To understand the never-ending debate of Monogamy Vs Polygamy, let’s take a look at the essence of relationships that prevailed between men and women in ancient times.

Mahabharata: The Great Indian War

Long ago, there lived Pandavas and Kauravas in Hastinapura, the capital city of the Kuru Kingdom in India. Pandavas and Kauravas were the two rival Kuru clans who fought the “Kurukshetra War”, famously described as the “Mahabharata War” in the Indian epic poem ”Mahabharata”. The two families fought the Kurukshetra War for the throne of Hastinapur. Now, the Kuru clan of “Pandavas” involved the five Kuru Princes namely Yudhishthira, Bhima, Arjuna, Nakula, and Sahadeva. Whereas, the rival Kura clan “Kauravas” involved cousin Kuru Princes of Pandavas, namely, Dhuryodhana, Dushasana, and 98 other sons.

Also read: 35 Mahabharata Quotes to Live a Wholesome Life

Showcase of Polygamy In Mahabharata

As the story goes, the bond of marriage was either a way to keep a woman’s heart or was a strategic means to develop friendly alliances with the neighboring Kingdoms or States.

To name a few, Pandavas’ ancestor King Shantanu had two wives – Ganga and Satyavati. Further, Pnadavas’ father King Pandu had two wives – Kunti and Madri. Also, Arjuna, the third Pandava brother had four wives namely, Draupadi, Subhadra, Ulupi, and Chitrangada.

Similar events happened with Lord Krishna, the King of Dwarka and the maternal cousin of Arjuna. According to sources, Lord Krishna had 8 primary wives and 16,100 secondary wives.

All these epic marriages have one thing in common. The royal kings had varied wives. These Princes married different women at different junctures of their life and under different circumstances. The marriages of Arjuna and Lord Krishna were in reverence to a woman’s respect and desires. Or they were a means to maintain friendly relations with the neighboring kingdoms thereby serving the interests of civilization as a whole.

Now, let’s dig into Rome’s history and find out what sexual union meant for the great emperors of Rome.

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Julius Caesar and his Unusual Sexual Inclinations

Julius Caesar was a great military and political leader of ancient Rome. But, he was also rumored to be driven by lust and have unusual sexual preferences. He had three wives and was alleged to have casual romantic relationships with unmarried women, sex workers and even men of a certain age.

Julius Caesar’s Polygynous Behavior

His affair with Cleopatra, the ruler of ancient Egypt, is in fact legendary. Cleopatra was a mistress to Julius Caesar and during their relationship even got pregnant with Caesar’s child. Caesar was married to his third wife when he had a child with Cleopatra.

As said, his casual sexual liaisons were just not limited to women. He was even rumored to have a sexual relationship with Nicomedes, the king of Bithynia. Although many biographers make a mention of this relationship in their work, it still remains a subject that needs verification.

Caesar is not the only Roman emperor alleged to have slept with multiple women or indulged in extramarital lovemaking. Other legendary Roman emperors like Augustus, Claudius, etc. are also said to have sexual relations with multiple women.

The idea is to point towards the fact that marriage in ancient Rome was not at all a romantic affair. It was an arrangement between two families that improved either parties’ wealth and class.

Not only that, concubinage too was legal. This was a practice that permitted a man and slave woman to live together outside of their existing formal marriages. However, these women (known as concubines) did not have the legal status enjoyed by the wives of these men.

What Do The Holy Scriptures Say?

Sacred scriptures of many religions allow men to take concubines. Here’s a verse from Quran:

“And if you fear that you will not deal justly with the orphan girls, then marry those that please you of (other) women, two or three or four. But if you fear that you will not be just, then (marry only) one or those your right hand possesses. That is more suitable that you may not incline (to injustice)”.
Similarly, Bible has instances of kings having concubines. In one of the verses, it makes a mention of King Solomon having 300 concubines along with 700 wives.

Inference

So, what inference can we draw from all these religious as well as historical references? Is monogamy natural to us humans? Like it or not, the answer is no! Our evolutionary biology says that “sexual monogamy” over “social monogamy” is quite rare in humans as well as animals. In other words, mating with multiple partners comes naturally to us humans over sexual union with a single partner.

Now, the question arises that in monogamy vs polygamy, why monogamy is the order of the modern-day given that humans are naturally inclined to have multiple sexual partners? Why our culture and society is going against nature and imposing monogamy on humans?

Well, David P Barash, a renowned biologist, and professor of psychology reveal certain possible arguments as to why monogamy exists in his book Out of Eden.

