Idle Theory: monogamy http://www.idlex.freeserve.co.uk/idle/evolution/human/ethics/monoga...

One Explanation of Monogamy

The defensive society
Why do men and women live in monogamous marriages in some
societies, and polygamously in others?

It might be argued that it would be better for people to live in polygamous

groups rather than monogamous marriages. In a sexually polygamous
society, where nobody knows who is the father of any child, mothers
would receive the support of several possible fathers, and be able to share
child care with several other mothers. Sharing the burdens of raising
children among a social group, rather than loading it all onto a single
couple, would appear to offer many advantages. In many ways, human
society exists entirely for this purpose.

Furthermore, it makes economic sense for people to live closely together.

It takes less energy to heat one large house filled with 20 or 30 people
than it does to heat 15 or 20 separate small houses with two occupants in
each. It equally requires less energy to cook food in one large pot than in
15 or 20 separate pots.

Equally, it makes social sense for people to live in close proximity, so that
no one is ever lonely, and nobody falls sick or gets hurt without others
helping and assisting.

And quite apart from the economic merits of close conviviality, it would
anyway seem that humans are naturally promiscuous. If humans were
naturally monogamous, then sexual promiscuity would be entirely
unheard of, and no clerics would have ever thundered against the
iniquities of adultery and fornication. Indeed, if humans were naturally
uninterested in sex, those same clerics would have been thundering
against the iniquity of celibacy, and encouraging promiscuity. For if there
are perils in too much sex, there are also perils in too little: if no sexual
reproduction takes place, human society dwindles away into extinction.

However, perhaps the principal problem with such sexual and social
arrangements is that they allow the rapid propagation of communicable
diseases. The closer people live together, and the closer they come into
physical contact, the more likely it is that they will communicate disease
to each other - sexual relations providing the most intimate contact. As
soon as one person in such a promiscuous society contracts such a
disease, it will take on epidemic proportions. The more intimately people
live together, and the greater the number of their intimate liaisons, the
greater the possibility of an entire society contracting some disease. And
if these diseases are often fatal, the effect of a general promiscuous close
association is likely to be the decimation of human society.

Much the same goes for any other misfortune. If all live together under
one roof, then all are likely to die if the house catches fire, or collapses in
an earthquake. To the extent that people are closely united, to the same
extent they are likely to meet with the same fate.

However, no society will exhibit continual promiscuous contact. At any

one time, some individuals may be absent, or effectively celibate. And
equally, where two people are temporarily an exclusive couple, they are
effectively temporarily monogamous.

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In a society in which some people are sexually promiscuous, and others

are monogamous, and others celibate, the effects of sexually transmitted
disease will entirely fall upon the sexually promiscuous portion of the
population. If the diseases are regularly fatal, the effect of an epidemic
will be to decimate society, and leave only monogamous couples or
celibate individuals, and perhaps a few people with a natural immunity.

These pockets of exclusivity may be composed of single celibate

individuals, monogamous couples, polygamous families, or even groups of
men and women who practise promiscuous sex exclusively within the
confines of the group.

However, the larger the sexually exclusive group, the greater the danger
that it be compromised by sexual relations outside the group. Therefore
celibate individuals are the least likely to acquire sexually transmitted
diseases, and monogamous couples are the second least likely to acquire
such diseases, and so on. And since monogamous couples are able to
produce children, whereas celibate individuals do not, monogamous
couples offer the strongest enduring defence against sexually transmitted
disease.

The most important requirement is sexual exclusivity. Monogamous

couples must not become contaminated by extramarital liaisons. Such
exclusivity also demands that both men and women are virgins before
marriage. Such exclusivity also precludes divorce and remarriage, since a
society made up of divorcing and remarrying individuals is no better than

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a promiscuous society at preventing the spread of sexually transmitted

disease. The only ground for divorce is the threat that the infidelity of a
spouse threatens the health of their partner. And what constitutes
adultery or infidelity may well extend to include any bodily touch or
unsupervised meeting.

Indeed, the exclusivity of monogamy may also extend to children, such

that not even children are allowed any contact with others, and are kept
at home until they are ready to enter their own monogamous unions. In
this extreme, monogamous marriages would almost become isolated
societies in themselves, minimizing every sort of contact with others.

