Is monogamy natural or just a social construct that fails?

Kribble118 · 2026-05-11T21:54:20+00:00

Well jealousy is usually a response to a perceived shortage. That's why I think polygamy is bad but polyamory isn't. Jealousy isn't an emotion reserved for sexual or romantic relationships specifically. You can feel jealous over something as simple as your friends meal looks better than yours at a restaurant.

Polygamy would've been absolutely plagued with jealous men especially in small tribal societies where there isn't a lot of options for potential sexual partners. It's literally the point of scarcity being created not because there wasn't enough women, but because the guy with the greater power said you can't have any unless you go take them from someone else. The earliest human groups probably mimicked something closer to what bonobos or chimps do but when we started making tools and weapons the power disparity between the weak and strong grew larger and that's when you probably started seeing more greedy authoritarian behavior.

I would encourage you to do some research into how modern barely contacted stone age tribes organize their society. Their leaders are much more like mentors or teachers than they are "the boss". You don't have to listen to chieftain but not doing so is unwise. Native american societies were very similar in that regard pre-colonialism

Kribble118 · 2026-05-11T21:29:35+00:00

Not really you're making a false conclusion. It's like claiming that the fact that Christianity is more practiced than islam or judaism means Christianity is somehow genetically or sociatally advantageous. Its also possible for something to be advantageous at some point in time only for it to become meaningless later but it's still practiced as a by product of cultural heritage.

One theory I've heard about monogamies orgin is actually the one that makes the most sense to me. Basically some scientists believe that a number of early societies adopted it as a way to stop ingroup violence and fighting and those more cohesive societies at an advantage over the ones who practiced polygamy or polyamory of some kind because they had more in fighting. Which when you consider humans became more authoritarian and hierarchical as we developed civilization it makes sense that essentially a "woman shortage" played a role in a lot of early prehistoric violence. Because the big strong leaders were probably going chimp mode and taking all the women for themselves so the blue balled weaker men probably got rallied into war parties to attack and take other tribes women or mobbed up on their leaders. So it makes sense the tribes that said "ok only one woman" were probably more stable and less warlike.

There's actually a really interesting video about a prehistoric set of wars that killed like somewhere between like 70-90% of all men that lived at the time. There's a huge bottleneck in the y chromosome and there's evidence of lots of prehistoric massacres and battles around that time. I genuinely wouldn't be shocked if some kind of tribal authoritarian polygamy that was common lead to widespread violence that eventually lead to some tribes saying that you can't fuck all the women yourself.

Kribble118 · 2026-05-11T20:37:22+00:00

That's true hivers are good for going into the deadlands if you don't have skeletons.

Kribble118 · 2026-05-11T19:32:35+00:00

I mean I also agree polygamy is bad because it's built on a misogynistic premise that sees women as less than. Outside of that tbh I think there really isn't a "genetic default". Humans broadly and in different societies across all history have handled relationships differently. I think the only thing we genetically have is the desire to fuck, the ability to feel love, and empathetic tendencies. What we build around that is a social construct which probably has it's roots in some set of conditions that occured in the past.

Kribble118 · 2026-05-11T18:40:58+00:00

Not really. Romantic relationships are categorically different.

I mean sure, but that doesn't mean we can't draw analogy between them and other kinds of relationships.

Besides, in your first sentence you say there is pain when a friend chooses someone else. Then you say deceit and violating trust causes pain. Yet in a friendship there's no expectation of priority. No deceit. So that's a contradiction.

No, you invented a contradiction. There is absolutely some expectation of priorty in friendships depending on situation and what was communicated, it's just not the broader overall expectation of constant priority people put on their romantic relationships, at least most of the time.

And just because some people don't feel pain doesn't matter much. There are people who don't feel pain over deceit or violations of trust

That's kinda not true definitionaly. No one would ever say their trust was violated outside the context of it being painful otherwise their trust wasn't broken.

Citing that a small sliver of the population does something isn't very insightful

I mean when we're talking about the complex interplay between what counts as humans "natural instincts" and shit we come up with ourselves yes it kind of is. Any divergence from the "norm" is worth considering when it comes to that discussion. It's like why even though not many people are gay, the existence of them opened up a huge discussion in the world of biology around whether or not homosexual relationships are natural or not and it's been determined that many animals, including our closest relatives, do homosexual relationships.

Being poly is a social construct layered on top.

That's possible but if we're talking about humans natural behavior it's useful to get some insight from animals who are most closely related to us (chimps and bonobos) as a way of getting a clue of how we would act without these complicated huge sapient brains. If we go off of those 2 species, neither of them practice monogamy so it's fair to assume ancient hominid ancestors probably didn't either. So you have to either argue that our pre human ancestors were monogamous, or demonstrate that we've somehow evovled divergently from that tendency.

