I've always wondered if humans were meant to be monogamous. From what I can tell, it doesn't seem to be the case. From personal experience I can see that it seems apparently unnatural for humans to stay together their entire lives. Let alone the 18 or so years it takes to get a kid or two out of the house.
My parents divorced after 22 years of marriage. 90% of my friends parents were divorced before the age of 10 it seemed. I could see if humans were wired up to stick it out for the raising of children, but for life? That's rare, especially when you consider the artificiality of marriage and the bullshit of "holy" matrimony.
It does take our offspring a long time to function independently of its parents. It seems most marriages don't last much longer than it takes to get the kids out. Makes sense in light of evolution. It doesn't make sense in the darkness of religion.
There are a few species out there that mate for life, a certain species of African antelope. The convict cichlid, a type of fish. The prairie vole, a mammal. The sandhill crane, a bird. The shingleback skink, a lizard. Black vultures and a few other species. Some of them are more monogamous and faithful than humans. The vast majority of life on this planet is far from monogamous and does it's best to have as many mates as possible and spread its genes and create as many genetic combinations and variations as possible.
As a naturalist I do not consider love to be something supernatural or metaphysical. Love is merely the product of neurological activity, of complex electrical and chemical interactions. There is no destiny, fate or soul-mate. Love is purely psychological and even the emotion of jealousy probably simply stems from a mate wanting to protect his or her mate from other potential mates simply out of survival of the fittest, or in this case survival of the sexiest. It hurts only because we let our egos get all wrapped up in the idea of monogamy with the other person.
I'm not saying that you should go out and cheat, that could cause problems. Consider a father or mother with two growing offspring in a family unit. Then say that one of them cheat and create another offspring outside of the family unit. This would suck resources away from the other offspring in the family unit. Alternately, it does spread the cheaters genes around increasing the likelihood of them being carried on to further generations. The initial cheating can explained by this fact.
I still err on the side of relational monogamy simply because I like the idea of it. I've been cheated on and it hurt. I also don't like making my position on the nature of love and destiny known outright, unless asked. It seems people like to think that there's some kind of magic involved and they're destined to be together. This is romantic and gives me an edge to play on during courtship. But it's still an irrational notion. I've been in love twice, both girls were petite blondes named Sarah. I never got anywhere beyond the friend zone with either of them for whatever reason. Regardless I know that the love I felt was merely psychological and in acknowledging this I can step outside of the emotional blindness and move on relatively apathetic to the fact that I love them.
There's that infamous quote that goes something along the lines of "It's better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all." I think this is complete bullshit. There is so much pain involved with loving someone. I think the opposite is true. It is better to have never loved than to have loved and feel the pain of losing said loved person. Ignorance is bliss, and that's a quote you can take to the bank.
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