1. The Helplessness of Infants Keeps Mother and Father Together

a. Infant Vulnerability

One of the possible reasons for human beings to accept monogamy is because human infants are born quite immature. They are born in a needy state and require the care and nourishment of their parents for a good number of years. This means that both the parents need to invest a considerable amount of time and effort in the upbringing of their offspring. This gives reproductive success to both parents.

However, in the case of polygynous species, there is little involvement of males in the upbringing of the offspring. This is because the polygynous male has to divide his efforts between multiple female partners and their offspring. Further, he also needs to be cautious of other males attempting to snatch his own chance of mating with other females.

b. Higher Dependability of Both Male and Female Partners On Each Other

The certainty of mutual benefit could possibly be another reason for monogamy to come into existence. This mutual benefit exists where both male and female partners play their part. Males help females in rearing the offspring in terms of fulfilling needs such as arranging food etc. Whereas females satisfy their male partners sexually. That is the female actively participates in welcoming male partners frequently to engage sexually with her.

This reduces the chance of male partners leaving their female counterparts. The higher the commitment of each of the partners to play their part, the higher would be the interest of both the partners to stay together.

2. Men Are The Biggest Losers Under Polygyny

Polygyny does more good to women than to men. You might be wondering how is this a possibility? How can a man having access to multiple female partners be at the losing end? This seems quite opposite to the typical inclination of a human male who gets delighted with the very thought of engaging with multiple partners.

Well, if we see it from the perspective of our evolutionary biology, this inclination comes naturally to both males and females. Polygyny no doubt is unfavorable for females in terms of acting as co-wives to a particular male. But in such a setup they at least get the opportunity to mate with men.

This is not the case when it comes to men under polygyny as only powerful and wealthier men get most of the women. Since such first-rate men are few in number, there is a huge lot of men who are left at the bottom of the pyramid. Now, these third-rate men are forced to stay unmated which creates frustration among them.

This frustration would invite social evils like violence. Such inferior men would go to the extent of killing men or harassing women in order to get reproductive success. Therefore, to bring quality to society and reduce the number of such frustrated bachelors, monogamy is the order of the day. This is to increase the odds of all the men at least getting to mate with a partner in a lifetime.

3. Monogamy Assures That Men Are The Real Daddys

In the case of a polygynous setup, males do not have the genetic certainty of their offspring from a specific female partner. Due to internal fertilization within women, men in a polygynous setup become all the more insecure about the genetic certainty of their offspring. This genetic uncertainty restricts males from investing too much time and commitment in the nourishment of their offspring under a polygynous setup. Furthermore, in such a setup, instead of nourishing their offspring, males invest more time in mating with other women. Also, they spend much time driving back males who act as a threat in their way of maintaining a sexual relationship with other females. So what could have been done to increase the commitment of such males towards their offspring?

Well, possibly, monogamy is the answer. Monogamy brings confidence in fathers that the offsprings they are nourishing genetically belong to them. This in turn increases the commitment of males in terms of paternal investment towards their offspring.

Furthermore, it may be a possibility that women were compelled to remain in a monogamous setup by men due to the challenge involved in granting heritage. Polygamy brings along the disadvantage of dividing males’ riches between numerous offspring from multiple female partners. Thus, a pool of wealth gets split into smaller fractions which may be a disadvantage to the offspring receiving such wealth.

Hence, it could be a possibility that in order to avoid such a situation, monogamy was encouraged as a mating system among humans.

To answer the question “Is Monogamy Natural?”, anthropologists and biologists have been observing the sexual lives of non-human primates for ages. Why non-human primates? Because observing the sexual lives of humans would mean violating their privacy. Hence, to know more about human sexual inclinations, these biologists or anthropologists have been dependent on either studying non-human primates or conducting human surveys.

When it comes to human surveys, these biologists get hardly any information to know about the sexual lives of human beings. This is because when it comes to humans they are barely honest about their sexual relationships. So, after an immense study and observation, evolutionary biologists have revealed that “Humans are Polygynous Creatures.”

Yes! As per evolutionary biology, humans cannot stay with a single partner throughout life. This means monogamy is biologically unnatural for people. Whereas, having multiple partners (polygamy) is something that comes naturally to us.

On the other hand, our culture supports monogamy as such a lifestyle is just and meets the demands of society quite well.

So does it mean that we should respect our biology and become polygamous just like our peers?

