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Author Topic:   Polyandry, polyamory or polygyny?
caffeine
Member (Idle past 1050 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 12 of 20 (519488)
08-14-2009 6:07 AM
Reply to: Message 11 by AnswersInGenitals
08-13-2009 6:45 PM


Re: Anthopology?
I'm not sure I follow the logic here. Is a man's best strategy to pass one of his sperm cells to each of 100 million women (every day)? And is a woman's best strategy therefore to have a different mate every month, at least until she gets pregnant?
It's all a matter of ecology. It might be best for a woman to stick with one male with decent-looking genes if the success of her offspring will be more likely with his protection and support. If she's working her way through several different males, they're less likely to spend time and resources caring for children that might not be their own. Of course, it could still be to the woman's advantage to mate with a particularly genetically fit male on the side, provided she can keep this secret from her mate.
For men, generally speaking, there's less cost in sleeping around. Sperm are replaced quickly, and it doesn't take a great deal of investment to spread them around. If they mate with somebody paricularly unfit and put no effort into caring for the offspring, nothing is lost, while you could always be lucky and the child is very reproductively successful. A woman has nine months of pregnancy for each child, though, and will have to care for it long after that if it's going to survive and be successful. As a result, she needs to be more discriminating about mates.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 11 by AnswersInGenitals, posted 08-13-2009 6:45 PM AnswersInGenitals has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 13 by AustinG, posted 08-14-2009 1:41 PM caffeine has not replied
 Message 14 by AnswersInGenitals, posted 08-14-2009 7:38 PM caffeine has not replied

  
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