Marriage, Monogamy and the Nuclear Family Are Not Human Universals
In many cultures, there is no expectation of fidelity or only two parents
In a traditional Canela marriage ceremony, the bride and groom lie down on a mat, arms under each other’s heads, legs entwined. The brother of each partner’s mother then comes forward. He admonishes the bride and her new husband to stay together until the last child is grown, specifically reminding them not to be jealous of each other’s lovers. — Anthropologist, Sarah Blaffer Hrdy (1)
Most people have been taught to believe that monogamous pair-bonding is a relationship style that is valued and practiced world-wide, but that is not remotely so. It is true that marriage of some sort is found in nearly all cultures, but even that is not an absolute. The Na (Mosuo) of China have what are euphemistically called “walking marriages” but that means that the “marriage” lasts for the night or the part of the night that a suitor visits a woman’s room. There is no concept of on-going relationships and each individual’s autonomy is considered to be almost a sacred thing, with jealousy or possessiveness an unacceptable affront to that. If it is displayed, it is met with ridicule and scorn.
All children are raised in the house of their mothers or grandmothers without the biological father’s help (but with the help of uncles, brothers, and maternal grandfathers), and the parents never live together or formalize their relationship in any way. Seeking vows of fidelity is considered inappropriate. This is hardly marriage by Western standards.
Many of the relationships that are characterized as marriage in other cultures look nothing at all like the concept we have of that institution. Words like marriage, mating, and love are socially constructed phenomena that are culture-specific and have little or no transferable meaning outside of that culture. Ritualized group sex, mate-swapping, unrestrained casual affairs, and socially sanctioned sequential sex are all reported in cultures that some anthropologists may characterize as monogamous simply because they’ve determined that something that is referred to as “marriage” takes place there. Even today, there is a lot of investment in relationship styles that make sense to us by Western standards and fit our norms.
Not having a standardized definition of what constitutes a marriage complicates things. For the most part, in the West, marriage indicates cohabitation, sexual exclusivity (at least in theory) and life-long commitment (again, in theory). This is not necessarily the case in many other cultures around the world despite the fact that the Standard Narrative of evolution says that men have a vested genetic interest in not supporting the offspring of other men. And yet, partible paternity, where several men have sex with a woman and are considered the father of her child is a long-standing practice in many parts of the world and a far from rare dynamic.
Polyandry was normal in pre-contact Polynesia, particularly for high caste women and still takes place in the Indian Himalayas and in parts of Tibet. In Lowland South America, and in Africa partible paternity, where two or more men mate with a woman for the purposes of producing a child, is common in many cultures. Spreading fatherly feelings throughout the group helps to maintain solidarity and cohesion as well as promotes the wellbeing of a greater number of children. Reproductive fitness (the chance that offspring will, in turn, produce their own offspring) is enhanced by cooperative alloparenting of this kind where several adults take an active interest in the lives of children.
“Despite the belief that monogamous male-female bonding is how mothers and children were supported and thrived, the anthropologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy and others believe it was actually female cooperative breeding, or alloparenting — ‘sharing and caring derived from the pooled energy’ of a network of ‘grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings, distantly related kin, and non-kin’ — that shaped our evolution.” (2)
In most of rural Africa children wander in and out of the homes of unrelated adults in their villages, where they are treated as family. This stems from a more community-oriented lifestyle in general, but also from a lack of concern for parentage because sexual exclusivity is not prioritized. In fact, in some cultures, it is considered downright stingy.
When seventeenth-century Jesuit missionary Paul Le Jeune lectured a Montagnais Indian man about the dangers of the rampant infidelity he’d witnessed, Le Jeune received a lesson on proper parenthood in response. The missionary recalled, “I told him that it was not honorable for a woman to love any one else except her husband, and that this evil being among them, he himself was not sure that his son, who was there present, was his son. He replied, ‘Thou hast no sense. You French people love only your own children; but we all love all the children of our tribe.’”
