Poll of the Day > Did cave people have monogamous relationships?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Or did they indiscriminately fuck?

Did they know who fathered the children in the group?

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I dont know but I wish I could live in a cave home they seem so cool




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they probably got jealous like everyone else

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No info exists early examples of war were raids for food and women though.

Raids for women? How romantic.

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I doubt it. Humans are not naturally monogamous creatures. I think only like 9% of mammal species are. The fact that there's not one, but two commandments against adultery in the Bible, implies that monogamy was something that needed to be incentivized and enforced through punishment to become a cultural norm.

It was probably so dark in the caves they just found a hole and thrusted

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JigsawTDC posted...

Humans are not naturally monogamous creatures.

Is that something that is known scientifically? If its true then its weird that so many people struggle with issues of jealousy in relationships

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JigsawTDC posted...

I doubt it. Humans are not naturally monogamous creatures. I think only like 9% of mammal species are. The fact that there's not one, but two commandments against adultery in the Bible, implies that monogamy was something that needed to be incentivized and enforced through punishment to become a cultural norm.

Not really. In humans the male desires to have multiple female mates due to more desire to have more kids while having his women remain monogamous. Conversely women desire to have multiple male mates since they can support her with resources easily but desires them to be monogamous so they don't send resources to other women/children. It's why you see a bunch of people acting like it's okay when they cheat but getting pissy the moment their spouse acts slightly unfaithful. Monogamy is the culturally-agreed-upon compromise by most cultures in which neither party has relationships on the side and become fully devoted to each other (at least ideally). Since humans are a social species the social harmony it brings in comparison to alternatives is seen as highly desirable.

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Unbridled9 posted...

Monogamy is the culturally-agreed-upon compromise by most cultures in which neither party has relationships on the side and become fully devoted to each other (at least ideally).

You just proved my point here. Monogamy is not an inherent trait in humans. It's a social construct created through culture.

Mead posted...

Is that something that is known scientifically? If its true then its weird that so many people struggle with issues of jealousy in relationships

Yeah? I mean, are you still with the first person you fucked? Mating with them for life? If so, you're in a very small minority.

JigsawTDC posted...

Yeah? I mean, are you still with the first person you fucked? Mating with them for life? If so, you're in a very small minority.

I personally am but thats anecdotal so I dont think it really matters overall. I thought monogamous meant just like one mate at a time though

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Mead posted...

I thought monogamous meant just like one mate at a time though

I mean, there's different forms of monogamy. What you're talking about is serial monogamy, which a large portion of humans do practice, but for social and cultural reasons, not innate genetic reasons. When we see sexual monogamy in other species, they pair bond for life and don't divorce and find a new partner if things don't work out.

JigsawTDC posted...

What you're talking about is serial monogamy, which a large portion of humans do practice, but for social and cultural reasons, not innate genetic reasons.

Is that something that is really scientifically proven though? Ive heard people talk about it but is it actually known that monogamy seen in our society is just from cultural influences?

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JigsawTDC posted...

You just proved my point here. Monogamy is not an inherent trait in humans. It's a social construct created through culture.

Yeah? I mean, are you still with the first person you fucked? Mating with them for life? If so, you're in a very small minority.

i agree and can confirm this, as im helping support the married woman i got pregnant, since her husband cant, ok?


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Mead posted...

Is that something that is really scientifically proven though? Ive heard people talk about it but is it actually known that monogamy seen in our society is just from cultural influences?

Culture is created by people though. If we create a culture that encourages monogamy then obviously a large number of us have monogamous tendencies.

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Blightzkrieg posted...

Culture is created by people though. If we create a culture that encourages monogamy then obviously a large number of us have monogamous tendencies.

That makes sense, but it could be seen as a chicken or the egg situation couldnt it? Like are a lot of people that way because of our culture? Or is our culture that way because a lot of people have a drive to be with one partner at a time?

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It's not really a chicken or egg situation because people predate culture, we know this. Unless you're highly religious and believe we are following rules established by a deity.

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Mead posted...

That makes sense, but it could be seen as a chicken or the egg situation couldnt it? Like are a lot of people that way because of our culture? Or is our culture that way because a lot of people have a drive to be with one partner at a time?

