Some couples tie the knot for love, some for family, some for security, while some for other reasons. But not only material, marriage also has evolutionary benefits for both men and women, says a new study.
Researchers from the University College London and Harvard University have found that marriage assures men that their children are their true heirs and gives women confidence that their kids will benefit from a decent inheritance.
“But there are actually some situations where monogamous marriage is a better strategy for men as well as for women,” the ‘New Scientist’ quoted Laura Fortunato of University College London as saying.
The emergence of social monogamy is a mystery. The Babylonian King Hammurabi prescribed it in his ancient law code around 1790 BC, though the practice probably stretches back thousands of years further.
The researchers distinguished this from pair bonding and sexual monogamy, which was practised by early humans and their ancient ancestors.
According to them, the fact that many populations around the world practise some form of polygamy is a clear indication that social monogamy is not inevitable and therefore needs explaining.
They concluded that men and women will tend to form socially monogamous pairs when land is scarce and its cultivation intense, as men would risk diluting their property by dividing it among too many heirs.
In fact, for their study, the researchers modelled the behaviour of populations incorporating monogamous and polygynous men over two generations. They made the assumption that women in early agrarian cultures did not provide much in the way of material resources.
Monogamy won out over polygamy, in terms of reliably passing resources to the most genetically related family members, so long as property remained precious, women mostly faithful and men shrewd - that is, they transferred property exclusively to the children of faithful wives, it found.
The researchers suggested that the advent and spread of agriculture about 10,000 years ago played an integral role in the emergence of monogamy, since until then owning specific land was largely pointless.
“I think the evidence must come from archaeology and changes in marriage systems,” said Ms. Fortunato whose findings have been published in the ‘Journal of Evolution Biology’.
