Talk:Monogamy

Same-sex monogamy

The definition of "monogamy" at the start of this article may be too restrictive; long-term exclusive unions between individuals of the same sex are also frequently described as "monogamous" (a usage that the American Heritage Dictionary, for one, recognizes in its definition).

I'm not qualified to say, however, whether the same evolutionary factors that may select for male-female monogamy, as discussed near the end of the article, have also been shown (or theorized) to select for same-sex monogamy. (If so, I'm not sure how that might work; if not, has a difference been shown between rates of monogamy in the two cases?) So I haven't edited the article, because it might be necessary to discuss same-sex and different-sex monogamy separately with respect to evolutionary issues. So can I just raise the question and ask some kind biologically-savvy citizen to do something about it? Bruce M.Tindall 21:41, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

(In the interest of making my above stupid question a teeny bit less stupid: Would it be correct to say that the social forces affecting patterns of monogamy and polygamy in humans drown out any evolutionary effects and therefore make it difficult or impossible to study said evolutionary effects in humans? This is still probably a stupid question but at least it's a somewhat different stupid question....) Bruce M.Tindall 14:15, 19 October 2008 (UTC)