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Monogamy May Have Evolved To Prevent Infanticide

Posted by samzenpus on from the a-modest-proposal dept.

sciencehabit writes "Human males and females have a strong tendency to live together in monogamous pairs, albeit for highly varied periods of time and degrees of fidelity. Just how such behavior arose has been the topic of much debate among researchers. A new study comes to a startling conclusion: Among primates, including perhaps humans, monogamy evolved because it protected infants from being killed by rival males."

1 of 256 comments (clear)

  1. Re:But that doesn't explain by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Clearly you didn't read the article. The very study linked in the summary specifically compared 230 primate species, some of which are socially monogamous and some of which are not. And it explains why it *hasn't* evolved among all of the fairly similar species in the study using a model based on the infanticide rate.

    There are almost certainly things to be picked apart in the study, but you need to understand the basic premise before you can start on that track.