Cultures differ across the world. Not every society is monogamous, and even many that are have different practices, norms, and values regarding it. The fact that monogamy isn't the only practice humans gravitate towards regarding sexual and romantic relationships is proof enough that monogamy is not genetically hardwired into our biology.

Blightzkrieg posted...

It's not really a chicken or egg situation because people predate culture, we know this. Unless you're highly religious and believe we are following rules established by a deity.

Well then do we know that people were mostly non-monogamous before culture was established?

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JigsawTDC posted...

The fact that monogamy isn't the only practice humans gravitate towards regarding sexual and romantic relationships is proof enough that monogamy is not genetically hardwired into our biology.

That doesnt really seem like proof. I could be wrong but arent the majority of the worlds population by far monogamous? Or is that a misconception?

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Mead posted...

Well then do we know that people were mostly non-monogamous before culture was established?

Since people established primarily monogamous cultures, obviously.

Culture is a reflection of how we behave, not the other way around. It's not something that exists until people behave a certain way.

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Mead posted...

Well then do we know that people were mostly non-monogamous before culture was established?

I've seen studies citing up to 80% of early human communities being polyamorous. Here's an article that explores it a bit:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2015/may/19/equality-and-polyamory-why-early-humans-werent-the-flintstones

Mead posted...

That doesnt really seem like proof. I could be wrong but arent the majority of the worlds population by far monogamous? Or is that a misconception?

I think a majority of the world's population would like to think they're monogamous, but the prevalence of adultery indicates that even those that want to practice it have difficulty. Sexual attraction to others doesn't just go away when you get in a comitted relationship. Human monogamy is founded more on respect for your partner than a biological need to only copulate with them. Like, my partner and I can discuss attractions we have outside the relationship, because we trust and respect each other enough to know that an impulse attraction isn't a threat to our relationship.

I assume cave people had what we have now when it comes to relationships. They just didn't have the name for it we use now.

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wwinterj25 posted...

I assume cave people had what we have now when it comes to relationships. They just didn't have the name for it we use now.

It's difficult to tell since they didn't really have writing and most of their artifacts have been destroyed by time and are hard to find. At best we can speculate and try to fill in the gaps with what seems reasonable.

Like, first off it was almost certainly heavily regional. A tribe in Africa would function differently than one in France (which makes it hard since most of our artifacts from that time period are European or at least NORTHERN if only because the cold preserves better and meant more cave-dwellers). Regardless tribes are often small, consisting of only a few families, simply because there isn't an ability to support larger numbers. So most likely monogamy was enforced simply because your entire tribe might have, like, five families total in it.

As the tribes got larger and started to settle then you would likely see systems come into play in which non-monogamy would be more viable. Especially since it would be helpful to keep the birth rate higher given the high infant mortality rate; but it almost certainly favored men with harems and multiple wives and such. So for a while I wouldn't be shocked to see monogamy fall out of favor beyond being an ideal until probably close to the middle ages when the serf class emerged. With serfs it's extremely important to keep a small family working a plot of land for years if not generations especially since they are technically free people and ensuring monogamy is a great way to ensure generational labor of the land. It's only recently with the glut of resources the modern person has that the notion of monogamy is being questioned again and now it's more because even a poor woman in the first world can viably support herself and children without a man being present (where-as before a family unit required both parents and their children to be viable if the family was to survive since a lot of labor was needed to till the land).

I think the best way to describe humanity's relationship status is 'flexible'. We're able to go between monogamy, multiple spouses, and a complete lack of spouses with relative ease as the culture shifts.

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Rome becoming Christian was really when monogamy started becoming a stricter policy, iirc.

ClarkDuke posted...

i agree and can confirm this, as im helping support the married woman i got pregnant, since her husband cant, ok?

Geez what a train wreck.

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Jen0125 posted...

Did cave people have monogamous relationships? Or did they indiscriminately fuck?

Did they know who fathered the children in the group?

"Cave people" is kind of a misnomer, because from what we can tell, very few human societies or cultures ever actually lived in caves. The only reason people assumed they did was because we'd find archeological evidence in caves... but that's only because old relics and trash are more likely to be preserved if they're left in caves than if they're just dropped in a field or buried in a hole as you go.

Most humans lived in the woods like other primates do, and developed various means of creating portable shelter (like tents) fairly early on. There was never really a point in our history where "Let's go live in that cave" was a primary survival trait for humans (especially since plenty of dangerous animals WOULD lair in caves, and be a constant potential threat).

