Honour

Yes, I agree that due to environmental differences, responsibilities and obligations are not the same. The point I am trying to make though is this, if one were to insist on practice conforming with definition, then monogamy is in fact rarely practiced in the waste. In everything except by definition, most men in the waste are polygamists. Polygamists who reject the responsibility for their activities by claiming monogamy. What I would call the second wife, they call the mistress. Where I would come out and inform my wife that I have met another woman that I would wish to marry, they go into what is called 'cheating' or, they 'break-up'. After the break-up, you find one of three scenarios, in the first, the former couple drop out of each other's life, there may be residual resentments or they may be indifferent to each other. The second scenario is the one where after the passage of some time, the man starts going back to the woman's house and they resume their sexual relationship. This often happens when they have previously produced offspring, now, the man is 'cheating' on his new wife/mistress with the ex-wife. The third scenario is where they part on amicable terms, they remain life-long friends and even though there is no longer any sexual relations, they still have intimacy. All of these can happen in a society where monogamy is allegedely the norm. Yet, they are also scenarios that are common in polygamous relationships.

Human nature is immutable. We do not change, we learn to suppress or control whatever urges/expressions are declared as being undesirable by the times we are living in. Sometimes though, when the modes of suppression/control are half-baked, the ones being compelled to use them often find themselves playing the hypocrite.

Before the advent of genetic testing, it was a given fact that only the woman knew for a fact who the father of her child was. Despite the propaganda, monogamy was not instituted to guard the rights of the wife. Monogamy was instituted to guard the right of the man to be the only source of sperm permitted by law to a woman. If you doubt this, look again at the ones who were traditionally subjected to the worst abuse whenever 'adultery' was proved. Monogamy was a great blessing for the man who wanted to be irresponsible in his breeding activities. He was not legally responsible for any of his 'bastards'. And there were millions of these produced over the centuries. How was the ever evolving fabric of a society affected by this relentless production of 'bastardized' humans? People who were brought up with the knowledge that they were on earth as a 'by-blow' of some man's pleasure seeking activities? A man who from the moment he pulled up his pants, had no more responsibility towards them than whatever came from the "goodness of his heart"? How would a person with this knowledge of his/her beginnings view existence?

A lot of what passes for 'common sense response' or 'instinct', are actually nothing more than heavily disguised social constructs. People think they are responding from the heights of their own sincere feeling regarding a subject, but they are actually only responding as programmed to a prompt. This is why pre-conceptions need to be thoroughly examined before being utilised.