RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist<p><span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://ecoevo.social/@rspfau" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@<span>rspfau</span></a></span> <br>I disagree with your interpretation of the word "marriage" as an inexact word, or it being cited as shorthand in the article for monogamy—the one I cited or the one you cited. Good article, so thanks for the link. </p><p>Even the article finds itself using modern examples of "mating systems" and trying to apply it to ancestral human groups, but acknowledging it was failing as we can only speculate what does or doesn't apply to the past without data. Even sampling primates and other mammals gives a mixed signal which is also noise, giving unconvincing permission to apply what we are used to rather than what our society sees as radical and dangerous. </p><p>Early Middle Eastern archeological finds <em>imply</em> women dominated societies (see <em>When God was a Woman</em> by Merlin Stone), and admittedly this may be wrong, too. What was, and what we think it was, could be different things—though I'm convinced otherwise. </p><p><em>Marriage serves one purpose: guaranteeing paternity (theoretically) for the purpose of transferring property down the male line.</em> As the article points out, other social groups like siblings, those related through the mother (cousins, uncles, aunts), groups of unrelated women, even tribes can handle child care without invoking marriage or involuntary monogamy to have husbands provide labor. </p><p>We must be careful not to assume what we were taught was true in our society describes what was true before patriarchal societies conquered the world. </p><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/Archaeology" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Archaeology</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/Maternity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Maternity</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/Matriarchy" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Matriarchy</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/Patriarchy" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Patriarchy</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/Marriage" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Marriage</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/Monogamy" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Monogamy</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/EngenderedWriting" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>EngenderedWriting</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/Writer" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Writer</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/Author" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Author</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/Gender" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Gender</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/Fiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Fiction</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/WritingCommunity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>WritingCommunity</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/WritersOfMastodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>WritersOfMastodon</span></a></p>