Posted by:
SL Cabbie
(
)
Date: October 14, 2010 08:08PM
His questions about sexuality into his research...
How do I know that? Easy. He's limited the scope of his speculation to the last ten thousand years and focused largely on cultural rather than physiological factors (which, in the case of Homo sapiens, go back roughly fifteen times longer, and in the case of hominids in general, probably three hundred times that long).
Ten thousand years is barely a minute on the geological day clock of human history...
BTW, I published a critique on another article with a similar theme in a national magazine way back in the early 70's, so this stuff is hardly new to me... I see Oscar Wilde is quoted in the review I read; I think it was Wilde who also noted how every generation delights in its discovery of sexual pleasure and naively assumes it is the first to do so...
In my day it was Desmond Morris's volume, "The Naked Ape" that caused all the stir. The big point was that the pair-bond was essential for raising human children with their long maturation requirements, and as noted on another thread, polygamous societies need to suppress jealousy in order to survive.
http://www.amazon.com/Naked-Ape-Zoologists-Study-Animal/dp/0385334303That lesson is obvious to me as a student of history reading about LDS violence in "Under The Banner of Heaven" (with modern and early LDS tie-ins found in the Lafferty killings, the LeBaron/Allred Murders, and blood atonement in Brigham Young's day). And even with that, polygamy has failed to "catch on" in modern societies...
I note, too, that there is a disingenuous suppression by many polygamists of claims regarding the joys of sexual desire (doubtless with a hidden agenda that secretly notes otherwise, at least for the privileged few); this despite the claims of individuals such as Terryl Givens...