But if what you really mean is "pre-agricultural tribes" it's hard to say for sure, because no ancient hunter-gatherer nomad groups left written evidence, and we can't really generalize backwards from modern tribes observed "in the wild", because most modern tribes aren't 100% pure or uninfluenced by agriculture and "civilization". A number of them were actually more "civilized" at one point before reverting back to a more nomadic tribal lifestyle, which means their current practices aren't necessarily what they were doing 10,000 years ago, let alone what everyone was doing 10,000 years ago.

General consensus is that tribal cultures tend to be more indiscriminate about sex, and that most children would never know who their actual biological fathers were (but would instead be raised by the tribe as a whole, with multiple women acting as caretakers and multiple men acting as uncle/father figures), but we could easily be wrong about that.

It's extremely hard to say anything definitive about whether or not early humans would form relatively permanent pair bonds or anything similar, because we have no real means of fact checking it without a time machine. Archeological evidence only takes us so far, and even the few burials we've found that seem to include opposite-sex couples buried together in what is clearly meant to be an affectionate sort of posture don't really tell us how long those two spent together in life (and whether or not they were exclusively paired), only that they probably died together in very close proximity of time.

It's also worth remembering that you sort of have to establish just what you MEAN by "early humans" - once you go back 50,000 years or so you're not just talking about Homo Sapiens, but also other races of humans (pretty much any species that falls under the "homo" genus no jokes is considered human (which includes Neanderthals and Homo Erectus no jokes). It's entirely possible they did things differently than we do. It's also possible they did things the same way we do, but we're the ones who learned it as a cultural behavior from them, not necessarily as something we developed ourselves.

A lot of our assumptions about what is biologically motivated behavior and what is culturally motivated behavior stems from our observations of other animal groups, but even that isn't entirely untainted (lots of animals can become aware they're being observed and it will absolutely alter their behavior), and we can't always generalize with 100% accuracy from other species anyway.



JigsawTDC posted...

Cultures differ across the world. Not every society is monogamous, and even many that are have different practices, norms, and values regarding it. The fact that monogamy isn't the only practice humans gravitate towards regarding sexual and romantic relationships is proof enough that monogamy is not genetically hardwired into our biology.

For a lot of history - especially Western history - the argument has tended towards "A significant majority of the world (or just the parts of it you think matter, based on your own inherent ethnocentrism) tends towards monogamy, therefore, monogamy is the "natural" state of humans and most other alternatives (whether polygamy, polyandry, or something even more complicated) are just people being warped by flawed cultural beliefs or values." In other words, nature makes humans to be monogamous heterosexuals and if you don't meet that expectation you're probably deviant in some way.

The thing most people forget or ignore is that the idea of a monogamous relationship with enforced limitations on sex is dramatically empowered by the need to guarantee patriarchal lineage (ie, dads need to know who their kids are, as opposed to children only knowing who their mothers are, or having no real sense of family identity outside of the tribe as a whole), which in turn is really only important once you have a more male-dominated society where property exists (and thus inheritance is a thing), which wouldn't have mattered to anyone prior to the Agricultural Revolution. But post-agriculture (and thus post-property, post-wealth, post-settlements, post-cities, etc), lineage becomes one of the most important things in the world (because fuck you, I'm not giving all the wealth and power I built up in my lifetime to someone who MIGHT be my kid when I die). So almost every civilization in history was going to gravitate to that sort of model - so we can't say "Monogamy exists in many/most cultures, therefore monogamy is the norm" as much as we have to say "Civilization as a concept inherently selects for cultures that allow men to know who their children are".

It's part of why polygamy has been so much more common than polyandry throughout history, why harems were created, why the concept of "legitimacy" became a thing, and why punishments for adultery have often been excessive.

But humans have always defied this to some degree (there've always been cultures where a powerful/wealthy man adopting a non-blood relative heir essentially made that heir legally and morally the son of the person who adopted them equal to any actual birth child, so proving parentage became less important). Which implies we're not biologically programmed for a specific type of relationship.
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They invited the neighboring tribes to a big party, then kicked all the fathers and sons out and kept the wives and daughters as their own spouses

That's what the Romans did in their early days at least

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Wow some real answers. Thanks po

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Blightzkrieg posted...

