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Comment by __turbobrew__ | Hacker News Reader

Well said, monogamy is a structure for producing a stable child rearing environment — and by relation a stable society. It is entirely consensual where arranged marriages no longer take place.

I have no issues how people screw each other but monogamy has a purpose, and if your purpose is to raise a stable family your odds are best if you pursue monogamy.

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Monogamy is one such structure. It seems very tied to the modern idea of the "nuclear family." There are others. Having an extended family all living together is another. Tribes where children are raised communally is another.

Communal living is highly overrated. If you're a young and capable person you'll be shouldered with responsibility and live under the thumb of your elders. Not a dignified existence. I barely tolerate my own parents, I will not tolerate my extended family demanding things from me.

It's highly underrated by young people who don't like the idea of living with their parents. Ultimately, the cost of this is shouldered by day care fees, parental leave, social security checks we cut to old people, and less efficient living spaces; problems which were ok in an era of gdp and population growth, but in the era of stagnation? We'll see.

Those are all true and fair points, but they illustrate that most people value freedom and autonomy at a very high dollar amount.

> Having an extended family all living together is another.

Collectivism has clear benefits but comes at a steep price: the need to establish and enforce group norms. The nuclear family seems like a compromise in this space, a revealed preference.

I mean, I would probably be happy living like an Orca in a matrilineal family group but, then again, I've always gotten along with my Mom. What about the people who haven't? Or who only started to once they moved out? Those people would be faced with living in a disharmonious environment or leaving to a world hostile to individuals.

You are taking effective birth control completely for granted.

It wasn't that long ago that monogamy was the default because no one wants to have a baby from a night of netflix and chill.

IMO you have the direction of causation backwards. Monogamy is not some child rearing optimization strategy. It was a social construct that evolved because causual sex at one point was incredibly expensive and now it is not because of birth control.

I can't imagine going to my theorerical wife-in-open-monogamy-relationship and tell her that the girl I had sex with at work's Christmas party gave me std because, despite she had her pills, but the rubber fell. It's just not mixing up in my head.

Also, if I give myself to my wife as a whole (i.e. I take care of her, the home and the children) I do not have time really to have another affairs. The rest of the time I'm left with I either sacrifice to be with her or have my own time like play games or compose music. There are lots of things to be done really, and I couldn't imagine sacrificing my family and duties to pursue sexual satisfaction with other people outside of my family.

> I do not have time really to have another affairs.

That's a good point, and true of most people I expect. The wealthy have time, though. Wealth buys time. Kings, the epitome of being wealthy historically, have always had time for affairs, and are oft remembered for exactly that(!), but a growing proportion of "common folk" are becoming increasingly wealthy themselves, freeing up the necessary time among more and more people. However, wealth inequality is high, so the opportunity of time is not evenly distributed.

> Monogamy is not some child rearing optimization strategy.

Can you go into this a little more? Is there evidence (either way) that stable 2-parent households are or aren't better for kids, or that an alternative is better?

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