Craig

Nice one! It took me a minute but I got it.


Seems to me I remember seeing a Discovery Channel show about mating (maybe TLC?) habits in humans. John Cleese hosted it, with Elizabeth Hurley as eye candy. There was talk about how human sperm has evolved not only to fertilize eggs but also to block and kill sperm from a different donor. That this feature evolved seems to indicate that monogomy was probably not really practiced all that often, or if it was we weren't too good at it.

Add to that the fact that humans are pretty damn horny, as far as animals go. I don't know that there is an animal that likes to mate as much as we humans do. As a result, we cheat. In great numbers. A lot. Both sexes.

To me that seems to indicate a deep (though maybe not "genetic") desire to sleep with many different partners. If we were wired for monogomy (I know, not exactly the topic) then divorce rates would be more like 1%, not 50%.

Majestyk

I thought the intent of the OP was to determine the behavior concerning early hominids, prior to the enfluences of abstract concepts of religion and government. The following examples don't seem to qualify. Their behaviors would seem to be heavily enfluenced by their culture as opposed to their nature. However...

What are the differences between these three?

They all sought to present an image that separated themselves from the multitude of their kin.

They all exercised violence in order to satisfy their basic needs; Manson through inciting murder, Schwarzenegger through the enactment of murder, and Boy George was killing me in the eighties with his music.

And their goals after fulfilling their basic needs were to get the best sexual partners they could. (this is an assumption. I don’t know them well enough to say this with conviction)

I can't answer that at the moment. It was not my intent to claim that our nature as it was pre-history, is the standard that should be applied to ourselves in the circumstances we find ourselves today. Again I thought the intent of the thread was a speculation on the behavior of early hominids.

I just don't see how you cannot see it. Absent of a variety of pockets of humanity that are left on the planet that would be similar to our pre-history ancestors, all we have left are our closest relatives. They may not be human but I don't think we are as fundamentally different as I think most people do.

So, the utility is just another tool to use in helping us to understand ourselves. Isn't that the ultimate goal of our quest for knowledge? To understand the world around us and our place in it? Which is also one fundamental difference between us and our other ape brethren.

ps418

Pyrrho,
I have no idea if there is any genetic basis of jealousy either in humans or in any other animal. However, your argument against this possibility is not valid, because it assumes that all humans (or members of other species) are genetically identical. The fallacy is easy to see when you consider some uncontroversial examples:

Even if a trait has a genetic basis, the expression of the trait within a species can vary as long as the genes that influence the expression of the trait vary.

Patrick

Seeker196

Some things I'd like to say:

In Ethnohistory (the bastard child of anthropolgy and history) we study pre-European contact societies, especially in N. A.

Many of these tribal groups have characteristics I would consider to be similar to early man, especially the more isolated and harsh enviroment groups.

What surprised me was the amount of 'wife-raiding'. In fact, in the myths of many ancient societies we can see that it was accepted practice for men from one tribal group to go on semi-ritualized women-capturing raids.

I believe early man lived in small groups like lion prides, with women as the main source of labour (like the lioness. Also, remember 'hunter' gatherer societies are much more 'gatherer' then they are hunter. In calories, it would be more accurate to describe them as gatherers who sometimes hunt. And women were the gatherers.) and sexual gratification.

I believe that raiding and trading of female thralls was common and maybe even the main interaction between groups.

And yes, even tribal groups as small as the 30-40 individual groups (many North American aboriginal peoples lived in these small units) often gathered together for ritual/trading/ritualized raiding purposes.

Thus, I don't think it was a matter of women 'seeking' monogamous partners as it was conditioning and accomodating themselves (eventually even biologically) to the realities of their social position for most of human existence.

Naturally these kind of ideas are not popular with those feminists who saw the Venus of Willendorf and read into the past a matriachal society that never really existed. I believe the 'matriarchal-ness' of many tribal groups has been exaggerated.

jayh

I remember one researcher flat out challenging others to demonstrate just one true matriarchal society. There are matrilinear societies (property and family affiliation is inherited through the woman) but no truly matriarchal ones. And as it was pointed out, the existence of a few female leaders in some tribal group is no more an evidence of matriarchy than the presence of Hillary Clinton in the US Senate is.

[This is not to say that I feel things should remain this way. Concepts of democracy and personal rights did not exist in the historical past either.]

j

Soyin Milka

Hello,

I just wanted to quickly thank all those who posted in this thread. I deliberately stayed away from it for a while to avoid scaring posters away by defending my own opinions too vigorously. I find all of your answers very interesting but I'm so confused now tho.

I have 4 more questions related to this thread:

1) If women were in some way in a position to choose a mate for themselves, what would have been the best physical characteristic on which to base that choice?
2) How do you recognize a man with good sperm and having a surplus of ressources at his disposal? Body fat?
3) Is it true men with high testosterone levels first accumulate fat on their bellies?
4) Would that imply women are biologically wired to be attracted by beer bellies?

I know that's a warped reasoning. But that's the only physical characteristic I could think of that would indicate that a man has a high testosterone level and more than he needs to eat. Thinking like an evolutionary biologist makes me goofy also

Soyin

echidna

No offence, but that's a pretty good example of why evolutionary biology is usually difficult to take seriously.

God Fearing Atheist

Theres a hypothesis that premature ejaculation, which is common to younger men, is an adaptation that, in our pre-history, allowed teenagers quick sexual (quick being the operative word) access to older, pair-bonded women.

-GFA

Scrambles

No specific characteristic, but whoever a woman finds most attractive would be a good start. People who found healthy individuals of the opposite sex attractive would be more likely to pass on their genetic material than people who found less healthy individuals attractive.

Being attracted to them.

Probably. Women have fat go to their hips and ass first rather than their bellies I believe.

I don't think so. The relationship between amount of fat on a specific part of the body and attraction is probably not a linear one. A beer belly is probably the equivalent of a huge ass.

Edit: oh yeah, the face is a good indicator of testosterone level.

Scrambles

Soyin Milka

HEY!
HOW DARE YOU!!!

Hehe, no offence taken
I was just trying to poke fun at some sociobiologists' claim men are biologically wired to be sexually attracted by large breasts. Of course, if I was myself endowed with such large breasts, I probably would object less to that statement. But oh well, I have fun anyway

Soy