Monogamy and infidelity: are we made to live as a couple?
Let's talk about one of the world's favorite topics: infidelity. Traditionally, adultery has been seen as a kind of unnatural error, something like a set of small cracks on the surface of what human behavior should be. Thus, the concept "extramarital relationship" has been associated with a failure on the part of people when it comes to appeasing their impulses and forming a family.
In general, infidelities have been considered as an exception, something that does not represent the human essence. However, one might wonder whether this approach is realistic. Have you ever wondered if there is a mechanism in our brain that guides us towards monogamy?
The quick answer to this question is: no, there isn't. In general terms, that human beings are not monogamous in the same way that some animals are is something that is beyond doubt. First, we must distinguish between sexual monogamy Y social monogamy. Sexual monogamy is something strongly determined by genes, and consists of the practical impossibility of reproducing with more than one partner. This kind of "fidelity" is something that is a long way from us, and it really is doubtful that anyone would have much interest in experiencing this form of monogamy. For example, some species of lanternfish: when they reproduce, the male remains physically attached to the female, much larger, and she is digesting her partner until she absorbs it completely.
Infidelity between social monogamous
Sexual monogamy, then, is a fairly rare phenomenon in nature, since almost all species that reproduce sexually and care for breeding with a specific partner, copulate with others at the minimum of change and then continue dedicating themselves to family life with the partner of forever. In these cases we speak of social monogamy, that is, a pattern of behavior guided by circumstances and not by genetics.
In our case, it is more or less the same. The most we can say is that we are animals that sometimes practice social monogamy, but not sexual monogamy. This is the only type of monogamy to which we aspire, since we have the option to live the fidelity as a covenant, something that is reached between two people by choice, but it does not occur spontaneously in members of our species (or at least not in a generalized way).
And, although they are frowned upon in some cultures, extramarital affairs are relatively frequent in our species if we compare ourselves with other animals: gibbons, albatrosses, sea, etc. For this reason, considering them the result of the exception would mean deliberately ignoring a large part of reality. In addition, the breach of genetic monogamy is not the exclusive preserve of men, since occurs frequently in both sexes.
If adultery scandalizes us so much it may be, perhaps, because it is a violation of the norms, not because it has no reason to be. It can be argued whether infidelities (understood as breaking a deal with a partner) are something desirable or not, but it cannot be denied that are fully established in reality: there are even contact agencies that make infidelity an added value in their campaigns of marketing.
But then... How and why did life as a couple originate in our evolutionary history? What is the point of having a gap between sexual monogamy and social monogamy? The evolutionary psychology has certain hypotheses in this regard.
Evolutionary psychology and its horrible, horrible proposals
In general, when we start to study the reproduction patterns of the human being we find a great variability depending on of each culture, but we do not see a strong genetic predisposition that leads us to have children with only one person, as we have viewed. However, some evolutionary psychologists believe that in earlier stages of our evolution as apes there could have been a propensity toward monogamy that natural selection assigned to us by its utility. What was the main use of having a stable partner, according to them?
The possibilities of having many sons and daughters that will survive us. Quite a sullen analysis, yes. According to this approach, romantic love, which is associated with a feeling of obligation towards the partner, is actually born of a kind of egoism invisible to our eyes. Social monogamy would be, in short, an agreement based on the self interest and in the transfer of a trust to some extent undeserved.
It should be borne in mind that adultery in itself does not have to be a disadvantage from the point of view of natural selection. For example, it has been visto that women with children resulting from extramarital affairs could have more reproductive success in certain contexts; that is, they may have a greater chance of leaving offspring. So we cannot even say that infidelity is of little use from the point of view of natural selection. But there is another thing that we have to keep in mind if we want to study the covenant of fidelity: the differences attributable to sex.
