Evolution and Marriage....

[Hockeycowboy]

Well, this thread has received some interesting replies, I appreciate all who've responded.

However, some posts are contradictory, regarding evolution. What is the fact?

My question was "Since humans today seem inclined to lead promiscuous lives, is this evolution?"

And the replies are:

Yes, as is the inclination to dominate and to have violent tendencies.

No, partner-selection and commitment is an acquired evolutionary trait that helps control disease among the population.

Yes of course it is. Everything is evolution.

What does evolution have to do with marriage?

What? Where did you get this idea from?

Let's back up.

Evolution and Marriage have nothing to do with each other.

What view is right? Selfishness seems to be 'gaining ground,' nowadays. Is this beneficial? It seems detrimental, to a species as established as H Sap sap

Any more thoughts?

 

[Windwalker]

What is the fact?

My question was "Since humans today seem inclined to lead promiscuous lives, is this evolution?"

My question is where do you get this misguided idea from? It is not factual. On the contrary, we are becoming less selfish and less violent.

What view is right? Selfishness seems to be 'gaining ground,' nowadays.

Again, what is the basis for your notion here? I disagree. The statistics disagree. Watch this short Ted Talk: The surprising decline in violence

I think you have a pessimistic religion that teaches you false information, leading to your confusion, such as you express in this thread.

 

[siti]

What view is right?

Why mine of course! Everything is evolution - everything is evolving...human sexuality is evolving, human culture is evolving - sexual promiscuity and marriage are both results of evolution and humans over the longer term are destined by evolution to oscillate between the need to reproduce and the need to have stable social structures. At present, that balances out for the most part by having stable nuclear family arrangements and eliminating promiscuity as much as we can - but perhaps this is changing. There is no natural law against promiscuity and if you examine the lives of our nearest evolutionary cousins, bonobos and chimpanzees you will see that there is scope for wide range of interpretations of what is good vs bad or selfish vs altruistic behavior. But it is all evolution and subject to change. This is not a bad thing - inability to adapt is a bad thing. Ask the dinosaurs.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

My question is where do you get this misguided idea from? It is not factual. On the contrary, we are becoming less selfish and less violent.


Again, what is the basis for your notion here? I disagree. The statistics disagree. Watch this short Ted Talk: The surprising decline in violence

Do you see a problem with your response? ('Cuz I do.)

My thread is about if evolution is connected with increasing selfishness, which is destroying marriage and leading to more promiscuity, and you disagree by posting a video that's discussing decreasing violence?

Comparing apples with orangutans, I think.

 

[Windwalker]

Do you see a problem with your response? ('Cuz I do.)

My thread is about if evolution is connected with increasing selfishness, which is destroying marriage and leading to more promiscuity, and you disagree by posting a video that's discussing decreasing violence?

Comparing apples with orangutans, I think.

No, because they are related. Selfishness leads to violence to protect what is yours. People are less selfish these days, leading to less violence.

Again, you ignored you justifying your claim we are more promiscuous. Where is the evidence of this? What I offered countered that. We are less selfish and less doing what's just good for us.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

No, because they are related. Selfishness leads to violence to protect what is yours. People are less selfish these days, leading to less violence.

Again, you ignored you justifying your claim we are more promiscuous. Where is the evidence of this? What I offered countered that. We are less selfish and less doing what's just good for us.

What world do you live in?

ow selfishness is ruining our society and turning our children into monsters | Daily Mail Online

I've got tons more!

 

[Hockeycowboy]

Again, you ignored you justifying your claim we are more promiscuous. Where is the evidence of this? What I offered countered that. We are less selfish and less doing what's just good for us.

Regarding promiscuity:

Promiscuity on the rise following naughty Nineties

It's been on the rise since the sixties!

 

[Subduction Zone]

Do you see a problem with your response? ('Cuz I do.)

My thread is about if evolution is connected with increasing selfishness, which is destroying marriage and leading to more promiscuity, and you disagree by posting a video that's discussing decreasing violence?

Comparing apples with orangutans, I think.

It appears that you are trying to impute a moral sense to evolution. Evolution, like gravity, is amoral. And please do not conflate amoral with immoral. Part of the problems in this thread are poorly formed questions. Poorly formed questions will receive poorly formed answers. Evolution is simply a fact, again like gravity. One does not blame gravity when a landslide occurs and one should not blame evolution when some people do not act the way that some think that they should.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Regarding promiscuity:

Promiscuity on the rise following naughty Nineties

It's been on the rise since the sixties!

Ahh good news at last. I might finally get me some!

 

[viole]

Since humans today seem inclined to lead promiscuous lives, is this evolution? Or is it directly linked to a growing disrespect for the Bible? And how and why did marriage ever get to be so popular worldwide to begin with? The practice of marriage is observed among many cultures, even those that never had the Bible's influence in their society.

What do you mean with "a growing disrespect for the Bible"? We do many things today that are not sanctioned by the Bible. For instance we abhor slavery. But that does not necessarily entail that we abhor slavery out of disrespect for the Bible. Same for other things, I guess.

To explain why marriage, romantic love, and long term relationships are linked to naturally evolved processes in our brains can take too long here. I would recommend to have a look in Dawkins' "The Selfish Gene". There we can read the evolutionary conflict of interests between the sexes that arise when you have kids taking so long to become independent, etc. And this is why these sorts of contracts emerged independently from the local culture. Nothing "holy about it", just a useful selected way to help the further spread of our genes.

Ciao

- viole

 

[Kangaroo Feathers]

Since humans today seem inclined to lead promiscuous lives, is this evolution? Or is it directly linked to a growing disrespect for the Bible? And how and why did marriage ever get to be so popular worldwide to begin with? The practice of marriage is observed among many cultures, even those that never had the Bible's influence in their society.

And is marriage a bad thing? I mean, if humans are evolving without needing it; it apparently is the way modern culture is heading.

Contraception. Look it up.

 

[ADigitalArtist]

"Since humans today seem inclined to lead promiscuous lives, is this evolution?"

I think the reality is that promiscuity has not changed drastically in ratio, rather than a society that doesn't punish sex outside marriage is much less likely to keep it a secret (feel the same way about mood altering chemicals, legal and illegal). The idea that marriage is an effective tool against promiscuous behavior has always been a really dicey claim. From an evolutionary standpoint, marriage is no different than any other social contract. Historically it's mostly used to secure a merge of family wealth and power. With the darker side that women were considered part of the wealth of the men, and lack of paternity testing making it very important for men to know who was having his children. (Which is why even in the bible men having multiple partners is not frowned on nearly as much as women having multiple male partners.) So sexual purity was really just a means of controlling inheritance of women and their descendants. Not really laudable goals for marriage.

Today in secular society, marriage is purely a government contract, securing wealth and assets equally between the two partners in the eyes of the government. The marriage ceremony which may or may not be religious is entirely optional. I don't think this is either good or bad, because I don't view marriage as being the most important step of a relationship. Nor do I think a successful relationship is essentially built on marriage. Rather, I believe mutual communication, respect, trust and honesty is way more important than placing an artificial 'seal' on the relationship.
I say this as someone married, but got married purely for a fun party and to make taxes and insurance easier. And yet I've been with the same man for over sixteen years now.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

And yet I've been with the same man for over sixteen years now.

Great!.....hope y’all can continue together.