11thJune
Monogomy in Nature
Been reading up about monogamy in nature and it seems that the human ancestry has gone back and forth (mainly between polygyny and monogamy with lesser amounts of polyandry and homosexual variants) but for the last 2 million years have been largely monogamous (due to moderate sized testes and social competition). Another interesting thing is this article Kokkoa & Morrell, 2005), which shows similar patterns across most monogamous species.
In short:
- Males are generally slightly larger and physically superior
- It is in the best interest for the propagation of the male that the female only bear his children
- It is in the best interest for the protection of the female that she not have extrapair offspring because of the mate guarding of the male
- Both males and females seek out extrapair offspring to ensure the spread of their genetic material
- Females tend to be discrete about this pursuit and are worse off when discovered (hence babies resembling the father in first year of birth)
- Males more concerned and responsive to female infidelity than visa versa, often resulting in females being left unprotected after an infidelity.
- Monogamy and attractiveness have a direct relationship – the more “attractive” (i.e. good genetics) one partner is, the more likely that the other partner will not seek further genetic spread outside of the pair.
It is also interesting that the human evolution is “socially” different to that of Chimpanzees (promiscuous, thus large testes) and gorillas (polygynous, thus smaller testes).
So what has all this taught us?
…don’t ask me!
…but we are certainly products of our environment.
It is fascinating though!