We can learn a lot about ourselves from the behavior of animals. In looking at animal behavior it is much easier to be object and not cloud our impressions with all our human baggage.
Recent research on animal behavior has shattered the myth that animals are monogamous. For the longest time there was this romantic belief that once animals mate, it’s for life. Our only means of research has been to observe behavior. The new research is based on DNA and is much more scientific.
Of the 4000 or so mammals alive today only about a dozen are monogamous. We have always assumed that monkeys and Chimpanzees fool around, but this research has proven that Chimps copulate between 500 and 1000 times for each live birth, with every male in their group. The reasons are most interesting, food, power, protection and comfort, sound familiar?
Yes, we are not primates but sometimes our behavior is closer to that of the primates than we would like to believe. It is common theory that early man behaved like animals in many ways. It is only since becoming “modern man” that we have taken to marriage and monogamous relationships. And not all marriages are monogamous, the divorce rate and extra martial affairs are quite common. My monogamous marriage of more than 40 years is unfortunately an exception and not the rule.
It is possible to have a relationship like mine but with early man living with the animals and probably learning some activities from them; it goes against thousands of years of our primitive behavior.
The Kitchen Table Anthropologist
No comments:
Post a Comment