Well, as they say, everything that nature bestows is not necessarily good. This means that no doubt our evolutionary biology favors polygamy, it does not necessarily mean that it is good. Falling prey to these inclinations and getting intimate with multiple partners only satisfy an individual’s personal desire. But when it comes to society as a whole, such behavior is much more unjust and devastating.

To understand why we first need to know the biological underpinnings of such an inclination. So, before we touch upon those biological underpinnings and the query “Is Monogamy Natural to us, Humans?” Let’s see the way a few of the epic tales portray this.

Polygamy Vs Monogamy: A Never Ending War

The Famous “Cow Herder”

Centuries ago, there lived a cow herder in a small village called Nandgaon, in India. He was originally born to Queen Devki and King Vasudev of Mathura. But, soon after he was born, the young lad’s father Vasudev brought him to Nandgaon. The cow herder was a handsome young boy with a charming smile and an attractive appearance. He used to enchant the milk maidens living nearby with the melodious rhythm of his whistle flute. Yes! You got that right. The young man was none other than “Lord Krishna”!

As the story goes, Lord Krishna was the eighth avatar of Lord Vishnu and was a god of compassion, love, and tenderness in the Hindu religion. He had eight principal queens and 16,000 junior wives. Now, a demon named “Narakasura” kidnapped these 16,000 women. Now, these women did not want to act as slaves for the demon king. So the women insisted Lord Krishna marry each one of them in order to save themselves. Hence, Lord Krishna accepted all these 16,000 women as their wives.

This is one instance from ‘Mahabharata’, one of the epics of ancient India. There are many other instances in the epic tale that conform to various forms of mating systems – monogamy, polygyny, polygamy, and polyandry.

Now, the question is why our society forbids the concept of multiple partners when our epic tales advocate it?

Why does our society consider polygyny taboo?

Well, both monogamy and polygamy have their own share of payoffs and costs. But, polygamy can have some devastating consequences both for individuals and society at large.

Now, let’s have a look at one out of those many romantic tales that we idealize. These are the pieces of fiction we love to hear and see as downright perfect.

Also read: 35 Mahabharata Quotes to Live a Wholesome Life

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A Story That’s the Epitome of Love

A man sees a beautiful girl at the feast hosted by the enemy household. Both fall for each other instantly. But sadness takes over as they come to know that they belong to enemy families who can never meet.

Nevertheless, the two get married secretly the next day. Soon, the man is exiled for killing his wife’s cousin who killed the man’s best friend. At the same time, the girl’s father wishes to get her married to a man of his choice, not knowing that she’s already married. On this, the girl hurries to her exiled husband’s friend and confessor who got them married. He makes a plan to get both of them together. The confessor asks her to drink a potion a night before her marriage to the man of her father’s choice. This potion will make her go into a deep sleep, making her appear dead. And while she is laid in her tomb, both her husband and confessor friend will take her.

As planned, she drinks the potion and goes into a deep sleep.

This plan, however, never reaches the exiled husband. The only thing that reaches him is that his wife is dead. He runs to his wife’s tomb, drinks poison, and dies next to her. A day later, his wife wakes up and finds her husband dead. She kisses his poisoned lips and then kills herself with his dagger. The end!

The man in the story above is the famous Romeo and the wife is of course, Juliet. A tale like many others that tells that people in love live together with die together.

So, What Do We Conclude From these Epic Tales?

We all seek a relationship like Romeo and Juliet. We all aspire to be on the seventh heaven in a monogamous setup.

In fact, the one man, one wife idea is frequently told to us via various fairy tales, romantic narratives, fables, etc – a prince, his princess, and they are happily, blissful ever after.

But all this is fictional.

The reality is that both men and women are carved out for having multiple mates. Yes! Our evolutionary biology says that “sexual monogamy” over “social monogamy” is quite rare in humans as well as animals. In other words, polygamy comes quite naturally to us over monogamy.

It might seem shocking to accept the truth as it defies the social order of “having a single partner for life” being imposed on to us. It is monogamy and not polygamy which is a recent concept as it is less than 20,000 years old.

Therefore, we need to understand that people who seek multiple partners are being loyal to their evolutionary biology. However, they are certainly being unfaithful to their monogamous setup.

That being said, it does not mean that respecting one’s biology is necessarily good. This is because polygamy has its own share of serious implications both for individuals as well as society at large. It might pacify one’s natural inclination of making love to multiple partners. However, it may bring vices like inequality, violence, and sexual jealousy within the human species.

So, now that we know that humans are naturally inclined towards polygamy, let’s understand what makes them polygynous in nature.