Culture is a reflection of how we behave, not the other way around. It's not something that exists until people behave a certain way.

It's both, honestly.

Culture forms out of our inherent behavior and needs, but then culture also goes on to shape the next generation in different ways. Each successful generation and the changing needs of society as a whole alters culture, which in turn then alters future generations, and so on.

It's why so many people today are obsessed with the idea of a "cutural war" (and even countless earlier civilizations and cultures would have understood the concept of propaganda and manipulating perception). If you can control how people think and force patterns of behavior onto them, you can then shape how their children understand the world, and thus how they will perpetuate that understanding.

The problem is, that means modern culture (if you can even agree on what "modern culture" IS) isn't necessarily a pure expression of our innate behavior, or even the best solution to problems that arose and still exist - it's a massive patchwork quilt of influence and counter-influence and deliberate social engineering and obsolete concepts that are no longer strictly necessary (or even useful). Culture is basically a toolkit for dealing with problems that stopped being an issue thousands of years ago and that lacks tools to cope with issues that became problems last week.
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Jen0125 posted...

Wow some real answers. Thanks po

He literally just took what I said and rewrote it.

It's not hard for PO to recount the sex lives of prehistoric humans when he was literally there

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JigsawTDC posted...

He literally just took what I said and rewrote it.

If that's what you got out of that, then your reading comprehension is even shittier than I previously suspected.

And I've previously suspected that your reading comprehension is incredibly shitty.



Blightzkrieg posted...

It's not hard for PO to recount the sex lives of prehistoric humans when he was literally there

Nah, I spent most of the Pleistocene Era in Australia.
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The thing most people forget or ignore is that the idea of a monogamous relationship with enforced limitations on sex is dramatically empowered by the need to guarantee patriarchal lineage (ie, dads need to know who their kids are, as opposed to children only knowing who their mothers are, or having no real sense of family identity outside of the tribe as a whole), which in turn is really only important once you have a more male-dominated society where property exists (and thus inheritance is a thing), which wouldn't have mattered to anyone prior to the Agricultural Revolution. But post-agriculture (and thus post-property, post-wealth, post-settlements, post-cities, etc), lineage becomes one of the most important things in the world (because fuck you, I'm not giving all the wealth and power I built up in my lifetime to someone who MIGHT be my kid when I die). So almost every civilization in history was going to gravitate to that sort of model - so we can't say "Monogamy exists in many/most cultures, therefore monogamy is the norm" as much as we have to say "Civilization as a concept inherently selects for cultures that allow men to know who their children are".

See, I disagree with this statement because we saw a lot of monogamous family units appear in the lower classes while the upper echelons frequently practiced polygamy or at least allowed a male of noble standing to engage in acts with a mistress or a similar arrangement. Emperors would have multiple wives and harems while the working commoners frequently only married one spouse. That's why I see it as being a result of the lower classes and serf system. Because the nobles desired the commoners to work the land generationally and the monogamous family unit is ideal for that arrangement. While I haven't exactly conducted a census it seems to me that the more generational a job is and the more work needs to be conducted by an individual of either sex to support a living the more inclined a society becomes towards monogamy.

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Well, sunny is in a monogamous relationship. He is cave people

Unbridled9 posted...

because we saw a lot of monogamous family units appear in the lower classes.

When you're poor and don't have much, you have even greater motivation to make sure you're passing it on to your own sons and not your neighbor's kids.

But there's also the fact that a lot of cultures absolutely tend to result in behavior patterns where lower-class or poorer individuals tend to adopt the behavior of the ruling classes, in a sort of "If I act like them maybe I can be as successful as them" sort of mindset. So that mindset may have started at the top and then trickled down.



Unbridled9 posted...

while the upper echelons frequently practiced polygamy or at least allowed a male of noble standing to engage in acts with a mistress or a similar arrangement.

Yeah, but that actually supports my point. Polygamy is absolutely a "culture that allows men to know who their children are", because by definition it involves one man having sex with multiple women, while the women aren't allowed to have sex with any other men (and usually get some sort of death penalty or complete disinheritance if they do and get caught).

Locking women away in harems or saying "Any man can have multiple wives or affairs but every woman can only ever have sex with a single man" is a mindset almost directly tied to establishing paternity.


