I wonder how this microbe influenced human morality. Is the moral idea that promiscuity is bad a vestige of some healthy recommendation to avoid multiple partner to not get or propagate syphilis?
STI's almost certainly played a role in establishing that social strategy, but also I believe that monogamous-ish represents a equilibrium state in terms of social stability.
The reality is that people are biased towards their own biological children (on average), and men would in generally really prefer to raise their own child, rather than someone else's (on average). Raising a child requires an immense amount of resources.
If you presume that men who discover that their partner have slept around, and their child is not theirs, and worse, they've sunk like 3 years of resources in keeping this kid alive, are even just slightly more likely to be liabilities to society, then you could see why such a societal strategy might emerge.
The converse situation (men sleeping around) is somewhat different (though obviously related). The reality is that if you want to retain an approximately balanced gender balance in a population (perhaps because uh... you might need to compete in raiding/warfare), then you -cannot- have even a significant minority of men having exclusive access to more than one female without having significant societal stability issues. Combine this with men like knowing that their child is theirs, quickly settles you into "monogamous-ish".
And it's "ish" because there are always exceptions.
This paternity worry seems to be a leftover of agrarian societies where it is important to ensure inheritance. In tribal societies, as we lived for millenia, it was much less of a worry as raising the kids was a tribal concern.
There is a famous quote from a Montagnais Native American to a Jesuit priest that tries to tell him that he should prevent his wife from having other relationships or he would risk bringing up another mans child: "Thou hast no sense. You french people love only your own children; but we love all the children of our tribe" - https://sexgendersoc.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/4-montagnai...
sure, but the returns quickly diminish with relatedness. A child is worth two nephews/nieces, 8 first cousins once removed, or 32 second cousins once removed.
That's assuming none of your nephews or first cousins never reproduce with each other down the line. Also consider it's not exactly your dna you are trying to pass on but your families. Then you are someone's child and nephew etc and those people want there genes passed on just as much as you do. So by raising others in the local community you help pass on your father's or uncle's DNA.
There is a hum bio lecture on this topic in apes by robert sapolski. Regarding herram vs nonherram ape species and how that has rippled out into many other physical differences between males and females. emergent sexual dimorphism. check it out. its from stanford. on youtube
This all sounds great as a “just so” story but then you have species like Bonobos that are one of humanity’s closest relatives and they are pretty much the opposite of monogamous. So clearly it’s not naturally inevitable that intelligent species with complex social structures end up with monogamy as the norm.
Interestingly, due to the promiscuous mating behavior of female bonobos, a male cannot be sure which offspring are his. As a result, the entirety of parental care in bonobos is assumed by the mothers.
It is also worth noting that while they aren't monogamous, Females are still selective, mating primarily with high status males with more to offer.
IMO it’s a lot more complex than paternity. Concerns about sexual propriety are actually fairly symmetric and not at all one-sided. Men are also penalized by potential mates if they have a reputation for sleeping around. My hunch is that both sexes invest a lot of whatever resources they have (money, time, effort, etc.) into a relationship and they want that relationship to be stable and long lasting. And sexual propriety is a strong indicator of whether someone will be a stable long term mate.
Monogamy is somewhat recent as a norm in human societies. DNA analysis shows that in ancient times, far more women than men had offspring. Many of the men died young and/or were kept as slaves. This type of society can be stable for a long time — until the slaves revolt.
Prior to the germ theory of disease, that connection was somewhat tenuous. Ancient moral strictures around promiscuity were based more on paternity uncertainty.
"The most reliable ways to avoid transmission of STDs are to abstain from sexual activity, or to be in a long-term mutually monogamous relationship with an uninfected partner"
Sounds very much like some Christian agenda bring pushed here.
50% of the population gets herpes and syphilis gets cured with antibiotics. HPV has a vaccine.
The article itself says you won't get anything if you use a condom properly.
But hey -- don't leave the house for fear of a car accident type thing...
"Sounds very much like some Christian agenda bring pushed here."
You must be kidding. You are accusing the CDC of using a scientific fact (that is pretty obvious) of "Pushing a Christian agenda"?
First of all, you are using HSV1 stats, which aren't the ones we are talking about, we are talking about Genital Herpes, which among adults affects only about 13%.
If you have the money for antibiotics, which many don't and you catch it early enough, which some don't, then yes it can be cured. However, as that link shows there are emergent antibiotic resistant strains that can absolutely destroy your life.
As far as HPV goes there are huge sections of the population who don't have the HPV vaccine, some can't afford it even.
People can do what they want, but objectively being promiscuous is dangerous to your health. It's less a question of it, but rather when.
No no, you have it wrong, the person you're replying to is clearly just more comfortable with the topic of sex than you, and therefore we are expected to infer, better at it than you. This is the actual message of their comment, and all that are like it.
The reality is that people are biased towards their own biological children (on average), and men would in generally really prefer to raise their own child, rather than someone else's (on average). Raising a child requires an immense amount of resources.
If you presume that men who discover that their partner have slept around, and their child is not theirs, and worse, they've sunk like 3 years of resources in keeping this kid alive, are even just slightly more likely to be liabilities to society, then you could see why such a societal strategy might emerge.
The converse situation (men sleeping around) is somewhat different (though obviously related). The reality is that if you want to retain an approximately balanced gender balance in a population (perhaps because uh... you might need to compete in raiding/warfare), then you -cannot- have even a significant minority of men having exclusive access to more than one female without having significant societal stability issues. Combine this with men like knowing that their child is theirs, quickly settles you into "monogamous-ish".
And it's "ish" because there are always exceptions.