At some point we'll need to reckon with the fact that socially-impost monogamy is largely a European phenomenon that only arose naturally in Europe.
Prior to contact with Europe, multiple marriage was common across the Americas (North, South, Central, Caribbean), Africa, and most of Asia. Only in East Asia did we get anything approaching the socially imposed monogamy of Europe, and even then distinctions arose because of the widespread acceptance of official concubinage.
Europeans remain the only people to have organically developed a system of socially imposed monogamy in which all men, no matter how powerful, could take only one wife and in which all relations outside of that were officially taboo (read: no open concubinage of harems as seen in the east - mistresses must be kept on the low). Many did not impose as strict a penalty on out of wedlock births as Europeans either.
Were it not for European influence (specifically, European laws and religious customs) spreading to these places, they would all still be without the socially imposed monogamy we see taken for granted today.
This is an important point because, in my view, it goes to the likelihood of monogamy being successfully propped up among different people in different parts of the world. We mustn't forget that monogamy is not something that was common to all peoples - it originated largely in one place and has been enforced and spread primarily by individuals/cultures from that place. We can't assume that everyone else is willing or able to prop up socially imposed monogamy in the way it's originators and primary propagators have done.
Prior to contact with Europe, multiple marriage was common across the Americas (North, South, Central, Caribbean), Africa, and most of Asia. Only in East Asia did we get anything approaching the socially imposed monogamy of Europe, and even then distinctions arose because of the widespread acceptance of official concubinage.
Europeans remain the only people to have organically developed a system of socially imposed monogamy in which all men, no matter how powerful, could take only one wife and in which all relations outside of that were officially taboo (read: no open concubinage of harems as seen in the east - mistresses must be kept on the low). Many did not impose as strict a penalty on out of wedlock births as Europeans either.
Were it not for European influence (specifically, European laws and religious customs) spreading to these places, they would all still be without the socially imposed monogamy we see taken for granted today.
This is an important point because, in my view, it goes to the likelihood of monogamy being successfully propped up among different people in different parts of the world. We mustn't forget that monogamy is not something that was common to all peoples - it originated largely in one place and has been enforced and spread primarily by individuals/cultures from that place. We can't assume that everyone else is willing or able to prop up socially imposed monogamy in the way it's originators and primary propagators have done.
Know your enemy and know yourself, find naught in fear for 100 battles. Know yourself but not your enemy, find level of loss and victory. Know thy enemy but not yourself, wallow in defeat every time.