AHC: No Marriage

With an unlimited room for PODs, make the institution of marriage unknown to all human civilizations in history. Make polygamy and rearing children in a community, kibbutz-style, like some scientists think our ancestors raised their children, the norm throughout the world, leading to today.
 
I think you kind of have to destroy the entire concept we have of individualism to make this work properly, which I'm not sure can be done simply through sociological means.
 
This requires a PoD before the evolution of our species. The extended childhood of humans requires the male contibute to the raising of his offspring, which reqires marriage in some form.

Any such pod would be a deep evolutionary one, which this forum handles in the asb section, even if theyare plausible. Which im not sure this is.
 
This requires a PoD before the evolution of our species. The extended childhood of humans requires the male contibute to the raising of his offspring, which reqires marriage in some form.

Any such pod would be a deep evolutionary one, which this forum handles in the asb section, even if theyare plausible. Which im not sure this is.

Why?

I don't see how this follows.
 
I'm going to agree that this must be a biological POD to work. As a species humans are instinctively programmed to seek out a mate who can help them raise and support their offspring, since with our relatively low birth rates we couldn't afford to waste a healthy child. Unrelated humans are as likely to kill your children to help their own as they are to protect and nurture them, so a large group of nonrelated humans won't work. Long term polygamy, on the other hand, is still a type of marriage, so I think that any kind of committed polygamy defeats the purpose.
 
I'm going to agree that this must be a biological POD to work. As a species humans are instinctively programmed to seek out a mate who can help them raise and support their offspring, since with our relatively low birth rates we couldn't afford to waste a healthy child. Unrelated humans are as likely to kill your children to help their own as they are to protect and nurture them, so a large group of nonrelated humans won't work. Long term polygamy, on the other hand, is still a type of marriage, so I think that any kind of committed polygamy defeats the purpose.

This refers to monogamous heterosexual marriage I believe, which is certainly not hard-wired. Polygyny and polyandry are certainly feasible forms of stable relationship, as are mixed group marriages and stable homosexual relationships.
 
Might extended groups of blood related females, like for example, in an elephant herd, be just as effective in protecting and raising children?
 
Hell, dispense with stable relationships and, as in the OP, kibbutz-style should work. No reason why not, although it may require a slower Agricultural Revolution or something similar.
 
This refers to monogamous heterosexual marriage I believe, which is certainly not hard-wired. Polygyny and polyandry are certainly feasible forms of stable relationship, as are mixed group marriages and stable homosexual relationships.

Firstly, I meant that to refer to all procreative marriages, including polygamy. Polygyny I consider difficult to sustain because they will produce no more offspring than a one to one marriage while taking more viable individuals out of the breeding population, but in any event I would still consider it a form of marriage rather than a communal family. As for mixed group marriages, I'd like to see an example of it as a societal norm somewhere before I lend it any support. Homosexual relationships in a world before artificial insemination are not possible as a replacement, so I don't understand what they have to do with the OP, even if you did determine that you could make 100% of humans homosexual without a biological PoD (which is pretty ASB to me).
 
Firstly, I meant that to refer to all procreative marriages, including polygamy. Polygyny I consider difficult to sustain because they will produce no more offspring than a one to one marriage while taking more viable individuals out of the breeding population, but in any event I would still consider it a form of marriage rather than a communal family. As for mixed group marriages, I'd like to see an example of it as a societal norm somewhere before I lend it any support. Homosexual relationships in a world before artificial insemination are not possible as a replacement, so I don't understand what they have to do with the OP, even if you did determine that you could make 100% of humans homosexual without a biological PoD (which is pretty ASB to me).

Alright, I misinterpreted. So you mean no stable relationships of any kind. Very difficult, but possible, even without a biological POD.

OK, assuming that many societies prior to the Agricultural Revolution were kibbitz-style, we need a gradual adoption of agricultural practices while an ideological connection to the social structure based on the band, or the village, becomes extremely prominent.
 
I remember watching a BBC documentary that said <insert human ancestor> was hypothesized to be polygamous with only one male allowed to breed. IIRC they said that once that societal order ended the cranial volume of humans began to rapidly increase.

So if that persists, we may not get civilization. Tribes where the chief gets all the women and all other males plot the assassination of the chief, are not a good backdrop for societal cooperation.
 
Most societies in history allowed polygyny to some degree, to it was usually not very widespread due to economical constraints.
However, I don't think that marriage is hard-wired in us.
 
Most societies in history allowed polygyny to some degree, to it was usually not very widespread due to economical constraints.
However, I don't think that marriage is hard-wired in us.

Actually, I think it is.

When a man's partner is pregnant, hormonal changes also take place (assuming he wants and expects it). The desire to have sex with other women will often drop. Also, one study found that in the first few months of life, a child looks like his or her father, while another study found that a child looks like a combination of the parents. This seems to be biology's way of telling the father that it's his kid.

So biology intends for monogamous relationships.

Another thing to keep in mind is this: civilizations across the world, divorced from each other until the 1500s, had some form of marriage, which evolved completely separately from each other.
 
Actually, I think it is.

When a man's partner is pregnant, hormonal changes also take place (assuming he wants and expects it). The desire to have sex with other women will often drop. Also, one study found that in the first few months of life, a child looks like his or her father, while another study found that a child looks like a combination of the parents. This seems to be biology's way of telling the father that it's his kid.

So biology intends for monogamous relationships.

Another thing to keep in mind is this: civilizations across the world, divorced from each other until the 1500s, had some form of marriage, which evolved completely separately from each other.

And that usually has institutionalized polygamy. It's somewhat a fluke that the Western culture that became dominant was and is rather firmly monogamous, thus spreading this particular form across the world.
Now, positing the males feel no attachment whatsoever to the offspring of women they had sex with, it's kind of more difficult and very likely requires a very early evolutionary POD.
 
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