Why Are Humans Polygamous?

David P Barash, an evolutionary biologist, and professor of psychology at the University of Washington wrote a book in 2016 titled Out of Eden. In this book, David cites evidence indicating that humans are polygynous beings. Taking cues from his research, let’s understand the reasons underlying our polygynous inclinations.

1. Our Anatomy Shouts Out Loud That We Are Polygynous and Not Monogamous

Have you ever wondered why males are physically larger and stronger than their female counterparts? Well, research says that the difference in body size points towards the fact that humans are polygynous. A study of non-human primates suggests that males had to compete with each other physically in order to have access to females. Thus, the larger and stronger males were able to win multiple sexual partners as compared to the ones who were weak. This is to say that nature favored the males who were physically fit to maintain as well sustain multiple sexual relationships. Technically, such males were called the harem holders.

Similarly, humans have evolved from polygynous non-human primates. Thus, human males and females differ in their body size. Typically, human males are 20% heavier than females – a fact hinting towards our polygynous inclinations. The only thing that separates humans from their non-human counterparts in the form of competition that took place to have access to women. Thus, non-human primate males competed on physical grounds. Whereas, human males compete on the grounds of wealth, sexy genes, and intensity of aggression to defend the offspring.

What Can We Conclude From This?

In other words, human females prefer men who possess resources (wealth, ambition, intelligence), sexy physical attributes, and the capacity to take care of their offerings. Needless to say, men at the top of the pyramid have multiple sexual relationships. This is because they are modern-day harem holders. They are powerful due to their immense wealth as well as capacity to take care of their offspring. Whereas, at the bottom of the pyramid males suffer for they are less preferred by females.

So, this is to say, any species where males are stronger than females hints towards their polygynous inclination. The difference in body size, however, is not an all and all proof of polygyny. But, it certainly points towards that direction. And in that, it is the fittest who gets the highest payoff. Thus, human anatomy shouts out loud that we are polygynous by nature.

2. The Very Violent Behavior of Men Proves Polygyny Over Monogamy

There is a strong link between polygamy and violence. Let’s see why is it so. Polygamy creates a situation where at the top of the pyramid males get access to more females. This is because they are powerful as they own larger resources in terms of money, skills, and education. These powerful men are usually the harem holders who enjoy a good amount of payoffs as a result of being polygynous. Such payoffs include (1) having access to multiple women, (2) staying dominant and authoritative, (3) avoiding the risk of being left unmated, and (4) increasing ability to defend their mates and offspring.

Having said this, polygamy certainly proves beneficial to the rich and powerful men. However, such a polygamous lifestyle proves fatal for the men who are left unmated. These reproductively unsuccessful males are the “bottom of the pyramid men” who are not as privileged as their rich counterparts. M Hudson and Andrea M. den Boer refer to these unmated men as ‘Bare Branches’ in their book titled ‘Bare Branches: Security Implications of Asia’s Surplus Male Population. These so-called bare branches are left unmated because they are poor, uneducated, unskilled, and hence are not preferred by women.

This leaves bare branches frustrated which breeds violence.

What Can We Conclude From This?

In other words, these reproductively unsuccessful males resort to violent tactics to have access to larger resources. Even if it means taking hold of resources that do not belong to them.

This is one of the reasons why violent acts like terrorist attacks, school shootings, homicides, etc involve men over women. Thus, the degree of polygyny makes men violent. The more polygynous society, the greater the frequency of violence.

3. Early Maturity in Females

As per scientific facts, girls enter adolescence a bit earlier than boys. This is evident from the difference between the male and female puberty period. Girls enter puberty at least one to two years earlier than boys. Generally, a girl’s puberty spans between 9 to 14 years. However, in the case of boys, it spans between 10 to 17 years. This may lead us to the question, ‘Why does such a difference exist?’. Well, as per David P Barash, the answer lies in polygyny. Accordingly, species in which females mature early both sexually and socially are polygynous in nature.

This is because males do not have any incentive of growing faster. As we already know, in a polygynous setup males have to compete with each other in order to acquire a mate. Such male vs male competition makes it unfavorable for younger men to be a part of the competition.

What Can We Conclude From This?

In other words, it would be difficult for younger men to compete with older men who are stronger, powerful, and experienced. For if they do so, they are bound to lose. Therefore, the greater the degree of male competition, the greater the incentive of waiting. These younger males would want to wait to be a part of the competition until they become larger, aggressive, and violent to be reproductively successful.