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Biologists, biological anthropologists, and behavioral ecologists often use the term monogamy in the sense of sexual, if not genetic, monogamy. Modern biological researchers using the theory of evolution approach human monogamy as the same in human and non-human animal species. They postulate the following four aspects of monogamy:
Social monogamy refers to a male and female's social living arrangement (e.g., shared use of a territory, behaviour indicative of a social pair, and/or proximity between a male and female) without inferring any sexual interactions or reproductive patterns. In humans, social monogamy equals monogamous marriage. Sexual monogamy is defined as an ...
Regarding sexual dimorphism (see the section about animals above), humans are in the intermediate group with moderate sex differences in body size but with relatively small testes, [10] indicating relatively low sperm competition in socially monogamous and polygynous human societies. One estimate is that 83% of human societies are polygynous, 0 ...
Sexual selection is a biological way one sex chooses a mate for the best reproductive success. Most compete with others of the same sex for the best mate to contribute their genome for future generations. This has shaped human evolution for many years, but reasons why humans choose their mates are not fully understood.
According to Daly and Wilson, "The sexes differ more in human beings than in monogamous mammals, but much less than in extremely polygamous mammals." [ 99 ] The average basal metabolic rate is about 6 percent higher in adolescent males than females and increases to about 10 percent higher after puberty.
Close to ninety percent [3] of known avian species are monogamous, compared to five percent of known mammalian species.The majority of monogamous avians form long-term pair bonds which typically result in seasonal mating: these species breed with a single partner, raise their young, and then pair up with a new mate to repeat the cycle during the next season.
Polygynous males are often 1.5 to 2.0 times larger in size than females. In monogamous species, on the other hand, females and males have more equal access to mates, so there is little or no sexual dimorphism in body size. From a new biological point of view, monogamy could result from mate guarding and is engaged as a result of sexual conflict ...
Not all socially monogamous species exhibit pair bonding, but all pair bonding animals practice social monogamy. These characteristics aid in identifying a species as being socially monogamous. At the biological level, social monogamy affects the neurobiology of the organism through hormone pathways such as vasopressin and oxytocin. [13]