Re: Man & wife -- why oh why?

On Wednesday 27 June 2007 01:53, Nic wrote:

On 26 Jun, 10:05, Niels <n...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Tuesday 26 June 2007 01:21, Nic wrote:





On 25 Jun, 23:40, Niels <n...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Monday 25 June 2007 23:27, Inez wrote:

On Jun 25, 9:44 am, Niels <n...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi,

I'm discussing nature vs. nurture with a friend. We're talking
about how people throughout history have tended to form more or
less stable couples -- man and woman. There are exceptions of
course, in some societies (eg. rain forrest indians, mormons) a man
can have multiple wifes, and I'm sure many other such examples
exist. But usually, even within small societies and groups, people
tend to find together in twos, not threes or twelves. The question
is why. I'd very much appreciate your insights into this, as well
as pointers to studies and other material, preferably online.

Thanks,
Niels

At the risk of being accused of backspaceitis, It's difficult to
even approach this problem until you more closely define how you're
looking at human socialization.

My primitive English is probably to blame for my sometimes vague
descriptions.

In many cultures extended families live under
one roof. In all cultures children live with parents. In Western
culture many people are serially monogomous, and may have children
with several partners. Many people have friends they spend
appreciable amounts of time with, even if they do not live with
them.

Quite true. However, I can't think of any examples of societies in
which three or twelve people live together as close partners, as close
as two people do all over the world, as the norm. I'm not talking
about children, but about adult partners in long term relationships.

I suspect you are seeing couples because you are looking for
couples.Are you asking why we're only supposed to have one sex
partner at a time?

I'm asking why couples seem much more common than triples or n-ples.
It's not specifically about sex, more about the grouping.

I understand that. I think Martin Andersen's response above is
relevant. Of course bigger alliances are stronger, but the smallest
alliance is so much better than none at all that most people switch
from trying to cooperate with outsiders to trying to compete with them
as soon as they have a single reliable ally.

I don't get that -- if bigger alliances are really stronger, why are you
so certain we tend to compete rather than cooperate?

That's the wrong way of putting it. Competing is something people do
in their passtimes. In their serious activities, they cooperate and
cheat. Those are the only two concepts needed.

That sounds great, but I'm not sure I agree... As I see it, people compete
all the time.


Bigger alliances are stronger, but you only join one because it is
better for *you* to be in a stronger alliance. If you think of it as
layered functionality, the base layer is self interest, and emergent
from that are cooperative cliques, companies, countries, families,
cartels. Any individual actor constantly has to choose between
contributing to a bigger 'commonwealth', or detracting from it whilst
maintaining the absolute size of their own share.

You're not leaving much room for altruism here.

In the US and the UK people would be better to group in at least fives
because of property prices - but they find it hard to do so.

And why is that?

No mysterious reason as far as I can see. Most people simply haven't
analysed their relationship to society from a game theoretic or a
macroeconomic point of view, and certainly most people haven't
indulged in thought experiments to justify the status quo (i.e. see
how it is an attractor which will inevitably be homed in on from some
initial, all be it never existing, 'state of nature').

Economic actors need to be rational, smart, and informed. What chance
have most people of achieving all three?

Even if a person had analysed things as you suggest, he might not be able to
do much about it.


Thanks,
Niels

.

Relevant Pages

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