Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[Excalibur]

Hiiiii
Last days this idea has come to my mind. I wonder it is the reason of many marriages, couples, realitionships of the human beings were broken off. You only has to pay attention to the behaviors of animals you will realize that, excepts any minimun part of them which are monogamy all their life, the other 95 % only looks for a couple to preserve the species.
I already know the human beings are characterized by their feelings, rational, etc. Nevertheless, if Darwin Theories are trusths We will get in our deeply mind anykind of animal instinct.
Anyway, I would like to know your opinions.
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I could dance with you till the cows come home...On second thought, I'd rather dance with the cows when you came home

[Anxious Heart]

Marriage is a Christian virtue (of course there are similar virtues in other religions). There are also religions, that allows men to have two or more women. So the question, whether it's in the nature of the human being to be monogamous is speculative and not really important, 'cause that depends on country, century, religion etc..
I think it's more interesting, why there are such great differences between cultures, countries, centuries etc. in that question. The human being strives for happiness. It seems, as if you can find it in marriage as well as in brief-relationship-life.
The great difference in contrast to animals is, that the human being is able to decide (...if there were no religious limits...).
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"An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind." Mahatma Gandhi

[missmacphisto]

Well... no matter if you guys don't agree with me but i do think the human being is naturally monogamous.
The whole problem is that someone million years back decided to call it a rule... and as we all know... human beings love to break rules !

[liebe]

I don't think you could make a generalization about humans as you can for animals. There are certain cultures, in which humans were polygamous for centuries--they are so used to that, that they can't even imagine being monogamous. If you want to make a generalization about humans, you'd have to put them in natural conditions, where they would have no cultural or religious restrictions. Unfortunately, I don't think that's possible nowadays. I personally can't imagine myself living with 3 or 5 different husbands... People don't get divorced because they are naturally polygamous, they do so because they don't put enough efforts into their marriages and working them out. They choose the easy way--to get divorces, instead of solving their problems.

[Zanthrick]

I don't think humans are naturally monogamous. Although I believe monogamous relationships are more likely to succeed. As it's hard enough to find one person you can get along with most of the time to live with, let alone many.

I don't however feel monogamous for life, or relationships should be the only one allowed. Especially here I feel most people are pressured into marriage and the "ideal life" and later regret it when they realize it's not what they thought, or the person they married wasn't being realistic either at the time.

Humans may just be monogamous because we take so long to grow into adults. Now that in some areas kids spend most of their time in school or with other kids and not with their parents I don't believe monogamous relationships are still required.

I don't see any difference between us and animals. We are just smarter.. somtimes anyways.. well, we get to define smart.. so perhaps most of the time.

Zanthrick

[Anxious Heart]

[Passerby]

In my opinions, I suppose that human beings are polygamous. And, the fact is the opposite is because of these social and traditional and moral and virtual and historic and some other restrictions that you can't even name it. Seriously, let's take a deep dive into the wildlife, no sooner you will understand that all of this poly or mono production is only restricted by the natural organisms.
How sad to say, if excluded all these limits and restrictions and rules, and this accumulative knowledge, human being is nothing but another animal.

Why you have more than one friends? But why only one out of them could be your partner? All this rules~~~

[Anxious Heart]

[liebe]

Yes, we (most of us?) have many friends and we're supposed to marry only once. But you're forgetting, that you don't live with your friends. Being married to someone means you have to live with him, everyday, you need to get along with him, raise your children together, etc. It's almost impossible to find one person like that, I'm not even talking about many... Being married doesn't only mean having sex together and sleeping in the same bed, it's a lot more than that. It's creating a life together, creating your own little world.

[coffeedecafe]