Monday, July 29, 2013

The simple reason monogamy exists

One team looked just at primates, the animal group that includes apes and monkeys. The researchers said the exclusive pairing of a male and a female evolved as a way to let fathers defend their young against being killed by other males.

Actually, this makes complete sense because for example, when a male lion dies the first thing a male lion does when he takes over the pride of female lions is to kill the lion kittens of the previous   alpha male lion. There has been this tendency in humans to if you study human history. We are trained not to do this by society  now but if you view humans as animals rather than as en cultured primates this is how the human animal is without conditioning still.

If conditions regarding starvation and survival got bad enough humans would revert to "Cave man" style again unfortunately and civilization would be lost.

For example, many young men in today's society are "psychologically killed" by other men when they have no fathers present. Some of these young men turn out okay and others do not because they have been "psychologically murdered" and can't recover as a result in their lives.

There is another factor here in that

1/3 of people are going to do okay no matter what happens to them
1/3 of people are going to be okay given the right conditions
1/3 of people aren't going to make it no matter what you do for them

So, understanding this life is easier to bear.

Because, basically only 1/3 of the people are designed to make it through literally anything psychologically. And those people might be the cavemen and cave women of tomorrow should civilizations collapse sometime in the next 500 years or so.


I was studying Anthropology at UC Santa Cruz in 1989. Around that time I read a book called, "Almost Human"  about Babboons. I found this to be one of the most revealing things I read regarding the similarity between humans and Babboons. It seems that they live in the trees out of harms way for much of the way out of the reach of lions and other Babboon predators. But, eventually the easy food in that area runs out when it gets dry and they have to move as a group across the flatlands and during that some of their parties "tribes or clans of somewhat related Babboons are killed. And who dies the most are young adult males that would be comparable to 17 to 22 year olds just like we lose in armies around the world as soldiers. So, these young soldiers put themselves at risk because they are on the outer periphery of the group as it travels through hostile land and lions and leopards and other predators that want to eat them if they can. However, if you have ever seen a family of monkeys attack in person like I have it is a really scary thing to witness and no one creature or even several creatures are going to go away without bites even if they are humans if the whole group attacks (of every age) at once which could be 20 to 100 monkeys at once. So, once any young soldier is attacked all the alpha males and beta males of the group backed up by all the alpha females and beta females with the pregnant and mothers with babies at the center of the group being defended by all the alpha males and alpha females who aren't pregnant or with babies.

But, the researcher who followed the Babboon group for some time studying them was wondering what would make a young male risk his life like this. She realized in the social structure of the Babboon clan the young soldiers who risked their lives for the group if they survived and didn't die became Alpha males and Beta Males with the privilege of breeding with Beta and Alpha females and having their genetics continue.

So, at least on a military level where the young soldiers (both Babboon and human) if they survive the wars and aren't dead or too severely wounded, get to breed with alpha and beta females and possibly even become the alpha male leader of the group one day over time. I was shocked at the similarity of Babboon culture to human culture at least on a military, survival and reward level. It is almost the same thing and always has been. Amazing!

It makes me wonder how many different types of dynamics could actually exist in human culture? I wonder if there is actually beyond a Male dominant model to a female dominant model to a more equal model? And maybe there are models not thought about yet that might work better than the ones we are experimenting now with since about the 1950s to 1970s until now.

Even though I grew up in the 1950s I have always thought that there was a type of equality even in the 1950s. It just was much different than now. For example, there was a saying, "Women got up on the bus and lost their seats." This might be one way to interpret the changes now. Women now get all the same diseases that only men once did because they try to fill the same roles as men always have. The people not taken care of as well likely are the children. So, society have to figure out how to deal with that better. So, I would say in trying for equality we have only created confusion (of the sexes, of what people's roles should be etc.) So, much of the suicide rates now have to do with confusion about roles both now and into the future. Everyone basically wanted things to be better but ultimately they are not better, they are just different. And the sooner everyone realizes that a PRICE is always paid by society for any changes. There is nothing free. It is always a tradeoff. IT is always the balance scales. In the end Freedom is responsibility. To see freedom as license only leads to suicide psychologically or physically in the end. Studying the Primates in their primal setting allows us to understand ourselves much better.

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