In My Holy Opinion

According to this article, only “3 to 5 percent ]of mammals] are known to form lifelong bonds”. From an evolutionary point of view, and in some cases even from a social point of view, monogamy is complete bullshit. Think about it: having only one mate to produce offspring is dangerous for the family unit, as well as the species as a whole. If you put all your eggs in one basket, you might be in trouble if your mate is less than perfect. Good thing my mate is perfect.
In addition to being a risk to each other, mammals that practice monogamy are also jealous by nature. Granted, I might fall into that category, a little bit, just a little bit…. but these are social behaviors that are acquired in childhood and adolescence. It seems like, depending on one’s upbringing, an individual can be on either extreme of the spectrum; I don’t think humans or animals are genetically programmed to be jealous or not so jealous. Having said all this, jealousy seems like an obvious waste of time, it gets in the way of things, and makes the community less stable, less productive, and less likely to survive. In species where individuals have many mates, the lineage will not be interrupted if one of the mates is not 100% compatible with another.

But: how is it then, that humans, in comparison to other mammals, are far more intelligent, and have a very high life expectancy and survival rate, even though most humans are monogamous, or at least semi-monogamous. As the article describes, recent research in animal mating behavior sheds some light on these questions. Scientists primarily distinguish between social monogamy and sexual monogamy: sexual monogamy means that an individual will only have sex with one partner over a certain time period, but social monogamy means that an individual will raise children and have a family with only one mate, but will have sex with a number of mates. Sounds appealing, perhaps… but again why are humans so superior, socially, evolutionary, etc? Would it be our downfall if we all stopped being monogamous?

I think that the bottom line is that monogamy, at least among humans, is a tried and true practice. That doesn’t mean that I have to be such a jealous dick sometimes