Ryan, Christopher. Sex at Dawn (pp. 122–123). Harper Perennial. Kindle Edition.
In some cultures, it is believed that it takes semen from several men to even form a child. “According to anthropologist Robert Edgerton, the Marind-anim people of Melanesia believed: Semen was essential to human growth and development. They also married quite young, and to assure the bride’s fertility, she had to be filled with semen. On her wedding night, therefore, as many as ten members of her husband’s lineage had sexual intercourse with the bride, and if there were more men than this in the lineage, lineage, they had intercourse with her the following night…. A similar ritual was repeated at various intervals throughout a woman’s life.” (3)
The Aché of Paraguay considers a man and a woman sleeping in the same hut to be married. The marriage dissolves if one of them takes his or her hammock to another hut. “Marriages generally did not last long, and were interspersed with short romances in which one spouse might temporarily desert for a few days or weeks. Postreproductive women report a mean of thirteen spouses in a lifetime. However, marriages did tend to become more stable after two or more children were born to the couple.
Between 5 to 10 percent of all marriages were polygynous, but no man ever had more than two wives simultaneously. A very low level of polyandry was also reported (less than 1 percent of marriages). No marriage or divorce ceremonies are performed. Generally, the man simply moves to the woman’s hearth if he is young, or brings her to his if he is older and powerful. Postmarital residence is strongly matrilocal for young couples but bilocal for older couples.” (4)
In contemporary Saudi Arabia and Egypt, there is a form of marriage known as Nikah Misyar (normally translated as “traveler’s marriage”). It is essentially a loophole for what would otherwise be considered illicit sexual behavior and has none of the expectations of cohabitation or long-term connection that the term marriage typically conveys. A man can have several “temporary wives” at the same time that he also has a “permanent wife.”
The Inuit have traditionally had a system of spousal exchange that helped to cement bonds of affiliation and assistance that might be called upon to help get through life in such an unforgiving climate. Some were a part of a religious ceremony and others were part of a larger communal context. “This was reciprocal spouse exchange, sometimes described as co-marriage. It was found in all or almost all areas inhabited by the Eskimos, although it was rare in some regions. Even in areas where it was common, many couples did not participate. Co-marriage was not entered into lightly since it usually resulted in lifelong bonds amongst all members of both families. Besides the obvious motive of sex with a new partner, the purpose was to strengthen economic and friendship bonds between the two families, who could depend on each other in times of need.”
The Warao of Brazil periodically suspend marriages and have ritual relations called mamuse. During this time, adults are free to have sex with whom they please. These relationships are considered to be honorable and thought to have a positive effect upon any children that might result.
In other words, traditional marriage depends a lot on whose tradition you are speaking about. Monogamous, long-term relationships are not necessarily a given, and in smaller communities, cooperative child-rearing is often the norm. Contrary to the Standard Narrative, in many cultures, it is considered not only desirable but necessary for a child to have several fathers, all of whom have contributed genetic material to them (at least in their belief system).
Communities that are more cooperative and interdependent in other ways are more likely to enhance group bonding through shared sex, co-marriage, and alloparenting than cultures that are more individualistic. Modern Westerners are free to choose the kinds of relationship styles that work for them, but it is left-over Victorian prudery that has us still believing that most of the rest of the world thinks about monogamy, marriage, and the nuclear family in the same ways that we do.
© Copyright Elle Beau 2020 Elle Beau writes on Medium about sex, life, relationships, society, anthropology, spirituality, and love. If this story is appearing anywhere other than Medium.com, it appears without my consent and has been stolen.
(1) Ryan, Christopher. Sex at Dawn (p. 140). Harper Perennial. Kindle Edition.
(2) There Is A Better Way To Parent Than The Nuclear Family
(3) Ryan, Christopher. Sex at Dawn (p. 140). Harper Perennial. Kindle Edition.
