If I were going to write a cultural history of monogamy, I think I would argue that humans have a history of religions and philosophies that idealize monogamy. But the majority of humans themselves have never been monogamous in practice.
@annaleen Seems as if that claim about the behavior of the majority of humans would require a lot of evidence not easily found. Yes, there are love letters by married people, romantic poetry and all the rest, but how would you ever really know/prove that most people were or weren't monogamous? The majority of people over time have no written history whatsoever. For those who were deemed important enough to record something, their sexual behavior may or may not be a matter of record.
@annaleen I am not sure about assuring that the offspring are descended from the appropriate male. Several matrilineal societies practice monogamy, such as the Hopi and the Mosuo, but the children look to the mother's brothers as male parents. Monogamy, at least serial monogamy, may be a way to reduce overt sexual competition and direct that energy to building complex social structures. Just an idea
@annaleen Couldn't it be simpler than that? Jealousy is real and painful. Monogamy is the absence of one behavior that is a particularly common cause of strong jealousy. The idealization of monogamy seems to me to just be a special case of the idealization of kindness, particularly to those we are close to.
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