Summary of the Topic
Polygamy entails a practice or the state of having more than one marital partner at the same time while monogamy involves sticking to one spouse. Biologists, anthropologists, and archaeologists have been trying to find a solution to the complicated query of whether human beings are polygamous or monogamous. Research teams have reviewed the variations of human DNA to that of animals and have come across several ways to explain the evolution of people from a polygamous setup to one that requires more intimacy. This essay assesses articles and books that attempt to understand how evolution has affected polygamy and monogamy amongst human beings.
Firman Renee in “Female social preference for males that have evolved via monogamy: evidence of a trade-off between pre and post-copulatory sexually selected traits?” analyzes why females prefer men with a monogamous perspective. When females copulate with several males post and pre-mating sexual selections arise. The females benefit from polyandry because of the sperm competition that results in high-quality offspring. Firman explores the fitness of sperms beyond early-life periods using house mice that have evolved for 25 generations under polygamous and monogamous lines. The assessment attempts to understand whether females prefer males from a monogamous or polygamous background. The results outline a social preference amongst the females of males from a monogamous line (Firman, par. 7).
Academic Articles or Books
David Barash in” Out of Eden: The Surprising Consequences of Polygamy” outlines that from a biological view, human beings were not created for monogamy. Despite the revelations of spiritual leaders, people should decide what they want to do. David develops an evolutionary ideology by illustrating the bachelor theory of monogamy (Barash, 4). Marion Hall and Tim Halliday in “Behaviour and Evolution” analyze the mating systems amongst animals. The authors argue that from an evolutionary standpoint both males and females possess a sense of polygamy since they both in the course of a year will have encountered several sexual partners regardless of being monogamous in their relationships (Hall and Halliday, 223). Maria Isunza, Clemens Kupper, Alejandro Meneses, and Tamas Szekely in “Courtship behavior differs between monogamous and polygamous plovers” evaluate the mating systems under polygamous and monogamous setups for plovers. The authors highlight that sexual selection is stronger in the populations that practice polygamy than monogamy due to the intense competition (Isunza, Kupper, Meneses, and Szekely, 2036).
Conclusion
The analysis provides that human beings have evolved with time to appreciate the need for intimacy in relationships. However, before the individuals or animals can decide on a suitable partner, they must ensure that the union will sustain high-quality offspring. Therefore, animals and human beings still practice polygamy.
Works Cited
Barash, David. Out of Eden: The Surprising Consequences of Polygamy. London: Oxford University Press, 2016.
Firman, Renee. Female social preference for males that have evolved via monogamy: evidence of a trade-off between pre- and post-copulatory sexually selected traits? Biological Letter, October 2014, Volume 10, issue 10. DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2014.0659.
Hall, Marion and Halliday, Tim. Behaviour and Evolution. New York: Springer, 1998.
Isunza, Maria; Kupper, Clemens; Meneses, Alejandro, and Szekely, Tamas. Courtship behavior differs between monogamous and polygamous plovers. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, December 2015, Volume 69, Issue 12, pp 2035-2042.
