by Leander 25 Replies latest jw friends
SYN, some animals ARE monogamous. They mate for life!!
I think people are better off being monogamous. I wouldn't want to share my husband, and I know he feels even more strongly about sharing me. When you meet that special person, you will want to commit to them for life.
Marilyn (aka Mulan)
"No one can take advantage of you, without your permission." Ann Landers
After my divorce/DF I had a real short attention span with men, until I meant my current..He is doing a real fine job of keeping my attention and I have no interest in ever being with anyone else...But I agree you must be with the right person to feel that way.
I think it can be natural if you are compatable enough with someone.
I think it depends if you actually love and get along with the person that you are with.
Leander you are just chompin' at the bit are'nt you? When you finally do leave you are going to be a holy terror! Natural? Don't know. What is natural vs. what is compulsion vs. what is right vs. what is wrong vs. ... what was the question? Sorry I was day dreaming about Halle Berry.
My husband calls me his lobster - because lobsters mate for life.
So do beavers..........don't you dare touch that comment!!
Marilyn (aka Mulan)
"No one can take advantage of you, without your permission." Ann Landers
Mulan...hahahahahaha!
Wolves are also manog's and so are killer whales. and Grey whales I believe are also. Lots of sea creatures are. In fact some whales have been known to morn to death over the death of thier mate. really sad.
Just had to throw in my 2 cents about this. I think that humans' family arrangements correspond mostly to certain types of birds who are MOSTLY monogamous. They mate for life; however, if a mate is away, they visit and mate with another bird (read adultery). Then they scurry back to their nest before their own mate returns. The author (Jared Diamond in The Third Chimpanzee asserts that for all of human history, they most resemble this bird pattern of being mostly monogamous.
A bit further on my post, this article was in the local rag today:
'My little chickadee, your love melody is a travesty'
By Paul Recer, AP science writer
May 3, 2002
WASHINGTON -- The love life of a female chickadee could make a country music classic: "If your song don't pass muster, buster, I'm gone."
The lady chickadee has a cheatin' heart, quick to find another lover if her mate fails to win his daily song contests with rivals. In effect, she decides that if her mate is a loser, he won't be the only papa in her nest, say researchers at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada.
Daniel Mennill, co-author of a study appearing today in the journal Science, said mates of high-ranking male black-capped chickadees are more likely to be unfaithful than are the mates of lower-ranked males.
"Females are accustomed to hearing their high-ranking mates dominate a song contest," said Mennill. "It is quite a shocking event to their ears to hear them lose a song contest."
When that happens, he said, the female will sneak out before dawn and meet with a rival male for a coupling. Then she flies back home as if nothing happened and continues to live with her partner.
"These extra matings are just short copulations -- about 30 seconds," said Mennill. The long-term partners "do remain mated, in a social sense."
The effect of these extra matings is that some chicks in the nest have been fathered by some other male chickadee, he said, and the betrayed male apparently never knows the difference.
Male chickadees are challenged virtually every day to a song contest with rival males. They use the contests to defend territory and nests.
"It is only the males that sing," said Mennill. "Every male chickadee has only one song -- two notes that sound like 'fee-bee.' "
One male sings and the other then sings back in a competition that might last for several minutes.
"If a male is very aggressive, he'll go through a set of routines where he will match the pitch and try to overlap the song of his opponent," said Mennill.
While this is going on, the female is listening, gauging who is winning. If her mate loses, she remembers.
Mennill proved the chickadee cheating by recording some of the bird songs and then engaging in a singing contest with a male bird.
The females of high-ranking males are most likely to cheat, he said. Rank among chickadees is established in the fall, when the birds gather in flocks that will last through the winter.
Somehow the birds establish an alpha, or primary, male and female, a beta, or second in rank, male and female, and so on.
Even though chickadee partners may stay together for years, the birds do have a system rather like divorce, said Mennill.
If, for instance, the alpha female dies or is grabbed by a hawk, then the alpha male becomes a nest wrecker.
On the Net: Science: www.sciencemag.org
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It is similar to a lot of humans, now and in the past, it seems to me; and, as i referred to in the last post, scholars also.
rebelledat,
Are you a Friends fan?
Andi
PS: I think swans mate for life too. That's why you see them so much with wedding crap.
