(July 14, 2017 at 8:00 am)*Deidre* Wrote: I wonder if that really happened...if our cavemen ancestors really ''bonked'' women over the head, dragged them back to their caves, and had their way with them. Hmmm.It would be interesting to trace that meme back to its origin. I'd be unsurprised if it just started with an early TV cartoon depiction like Fractured Fairy Tales or something. It's lodged in our minds as a canonical depiction of Cave Man life, but of course it has no historical basis given that it's speculation about prehistory.
A more likely scenario can be obtained by looking at how animals mate. In some species the dominant male literally does do something metaphorically equivalent to bonking a female over the head and taking her to his lair, but in others, mating is literally "til death do us part". How do primates obtain and retain mates? That is more likely what happened until more complex societies were formed that made modifications advisable. Gorillas for example are polygamous. More often females approach males, sometimes the inverse. The dominant male has first choice. In other words in the main some form of consent is involved, at least openness to mating. Sometimes a female approaches a group of males and may be obliged to mate with all of them, but usually it's more one on one.
I am of the opinion that we are polygamous by nature to this day, but because of the need to form cohesive stable family units and the incitement to aggression that jealousy provides, we have mostly modified our expectations and sensibilities to be at least serially monogamous. This is better adapted to civil urban societies like ours.