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"Cave" people were banging like bonobos

Sexual acts were a form of currency

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Haha, look at OhJa trying to fit in at the popular table by making fun of Sunny. It's kinda cute.

Mead posted...

Is that something that is known scientifically? If its true then its weird that so many people struggle with issues of jealousy in relationships

Yeah apparently it wasnt my brain getting jealous but society telling me that im only supposed to be with one person.
lmao

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JigsawTDC posted...

Haha, look at OhJa trying to fit in at the popular table by making fun of Sunny. It's kinda cute.

Naw I just don't like sunny. But I also don't like you guys and I've made that clear multiple times lol. There are like 5 people on this board that aren't an embarrassment to humanity much less their fathers

When I was a WoW fatty I was basically a caveman and certainly wasn't polygamous if you know that I'm saying

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OhhhJa posted...

Naw I just don't like sunny. But I also don't like you guys and I've made that clear multiple times lol. There are like 5 people on this board that aren't an embarrassment to humanity much less their fathers

you don't like me?

All this time I thought we were friends, OJ. Now I see how you really feel...

JigsawTDC posted...

you don't like me?

All this time I thought we were friends, OJ. Now I see how you really feel...

Hey shouldn't be a surprise for you I'd imagine lol

Define cave people

many species of humans and our cousins which have died out lived in caves permanently or temporarily.

you are also talking about an era that spans over a million years.

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OhhhJa posted...

Hey shouldn't be a surprise for you I'd imagine lol

When you really think about it, it's strange how you can dislike someone, but still have a casual conversation at times over the internet.

More on topic, I'd guess that maybe some did. Definitely not all. I'd never be able to be in a polygamous relationship. Monogamous relationships are complicated as it is without throwing another ego or two in there.

GunslingerGunsl posted...

When you really think about it, it's strange how you can dislike someone, but still have a casual conversation at times over the internet.

That's like 50% of the conversations here probably. I think I've seen almost everyone here bitch at almost everyone else about something at some point

OhhhJa posted...

That's like 50% of the conversations here probably. I think I've seen almost everyone here bitch at almost everyone else about something at some point

It makes me wonder what it would be like if people who didn't like each other here randomly met in real life without knowing who they were talking to. I'm guessing people would probably get along more than they would guess.

GunslingerGunsl posted...

It makes me wonder what it would be like if people who didn't like each other here randomly met in real life without knowing who they were talking to. I'm guessing people would probably get along more than they would guess.

Oh, for sure. Several times people here people have said they believe I have no friends but I'm actually pretty social. Real life is pretty different from message board environment. On the same token, I've seen people that were previously friendly in real life be total dicks to those same people on Facebook. People like to vent online in ways they wouldn't in face to face encounters

When you're poor and don't have much, you have even greater motivation to make sure you're passing it on to your own sons and not your neighbor's kids.

But there's also the fact that a lot of cultures absolutely tend to result in behavior patterns where lower-class or poorer individuals tend to adopt the behavior of the ruling classes, in a sort of "If I act like them maybe I can be as successful as them" sort of mindset. So that mindset may have started at the top and then trickled down.

While I'm not going to disagree with the trickle-down ideology I don't think it works because we'd be seeing things like the lower classes engaging in frequent arranged marriages, systems in which a man would have a wife and mistress or two, and several other things depending on where and when we looked and we don't really see that. Partially because a man in the lower classes couldn't afford to support a second wife but also because the family unit is very good for the farming lifestyle since it means a potentially large amount of hands willing to help at any point. I'd say it's almost the opposite with the lower classes adopting monogamy and, as the divide between them dissolved and the lower classes gained increased upwards mobility, the monogamous behavior migrated upwards and became far more entrenched.

Yeah, but that actually supports my point. Polygamy is absolutely a "culture that allows men to know who their children are", because by definition it involves one man having sex with multiple women, while the women aren't allowed to have sex with any other men (and usually get some sort of death penalty or complete disinheritance if they do and get caught).

Locking women away in harems or saying "Any man can have multiple wives or affairs but every woman can only ever have sex with a single man" is a mindset almost directly tied to establishing paternity.

I'm not disagreeing with that aspect. I'm disagreeing and saying that the monogamous family unit likely took hold in the serf and lower classes since it was an extremely viable cultural set-up and it worked it's way up and established itself higher up as time passed.

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