Science has yet to definitively pronounce on whether humans are naturally monogamous (lifelong male-female breeding pair) or polygamous (single male breeding with more than one female).
According to the New York Times, a 2011 paper showed that early humans, or hominids, began shifting towards monogamy about 3.5 million years ago—though the species never evolved to be 100% monogamous (remember that earlier statistic).
Could we mate with other animals today? Probably not. Ethical considerations preclude definitive research on the subject, but it's safe to say that human DNA has become so different from that of other animals that interbreeding would likely be impossible.
Early humans seem to have recognised the dangers of inbreeding at least 34,000 years ago, and developed surprisingly sophisticated social and mating networks to avoid it, new research has found.
For humans, monogamy is not biologically ordained. According to evolutionary psychologist David M. Buss of the University of Texas at Austin, humans are in general innately inclined toward nonmonogamy. But, Buss argues, promiscuity is not a universal phenomenon; lifelong relationships can and do work for many people.
But new research is clarifying matters. We now know that the first hominins, which emerged more than seven million years ago, might have been monogamous. Humans stayed (mostly) monogamous for good reason: it helped them evolve into the big-brained world conquerors they are today.
In essence, men are only socially monogamous rather than genetically monogamous.
Although the Old Testament describes numerous examples of polygamy among devotees to God, most Christian groups have historically rejected the practice of polygamy and have upheld monogamy alone as normative.
Recent discoveries have led biologists to talk about the three varieties of monogamy: social monogamy, sexual monogamy, and genetic monogamy. The distinction between these three are important to the modern understanding of monogamy.
If we mean realistic for the species of humans, then the answer clearly is yes. In various cultures around the world people are able to engage in lifelong monogamous relationships.
Many people believe that humans are the only beings on this planet that enjoy sex. But there are several animals that have sex for pleasure. But how do we know that these animals enjoy sex? One example is bonobos; they will mate even when pregnant, proving they get pleasure from being intimate.
In sum, men appear to value physical attractiveness, health, and a want for home life and children in their long-term mates, whereas women appear to value maturity, dependability, education, social status, and financial stability.
The biological species concept
Thus all living Homo sapiens have the potential to breed with each other, but could not successfully interbreed with gorillas or chimpanzees, our closest living relatives.
Summary: In cultures that permit men to take multiple wives, the intra-sexual competition that occurs causes greater levels of crime, violence, poverty and gender inequality than in societies that institutionalize and practice monogamous marriage.
Having monogamous partners makes sense for us since a loyal mate doesn't need to divide his time and resources between several families. Beyond that, having multiple partners doesn't necessarily help women in the evolutionary long term, since their ability to reproduce is limited.
You prefer going deep with one person as opposed to juggling many partners. You enjoy feeling special and uniquely prioritized by a romantic partner. You struggle with maintaining many relationships at the same time, whether because of limited time or limited energy.
Being single has a handful of benefits, scientific research has found. Studies suggest that single people tend to have stronger social networks and develop more as individuals. They even tend to be physically fitter.
In fact, research shows people are staying single for longer and settling down older, and some are choosing to be that way forever. Singledom isn't regarded as something to be pitied as much as it used to be. And quite right too, considering there are numerous mental and physical benefits to being on your own.
Our nature is inherently good. We are born with an ability to distinguish right from wrong. But we are not exempt from acting violently or selfishly. That's what cynics get wrong when they want to describe our nature as evil.
Analysis suggests that roughly one in 3,600 people studied were born to closely related parents. Genomic analysis has provided a new way of investigating a tricky topic: the prevalence of extreme inbreeding in humans. Cultural and religious taboos around inbreeding make its frequency difficult to assess.
Since we are all humans and all share a common ancestor somewhere down the line, we all have some degree of inbreeding.
It's thought that at one time, human ancestors did engage in chimp-like habits of sex and child-rearing, in which strong alpha males mated freely with the females of their choice, and then left the child-raising duties to them.