Whether Improved Socioeconomic Development Sees a Shift Towards Monogamous Mating Strategies

Abstract

From the early prehistoric civilizations to the modern world, marriage practices have undergone tremendous changes. Changing environments and social perceptions have contributed greatly to how people choose to marry. This paper will investigate whether changes in socioeconomic factors such as the need to survive and religion has influenced the spread and demise of monogamous and polygynous marriages from the hunter-gatherer era to the modern day. Also investigated will be the increasing prevalence of socially imposed monogamy displacing ecologically imposed monogamy. Through research, it has been concluded that socioeconomic factors are not necessarily linked to changes to marriage practices, but that monogamous marriages did benefit the socioeconomic development of a country or society, and that the rise in monogamy is what brought improved socioeconomic development of a society, not the other way round.