Humans are among the only species that have adapted monogamy as a way of life, in comparison, only 3 percent of the animal kingdom has adopted a similar lifestyle. The contrast of differential actually lies in the environment in which we live.

In the wild, the environment plays a huge role in determining which animals remain monogamous and which ones do not. The level of competition and activity determine the amount of interaction that takes place, and therefore influences the chemical levels within the development brain.  Animals that live in the wild have to do things in a very capitalistic way, simply because the environment demands such conditions in order to be successful in such a competitive environment.  A competitive environment offers all kinds of input that allows the adapting mind to act accordingly and therefore incorporate the constantly changing stimulus into its design over generations and hence warrants a logical reactive response in order to stay dynamic and current with the ever changing environment. Therefore we can conclude that survival is a mixture of efficient use of time, evolutions goal to acquire stimulus, mental and physical challenges such as competition for a sexual mate, effort put forward to find a adequate supply of food and anything else that elicits a dynamic challenge that warrants an active response, all this and more doesn’t leave much time for a monogamous relationship and as a direct result there is a very low ratio of animals that practice monogamy.

Looking at the 3 percent directly, we can see that the animals that do practice it have evolved in conditions that allow monogamy to take place and skew the environmental conditions towards a less competitive environment, allowing more time to raise a family. We know that the environment is the sole cause of this once we start comparing various similar species located in different environments. The prairie vole for instance is one of the few animals that choose a mate for life, but their cousins, the montane voles do not, and this would suggest that there is a chemical basis for this that goes beyond the biological factor. It would also suggest that their environment is the sole cause as it is one of the only factors that can change development over the course of a life time. All in all, challenge breeds excellence, but challenge in the form of aggression which is present everywhere in the animal kingdom also teaches us that there has to be additional conflict in order to prevent lose and retain control of a given area and since conflict is a source of stimulus, it is technically favoured by evolution as it allows development in the form of mental expansion, mental expansion that moves away from producing active levels of oxytocin, vasopressin and serotonin and hence suppresses the need for further touch and interaction brought through family life and interaction. This segregates mental development which from an evolution point of view suppresses the natural expression of empathy allowing a more logical adaptive dominating position to be used in order to compete in an ever changing environment. This for the most part is the main reason why 97 percent of all life on the planet competes with one another and can’t stay monogamous.

Humans on the other hand, started living in groups for safety, which split the frontal lobes into two sections, one half for the bigger picture and one that developed towards interaction. This interaction suggests that the brain adapted towards a structured society and therefore consolidated under stable conditions allowing empathy to come to the surface creating feelings of emotion and structured responses towards staying with a similar individual. Humans for the most part intend to stay monogamous but as we can see, in society that begins to deteriorate and lose its values, divorce rates begin to go up and the people involved become self sufficient and survival based, just as it happens in the wild. All the same principles that govern the animal kingdom also govern us, and the environment in which we live dictates who becomes monogamous and who does not. It’s a simple matter of mass mental consolidation or mental expansion, the two essential aspects of evolution.

It’s also a very good indication that we act and think the same; only we have evolved the means to work with more information. But that is another write up.

Thanks for reading.

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