The Third Chimpanzee

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…de evidence, it would still be interesting to discover a reason for the things being like they are. At least I think so. Have you read Jared Diamond "Why is sex fun" or "The Third Chimpanzee"? I didn't have the impression that what he said about the competitions of the sexes were just-so stories, although in some cases there were several different theories. I would be interested in examples of what you mean by "just-so-stories", too.

Read "Guns, Germs and Steel" and "The Third Chimpanzee" by Jared Diamond. He talks a lot about the rise of agriculture. When we look at how the average lifespan is increasing, we're only looking at the lifespan since the start of civilization as we know it - allowed by agriculture. It's possible that our quality of life is only now catching up to what our hunter-gathered ancestors had.

…u mean by "without female influence." In humans, semi-monogamous coupling is an a result of the extraordinary expense (in time and energy) of raising a human child. Read The Third Chimpanzee by Jared Diamond for a full discussion on how the spectrum of human monogamy - I say "semi-monogamous" since cheating is prevalent in all humans, and he provides potential reasons for why this is so.

Do you have a link to the original somewhere? What I've seen elsewhere (I think it was Jared Diamond's The Third Chimpanzee, which is probably out of date at this point) is that male/female size ratio is also an indicator of polygyny, and that in comparison with other species, yes, humans are, but not to the large degree that some other animals are. That would fit in with the 2 or 3 wives sometimes seen in the hunter/gatherer societies more than big harems.