On this Hallmark Holiday of romantic love, it is a good time to ponder the nature of monogamy. Anyone old enough to have experienced the phases of human life knows that sexual attraction, romantic love and commited relationships are distinct entities which do not always develop in the idealized sequence.
If one is able to strip away the psychological, societal and religious constraints from human biology, it is clear that males are designed to be seed dispersal machines, capable of fathering thousands of children; were it not for the above contraints, most would likely do so. Females, on the other hand, have a limited number of eggs and, due to the physiologic demands of pregnancy, are realistically limited to twenty offspring or so; "knowing" this and wanting to ensure the continued welfare of their genes, they are much more descriminating when choosing a mate and thus control the evolutionary direction of our species.
Man's immediate primate ancestors are not monogamous and it is reasonable to believe that early hominids were also polygamous. Monogamy, as important as it may be to the stability of the modern family, is not a natural human condition. Rather, it has been imposed by the development of human culture and, as we know, the legal and religious efforts to enforce it are not always successful.
