Monogamy

joshua 1 9 said:

Gen2:23 Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. 2:24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.

Something new happened 6,000 years ago at the time of Adam and Eve. We call this today the institute of marriage. We see a very limited example of monogamy in nature. Most notably the prairie vole. Yet monogamy is rare and even when you have social bonding there still seems to be a high degree of infidelity. Perhaps this is an area where there are a lot of myths that the evidence does not tend to support. Does brain chemistry and a discussion of the "love hormones" really describe "love" as well as some people suggest? Is release of the hormone oxytocin, as addicting as OxyContin, which I think use the same receptors in the body. How far has modern science come in their understanding of the evolution of pair bonding?

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The case of Adam and Eve teaches the relationship between husband and wife. It does not teach monogamy or polygamy. So a Jewish man in history may have several wives.

However, the Bible does emphasize how should husband and wife treat each other. If one obey the Biblical teaching on that, it would "automatically" become a monogamy society. So, it is a distraction to investigate the reasons or the pros and cons of polygamy or adultery. Just focus on the way how should a Christian treat his/her spouse according to the Bible.

Paul wasn't a fan of polygamy and stated in 1 Cor 7,2: 'to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.'

There's a heap of studies on the evolutionary origins of monogamous pair bonding, as well as the neurological aspects. A PubMed search for Monogamy + Evolution gives 193 hits, including a dozen from this year alone:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Monogamy+evolution

joshua 1 9 said:

The question is what do the studies show. This was the result from one of those studies: "The discovery that extra pair copulation (EPC) and extra pair paternity (EPP) are common in birds led to a paradigm shift in our understanding of the evolution of mating systems." If there is an actual paradigm shift or not there does seem to be a lot of reevaluation of the monogamy hypothesis right now. Until now monogamy was considered to be the default and no one really questioned it. But that no longer seems to be the case.

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That is simply not true.

Monogamy is not the default by any means.

And there's logical reasons for why humans developed this construct of monogamy.
It goes hand in hand with bipedalism in our case.

See, because of walking erect, skeletal changes occured in the human body. Due to these changes, humans are actually incapable of seeing a pregancy through to the end. Biologically, the optimal human pregnancy should last 11 months, not 9.

This means that the first months after birth, the child requires more care, more protection. As a male, you'ld take up your responsability and be there to take care of your off spring. Because of this, you might want to make sure that you are actually taking care of your OWN off spring. It's easy to see how this would lead to pairing of a single male and female, while also actively keeping other males away.

It goes further even...

The first 3-4 years of a child's life, it requires extra care. Past that age, it starts to be a lot more independent and it can slowly start to take care of itself under certain conditions.

It's not that surprising that a lot of divorces etc happen after (or during) the 4th year. It's still burried in our human psychology that after 4 years, it's "safe" for the off spring to move on to another woman.

Since that time, society has changed a lot of course. For many reason, it is more practical to stay together.

But I'ld dare to say that this is primarily a cultural thing.

In any case, I don't see how monogamy is, or should be, the "default" by any means (from a biological perspective - not a cultural one).

To God monogamy is the same as fidelity, which is what it's all about.

joshua 1 9 said:

I just found a study that shows: "Men who are polygamous face more than quadruple the risk of having blocked heart vessels, compared with men married to one woman, new research suggests." This was based on a study of 687 men who were referred for heart disease testing at five hospitals in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Their theory is that "long-term stress in family life increases the risk of coronary heart disease. So if one wife is stressful then multiple wives could perhaps be even more stressful.

http://www.livescience.com/50654-polygamy-linked-heart-disease.html

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Long-term stress for any reason will harm you.

joshua 1 9 said:

Actually that is rare. It is traditionally the women that takes custody of the kids and she moves onto finding a stepfather for them. Although they do have the option of living with daddy and his new mate. As we see in the classic movie Kramer vs Kramer it can be rather awkward for the man to attempt to be the primary parent.

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I didn't mention anything about which of the 2 partners takes off.

I said that the average length of broken marriages correlates with the average length of marriages before obstacles are met in the relationship of the parents (ie: difficult periods where you drive eachother crazy), which also correlates with the average time it takes for a baby to grow up into a child that doesn't require care and overprotection 24/7.

That it is burried into our psychology seems like a perfectly reasonable explanation to me.

Society as a whole tends to support monogamy. They cheer on a successful marriage or mating pair, they are saddened when a mating pair is not able to stay together.

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Sure. But that has cultural reasons. Which is a different topic altogether (considering the biological / evolutionary point I was making).

Much in the same way people support a healthy life style in general. Perhaps people need to give more consideration to the person they want to bond with to produce offspring.

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I don't know about that.
I don't feel a need to tell people that they MUST stay together or that they MUST find a way to be able to stay together, or even that it is BETTER for them to stay together.

I know a LOT of couples that would have been much better off (including their children) if they would just have parted ways... But because of cultural reasons and peer pressure, they didn't. The result is an unhappy home, children that are constantly stuck in the crossfire between parents shouting at eachother, etc.

A child is much better off in a single parent but stable and happy home, then in a "married" household where they scream at eachother every day (or worse).

And the same goes for the parents.

So I would never make such sweeping statements like "it is better to stay together". No, it's not. It all depends on who you are and what that household is like.

If you are going to try to make generalised, sweeping statements about that, you will only end up making very bad decisions.

There is also the situation with an aunt or an uncle that takes an active part to preserve their DNA by trying to get involved in the lives of their niece or nephews to help provide for them in a positive productive way.

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No idea what the point of that is.

I've heard about a thing called polyamory, and I've gotta say it sounds like it would work well for some people...