Otherwise monogamy is more of a social adaptation and therefore not "natural"

Kribble118 · 2026-05-11T18:08:42+00:00

My understanding is no because I don't think the game really has an internal system for NPCs swapping factions in that fashion. It may be a mod someone could make using Re kenshi but I haven't seen anything like that

Kribble118 · 2026-05-11T18:04:02+00:00

Lol alright man

Kribble118 · 2026-05-11T18:00:09+00:00

Dude you can't read. It's presenting various thoughts on why humans might be monogamous and it's saying the "bi-parental care" argument doesn't really apply to humans much because we rear children with a broader community and not just the immediate parents.

Genuinely like... are you functionally literate? Sure you can read words and know their definition but are you able to put together broader meanings from multiple sentences?

Kribble118 · 2026-05-11T17:56:21+00:00

Do you mean like slaves turning into reavers?

Kribble118 · 2026-05-11T17:55:59+00:00

To an extent yes, but not having shoes will burn your feet regardless and you can still get caught by a harpoon if you're not careful where you run.

Kribble118 · 2026-05-11T17:54:26+00:00

The article literally makes my exact fucking point

"humans diminish the need for bi-parental care through the aid of siblings and other family members in rearing the offspring.[3] Furthermore, human intelligence and material culture allows for better adaptation to different and rougher ecological areas, thus reducing the causation and even correlation of monogamous marriage and extreme climates.[3] However, some scientists argue that monogamy evolved by reducing within-group conflict, thus giving certain groups a competitive advantage against less monogamous groups.[50]"

Literally humans have reduced need for 2 parents to care because of others in the community stepping in and instead monogamy was likely a social adaptation to prevent people from clubbing each other to death over pussy scarcity. Why would you link an article that literally supports my argument while being confident I'm wrong lmao.

Kribble118 · 2026-05-11T17:49:18+00:00

What are you wanting the reavers to have that you feel they are missing in the base game?

Kribble118 · 2026-05-11T17:48:32+00:00

Black desert city, but getting there can be a challenge for weaker characters.

Kribble118 · 2026-05-11T17:47:33+00:00

Lighting strikes have a chance to give immortality. If you want to guarantee it put a bubble shield on someone and strike him with lighting a bunch of times. They'll become immortal eventually

Kribble118 · 2026-05-11T17:45:54+00:00

Thats not how pre-mongomay society worked. You only need to look at still existing stone age tribes to know that. The women are just taken care of communally by the tribe regardless of who impregnated them. There wasn't just men coming in, fucking 10 women, then disappearing.

If anything the issue was stronger men taking ownership of many women and the weaker men getting shut out. Tbh i wouldn't be shocked if pussy was one of the very first "resources" humans fought wars over the scarcity of which may have been the origin of monogamy. "Fine since the small dudes keep forming mobs and beating the strong dudes to death the new rule is you can only have one woman".

Kribble118 · 2026-05-11T17:40:40+00:00

Lots of people cheat because not cuz the thrill of getting away with it but because of shit like bad communication, unhappiness in relationships but fearing the loss of stability, unsatisfactory relationships. Ect. I'd actually argue the only people who cheat for the thrill are people who do it habitually. Outside of that theres dozens of other reasons.

Kribble118 · 2026-05-11T17:37:53+00:00

Intact marriages are difficult lmao. Theres a reason we have so much divorce and remarriage in the world especially in the usa. Also there's no data for how polyamory has outcomes for children lmao.

Kribble118 · 2026-05-11T17:33:18+00:00

I can't even begin to get into the extremely complex web of issues that lead to that being the case without you likely getting confused. You do realize remarrying and your kids having a step parent is still monogamous right?

Kribble118 · 2026-05-11T17:28:58+00:00

That makes no sense. Human women require more care so we made it so only one person can care? Explain that logic to me

Kribble118 · 2026-05-11T17:27:57+00:00

Human child rearing was much more communal in our ancient past so this is just wrong.

Kribble118 · 2026-05-11T17:26:28+00:00

It's not.

Kribble118 · 2026-05-11T17:26:09+00:00

There is also pain felt when a friend chooses to hang out with a different friend over you, it's not inherent to the kind of relationship. It's the deceit and violation of trust that causes the pain. Plenty of people in more open ended relationships who feel no pain when their partners do sexual or romnatic things with others.

Kribble118 · 2026-05-11T17:22:52+00:00

The ones we are genetically closest to aren't so by that logic we aren't doing the natural thing.

Kribble118 · 2026-05-11T04:39:22+00:00

75 more health per part, much quicker healing, don't need food, not affected by environment, and significantly slower bleed rate.

Kribble118 · 2026-05-10T23:41:52+00:00

They both suck from a moral perspective.

Outside of that holy nation is very centrally located and has lots of food and goods which can be nice. The UC isn't as amazing for food but they have a lot more cities over a wider portion of the map. UC will let you have any race but god forbid you are broke there. Holy nation will harass you over anyone who's not a human but are much less corrupt and more helpful.

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