A mother knows that all the efforts that she can make to conceive and raise offspring will be reciprocated by the perpetuation of her genes. Compared to the male, a female is certain that the sacrifices she can make to help her young survive are not going to be in vain. Males do not have this certainty (in their case there are more reasons to doubt whether the offspring that protect is theirs or not) but, on the other hand, they do not become more vulnerable during the period of gestation. Precisely for this reason, according to the logic of natural selection, a male has less value than a female as a reproductive couple, because the latter, in addition to being fertilized, takes care of the offspring for a long time. If half the population of a species invests much more time and effort in raising the offspring, evolutionary psychologists will tell us, the individuals that make up that half of the population will become a resource for which the other half will compete fiercely. Furthermore, if the survival of the young is compromised by their fragility, it may be in the best interest for the male to always be around to provide resources and offer security. Hence, an emotional state similar to romantic love, relatively long-lasting in time and which supposes the exclusivity of a couple, can be useful.
Monogamy explained by jealousy and infant deaths
One of the starkest conclusions about the origin of social monogamy centers on the important role of something akin to jealousy. According to a study published in the journal Science, monogamy tends to appear in mammalian populations when females are widely distanced from each other and their Density over the territory is low, which would make it difficult for males to monitor all of them and prevent intruders from fertilize. So, if this is true, the care of the young by the males would be a kind of necessary evil.
There is another study, published in PNAS, in which it is suggested that monogamy could have arisen to prevent infanticide by males. This could have been so because, in many polygamous mammals, it is frequent that with each change of dominant male this kill the offspring of the previous dominant male in order to get the females to be receptive again sexually. This is all horrible, right? If you want, you can rethink the monogamous ways of the lanternfish. Let's see if that way you recover.
Perhaps you have realized that all of the above is painfully reasonable if we think of the human being as a animal that is guided by certain impulses. In the vast majority of vertebrates, the young already have the ability to move on their own within a few hours of being born, and some are completely independent. In comparison, our babies are born myopic, unable to coordinate arms and legs and with difficulty even keeping their heads off the ground. They need as much attention as possible, and the help of just one body may not be enough.
However, many psychologists and anthropologists believe that it is cultural dynamics, and not genetics, that explain the assignment of parenting tasks. That is why we are so unpredictable, according to them. Today there are many people who, despite experiencing romantic love and the need to be linked to a person, do not even consider having babies. Other people don't even believe that this form of attachment exists. This may be true because the large brains created through this "pairing" process would have made the appearance possible. of a type of thinking abstract enough to diversify the forms of love: love for community, love for friends, etc.
All these links are characterized by allowing the creation of groups of close people who can help raise children. And it is that although the couple formed by biological parents is not always in charge of raising the little ones, there is almost always a social circle protective around the baby, and it may even that in certain contexts this type of parenting is more beneficial, as proposed by Skinner in his novel Walden Two. In these situations, love can be seen as the glue that holds this circle of breeding people together and who replace each other. Ultimately, the roles of "protective figures", like any other role, are interchangeable.
Qualifying
One of the problems of evolutionary psychology is that it provides explanations about behavior of the human being that most people do not like and that, furthermore, are by themselves insufficient. For this current of psychology, much of the behavior is explained by being a result of adaptation to the environment (that is, to make sure that our genes are passed on to the next generation). For example, relationships between men and women are seen as a game in which they seek to use sex contrary to make the perpetuation of the genes themselves, or of the genes that most resemble the genes, more likely. our. In addition, it must be borne in mind that the object of study of this discipline is something that cannot be experimented with: the evolutionary history of species.
In some ways, evolutionary psychology provides possible explanations for certain patterns of behavior, but does not identify or fully explain them. Human beings are characterized by being acculturated, and learning explains a large part of our psychological aspects.
However, although evolution does not determine our behavior, it can explain certain very trends. general, and can also help formulate experimental hypotheses in the species to which we belong right now: the Homo sapiens.
It is true that the attachment or love we feel towards people who are not our children could also be understood as part of a evolutionary strategy to ensure the transmission of our genes. However, it could also be understood as a phenomenon that escapes explanations based on biology. Despite this, if we want to descend from that very idealistic conception of love to immerse ourselves in the swamp of crude scientific explanations, We must admit that there is nothing in nature or in our genetics that seems to go against occasional infidelities. It is possible, even, that natural evolution sees these dabbling with good eyes.
