Promiscuity and Human Evolution
I claim, that bonded people caring for each other and experiencing a committed and monogamous relationships as a safe haven are happier than those, who are unable to feel bonded.
Evolution favors the fitness of successful fertility, independent of the suffering or wellbeing of the individual. Happiness is therefore not a direct factor in natural selection. But with the evolution of the species homo sapiens, it may have become indirectly an enabler of the special kind of fitness, that is connected with a well functioning brain.
Promiscuity leads to a high quantity of offspring, but monogamy leads to a higher quality of offspring, because happier or less unhappy parents can do a better job raising their children.
I claim, that bonded people caring for each other and experiencing a committed and monogamous relationships as a safe haven are happier than those, who are unable to feel bonded.
Evolution favors the fitness of successful fertility, independent of the suffering or wellbeing of the individual. Happiness is therefore not a direct factor in natural selection. But with the evolution of the species homo sapiens, it may have become indirectly an enabler of the special kind of fitness, that is connected with a well functioning brain.
Promiscuity leads to a high quantity of offspring, but monogamy leads to a higher quality of offspring, because happier or less unhappy parents can do a better job raising their children.
A promiscuous man may sire a dozen children or more with several women. No matter if this is in consecutive marriages or short affairs, the result are children raised by only one biological parent.
If a woman lives on welfare, her children are often deprived of chances to develop their potential, instead they are forced to start low skilled labor early in life.
If the woman works, she usually is under a lot of stress and lacking the time to spend with her children.
If the woman brings the child into a patchwork family, this leads also to unfavorable influences.
In all these situations, the child is at an elevated risk of deviance of any kind like delinquency or substance abuse and of underachievement.
In all these situations, the child is at an elevated risk of deviance of any kind like delinquency or substance abuse and of underachievement.
A bonded monogamous couple usually raises one or a few children, whom they enable to develop all their potential and intelligence. These children may contribute to the progress of society by making inventions or scientific discoveries or doing other valuable professional work.
Therefore it seems plausible, that there has been a shift in the focus of the natural selection away from the physically strong but dumb, selfish and dominating studs, who were the fittest, when survival depended on hunting and defending a group against wild animals. Instead natural selection seems to have started to favor the fittest in being intelligent. These could have been excelling in observing nature and having a good memory about hunting grounds, improving the technique of building huts or preserving food and developing agriculture. They could have enabled the progress by developing better communication to share their skills. This evolution of intelligence was part of a more general evolution of all mental capacities, not only rationality, memory, imagination, but also of self-awareness and emotional intelligence.
Suffering and being unhappy can incapacitate parents to enable their children to develop all their capacities. Therefore I assume, that the side effect of the natural selection of the fitness by intelligence was the automatic selection also of people, who were better able to be content as a monogamous couple. That means, the women suffered less with men, who were less dominant and less promiscuous. This is an explanation, why at least some men obviously have evolved to avoid promiscuity and to get bonded when mating with a partner and thus raise more intelligent offspring.
There is scientific evidence, that intelligent men are more monogamous:
http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/2010/03/02/2010-03-02_smart_men_lss_likely_than_dumb_ones_to_cheat_on_partners_study.html
The physical development of an adolescent is much faster than the maturation of the mind. A boy is physically able to become promiscuous long before he is mature enough to understand, that bonding leads to much more happiness. Thus unfortunately, adolescents are at high risk to become promiscuous without even having a clue, that they are getting irreversibly emotionally damaged. Many become promiscuous, before they ever have a chance to experience bonding.
But not all men become promiscuous. It seems as if an adolescent is torn between two forces, his instinctivity urging him to copulate with any female body he can get hold of, and something, that holds him back. In entry 101 I speculated about a construct, that I called the promiscuity inhibition. This could be a combination of emotional intelligence and the disgust to have close contact with a stranger's body (entry 108).
Therefore an adolescent is prone to become promiscuous, if his instinctivity is stronger than his promiscuity inhibition. He becomes promiscuous, when he has the opportunity, because enough female bodies available and promiscuity is socially condoned and encouraged by many male role models.