In such societies, the rank order of individuals is one in which celibate

individuals have the highest status, followed by monogamous couples,
with promiscuous individuals given a low ranking, and prostitutes given
the lowest rank of all. For this is the rank order of personal sexual purity,
and of general purity. The very highest rank of purity is that of the hermit
who lives completely separately from society, and never shares in any of
its misfortunes.

Thus the effect of disease upon society is to leave it not only decimated,
but also atomised. In some cases, a human society may understand that
certain kinds of compartmentalisation provide a defence against disease.
But if not, then if the survivors of plagues continue with their customary
way of life, in every detail, then they are quite likely to survive future
outbreaks of disease, even if they do not know why they survived
previous ones. In the absence of understanding, the rigorous observance
of custom must often prove an effective deterrent against misfortune,
simply because some customary habits provide a quite accidental
protection.

With monogamy, there came the physical separation of monogamous

couples into households, and the dispersal of these households, the effect
of which was to minimize all contact with others. The effect of this would
have been compartmentalise society physically as well as sexually. The
transmission of all kinds of communicable diseases is reduced by this
separation.

Dispersal and reunion

The general argument of this essay is that communicable disease acts to
disperse unified, convivial, and sexually promiscuous societies into
compartmentalised and atomised societies. Since sexual relations bring
people into the closest possible contact, such relations are one of the
principal routes through which such disease is communicated. Monogamy
and celibacy compartmentalise society and limit the damage that these
diseases inflict. In tandem with monogamy and celibacy, society becomes
physically dispersed in separate households. Furthermore, in their
dealings with one another, compartmentalised societies adopt formalised
customs that minimise contact, discouraging unnecessary social activities,
cultivating reserve and distance.

If the punishment for breaking the strict laws compartmentalising society

was sometimes death, it was because breaking those laws brought death
to society. An adulterer was somebody who had become adulterated,
impure, and whose actions may have introduced some nameless disease
into a community, and cost many lives.

The compartmentalisation of society also offered defence against other

misfortunes than disease. The impact of fire, flood, storm, and earthquake
on a dispersed society would generally be much less than the effect on a
united and centralised society.

Yet the very success of compartmentalised, monogamous society in

restricting communicable disease led inevitably to its decline. After a
while, people who seldom suffered from such diseases would have begun
to forget the purpose of monogamy. With the long passage of time, the
rationale behind these defensive measures was gradually lost, and the
observance of the law became merely habitual, a matter of doing the
done thing. And once the reasons underlying any code of conduct are lost,
or replaced with superstitious rationalisations, the codes themselves first
become empty dogmas, and then lapse into disuse.

However, to the extent that the threat of disease and fire and similar
disasters actually recedes, then to that extent the real need for dispersal
and compartmentalisation declines, and human societies are likely to
become reunited in a renewed coviviality. For dispersed defensive
societies are less idle than united societies, as it is simpler and easier to
live in close proximity under one roof together. Therefore as the threat of
disease recedes, the result is likely to be the gradual reunion of society,
and the resumption of a general promiscuity.

At which point the rank order within society becomes inverted. Celibate
hermits drop to the bottom rank, with monogamous couples the next up,
and with courtesans at the top.

Seen from this perspective, monogamy, celibacy, and the nuclear family
are the natural organisation of a society facing the threat of decimating
disease. Such compartmentalisation of society is essentially defensive.
Once the threat passes, or other means are found to combat it,

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monogamy and celibacy cease to be virtues, much as a city's walls fall

redundant once an enemy has been finally repulsed.

If, along trade routes which regularly brought not only the produce of
distant lands but also a host of communicable diseases, societies adopted
monogamy and celibacy and ritual purification, it was as a defence
measure against such diseases. And equally, if, on some remote Pacific
islands which no outsider visited from one century to the next, societies
reverted to a genially promiscuous life together under one roof, eating
and drinking from the same dishes and cups, all monogamy and celibacy
and purity long abandoned, it was because they faced no threat from
disease. Or at least not until European ships brought both the problem
and its answer - the first in their pox-ridden crews, and the second in
their Christian chaplains.

Author: Chris Davis

First created: April 2004

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