Why Monogamy Is Unnatural
June 28, 2010 by Kara Oh
Filed under All About Men
A friend sent me a link to an interesting article, Sex At Dawn, Why Monogamy Goes Against Our Nature, on Salon.com. It inspired me to comment on the topic of monogamy, which is often a heated topic.
As I explain in the chapter in Men Made Easy titled, Why Monogamy Is So Difficult For Men, most cultures throughout history–and many still today–practice polygamy. Consequently, the history of mankind tells us it’s unnatural for a man to have only one wife. By the way, it’s also natural for men to want younger woman because in these cultures, no matter how old the man gets, he selects approximately the same age wife, that of baby-making age.
In polygamous cultures, they don’t generally marry for love. They marry for reasons of property and political and family alliances. I’ve seen videos where, when the man takes a new wife, the “old” wife is relieved that she no longer has to have sex with her husband, or at least not as often.
I think marrying for love is a luxury that stems from no longer struggling for survival. And romanticized love that most marriages stand on, is childish, based on a fantasy, at least on the woman’s side. Most men go into marriage from a more pragmatic perspective. But for both, there is a higher potential to be achieve when they come together to create a committed relationship.
A Loving Relationship Should Raise Us Up
I do believe in marriage, or at least, a long-term committed relationship. Why? Because we crave intimacy and a higher meaning for our lives. I believe a relationship based on love, in particular Win/Win Love™, is the best way to raise ourselves to the highest pinnacle of human existence. Today, we have the luxury to pursue that. But that’s not what most people are considering when they join together and choose to form a relationship.
The way to keep a relationship fulfilling for both sides is to focus on deepening intimacy, because that is how our hearts get fed. Physical intimacy is the doorway into that realm. That’s where trust, deeper sharing, and melding of spirits can occur. But only if the couple knows how to create that kind of soulful closeness. In my experience, most don’t. As a writer and teacher, my ultimate goal is to help people achieve that in their relationships.
On the other side of this equation, when a relationship is no longer fulfilling, divorce is not the horrible thing our culture makes it out to be. If either side is miserable and can’t find a way to inspire their partner to want to create the kind of intimacy that feeds both of their souls, then divorce is a better alternative than having a person’s spirit die. Besides, I’ve learned from personal experience that we grow from that kind of gut wrenching experience. An exception is when there are children. Then, if it’s possible to create a loving atmosphere, it is best for the children. Children learn about life from their parents, at least in those early years before their peers and the media take over. When discord is the norm, the children are learning that that is how marriage is supposed to be.
Testicles and Sperm
I have something to add to the above referenced article, regarding what we can learn from sperm. I saw a film years ago where they showed men’s sperm swimming to the ovum. If a man had been told another man had been there first, he had a higher count of sperm, his sperm swam faster, and there were what I call “Warrior Sperm.” These warriors literally attacked the sperm of the man who had ejaculated into the woman prior to him. You could see it happening in the film. I’m surprised the writers didn’t mention that. I think that says a lot about our deep biology. Men do not want their partner to be with another man. Back to survival again.
There’s a Hunter In Every Man
I use my intuition and what I’ve learned through my studies, to explain why we do what we do. I think one reason men don’t want their woman being with another man is because, as a hunter, he doesn’t want to work to feed another man’s child. A woman has, throughout time, needed her hunter to care for her and her offspring. So I think she’s got an inbuilt fear of her hunter leaving her to fend for herself. It was much riskier for her to be with another man, unless he was able and willing to take her, and her children, on as a wife.
Prior to writing Men Made Easy, I had been taking courses and studying the subject of Cultural Anthropology, which has become the backdrop for what I write. My interest in Cultural Anthropology was inspired by my trip to Papua New Guinea. While in PNG, I saw how the women spent most of their time with the other women, surrounded by the children, and the men hung out with the men. Their villages were organized in such a way that there were always lots of people around. Throughout most of our human history, we have lived communally.
A Couple Cannot Satisfy Each Others Needs
Today, we live with one woman and one man under one roof. This is a new experiment and it’s not working very well. A big reason is because when a couple moves in together, they think they can fulfill each other’s every need. If mankind has lived communally through most of our history, then a couple alone, under one roof, is unnatural. But that’s how we do it. So I encourage women to have girlfriend time and for men to have guy friend time and for couples to socialize. It energizes us, gives us time apart, helps us develop a broad range of interests and keeps us interesting to our partner.
It is possible to create enduring, deeply fulfilling and satisfying relationships. But it doesn’t happen on it’s own. It takes a commitment to deepening intimacy, staying connected sexually, creating the safety required in order to share from the deepest recesses of our hearts. To stay together simply because you promised to do so when you no longer love each other is how our spirits shrivel and die. Please don’t let that happen to either of you. You can learn to create the kind of intimacy I’m talking about in Marriage Makeover Manual.
From my heart to yours,
The Heart Whisperer™
I completely disagree that monogamy is not natural or beneficial to men. Every animal has a reproductive strategy, and the more time/energy it takes the offspring to grow up and be self-sufficient = the longer the father stays around in nature. For instance, a female fish swims by a nest, drops millions of eggs in the nest, the father fish swims over it, and million of little fish are spawned. Most of these little fish never make it to adulthood b/c the parents do not invest energy/time in them. Their strategy is mass production and massive losses are expected. Human children require the most care, time, and energy in order to thrive. That is why we are wired to have so much sex. It bonds the male to the female so that he will stick around. A woman, alone with a child, has no chance of survival without her hunter. Men running around siring a million different offspring makes no sense because they would all die if he were not around to parent them. Human reproduction is a costly endeavour where the female must make sure to find a good man that will stick around to parent the child and take care of her. Men do not want their partner being with another man b/c he obviously doesn’t want to put all of his energy into furthering another man’s genes. In a polygamist society, all men do not get to have children. Only men who are rich enough to have many wives get to have babies. A woman would rather be a wife of a rich man who can feed her children than the wife of a poor man that cannot provide riches. Therefore, monogamy & one wife marriage actually helps average Joe pass on his genes. Just my two cents.