Monogamy: Encyclopedia II - Monogamy - Human monogamy

Monogamy - Human monogamy

The practice of restricting sexual contact to a single partner (married or not) for a limited period of time, ending that relationship before beginning another (though in practice there may be a brief overlapping time-period) is referred to as serial monogamy (as opposed to polyamory, swinging, etc.).

Historically, monogamy was much less practised than polygamy (specifically polygyny). Mostly because of European expansion, monogamy is more popular than it was ever before.

Polygamy as an institution continues in much of the developing world. However, even where polygamy is allowed, it is less than commonly practised, as few men in such communities have the financial means at hand to support additional wives. It is usually observed in groups of people that have recently experienced war or famine - disasters which typically kill proportionally more men than women. The Anglican Church in Kenya for example, has semi-officially adapted a positive stance on polygamy, largely because of deficit of males in that country due to decades of war.

Polyandry, or the practice of women having more than one male spouse, is traditionally a rarer phenomenon than polygyny. The most famous example of polyandry, in Hindu culture, for example, occurs in the Mahabharata where the Pandavas are married to one common wife, Draupadi. Today it is almost exclusively observed in the Toda tribe of India, where it is sometimes the custom for several brothers to have one wife. In this context, the practice is intended to keep land - a precious resource in a populous country like India - within the family.

Modern groups that advocate polyamorous relationships attempt to identify historical or archaeological evidence which favours these types of relationships as "natural" to human beings. This is a controversial claim, however, and it cannot be settled by appeal to the behavior of humanity's closest relatives, the bonobo and the common chimpanzee. These display very different types of sexual behaviour - chimpanzees favour fairly rigid hierarchical relationships while bonobos are openly promiscuous. Some other close human relatives, such as marmosets and gibbons, are more or less monogamous in their habits. Others, such as gorillas, are not. The Neandertal seemingly lived in small groups revolving around a single breeding couple.

While most pre-modern human societies exhibited varying degrees of polygamy, in most instances, pair-bonding was more commonplace than not. It is interesting to observe that even in cultures that permit polygamy, its practice may nevertheless be discouraged. The Islamic Qu'ran, for example, suggests men restrict themselves to one wife: "If you have more than one wife, you will never be able to treat them equitably...and if you cannot treat them equitably [then you should not engage in the practice at all]."

Note that the term "monogamy" is also used to mean confining a sexual relationship to one other person even in the absence of a legal status of marriage (for example, an unmarried heterosexual couple or a homosexual couple in a jurisdiction that does not recognize marriage between homosexual persons.) Monogamy in this sense is recommended by health professionals discussing safer sex practices.

Some argue that polyfidelity, which is restricting oneself to a group of people, would provide the same protection if each person who has sex follows the same rules, stays in the group, and the only way to join is a negative test for STDs. The lack of completely reliable tests for STDs -- false negatives can occur and some STDs, such as HIV, are not detectable by blood test for up to six months after exposure -- suggests, however, that even in the absence of cheating, the risk would increase for each participant. These risks should be weighed against the fact that even monogamy increases the risks beyond someone who is sexually abstinant; it is a question of to what degree the risk is worth the reward.

Note also that existence of a legally monogamous relationship (marriage) is no guarantee of a monogamous one in fact. Some societies have formally or semiformally recognized that married persons may have other sexual partners outside of the marriage relationship, while in societies that do not condone this practice it is nevertheless not unusual.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Human monogamy", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki