Monogamy and love are not cousins...

I have been researching on monogamy and today I thought to share what I have discovered so far. Let me apologise in advance for an offence that may be taken.

First of all I have concluded that to a greater extent monogamy is not natural. If it were natural it would be easy, but it’s not that’s why infidelity is probably the number one cause of relationship break ups. Human beings do not naturally fit into the monogamy shaped mould that society has imposed on them. Just to substantiate this thought only 5% of all mammals are monogamous. The question that then came to my mind was “if monogamy is not the natural option why has it been imposed far and wide as the best possible relationship practise?” With that question in mind, I sought to discover the origins of monogamy…

I am sorry to disappoint all the hopeless romantics out there but the origins of monogamy have absolutely nothing to do with love or romance. Human beings did not decide that they wanted to be with one partner at a time because they loved them alone and wanted to be with no other. There are three schools of thought surrounding the origins of monogamy and none of them include the word love….

The first dates back to about 10 000 years ago, where it is thought that humans resorted to monogamy to avoid infanticide. Apparently men would kill other men’s babies to hurry the nursing mothers back to fertility after child birth.  So eventually the fathers of new born babies decided to stick around with the new mother and baby to safeguard them against other overzealous men.

Another school of thought is that humans resorted to monogamy to safeguard their inheritances. there was need to have children with unquestionable paternity to ensure that in the event that one passes on their wealth remains in the rightful hands. What better way to do that than have all our children with one partner as opposed to having a baby with Susan who also has a baby with John.

The last theory which I think is a bit far-fetched is that at some point in time, a long time ago, females were few and very dispersed. So the man who was lucky enough to find a female would lay claim on the female and take her as his own forever, in exchange he would protect and provide for her. So much so that anyone who tried to take away this scarce resource (the woman) would risk dying.
Nowadays with such a high prevalence of sexually transmitted infections and diseases, monogamy shows up again as the best way to protect oneself. A very effective solution indeed but still there is direct relationship between the decision to stay with one partner in order to avoid diseases and viruses AND LOVE.

So there you have it, the origins of monogamy were mainly centred around order, investment and protection not love and certainly not nature. I mean, if were truly monogamous beings we would behave like the geese that will have only one partner for life and in the event that the one partner dies the remaining goose will never mate again!!!!