The Sexual State of Human Nature
- Andrew L. Casad
According to Jean Jacques Rousseau's Social Contract, which was used as a theoretical basis for the formation of the government of the United States, as well as the French Republic, people willingly abandoned the "state of nature" in order to form the society in which they now live. This thesis for the formation of states, as well as all human society, holds that people voluntarily surrendered certain rights to the state and that, in turn, the state needs to protect these rights and those individuals who surrendered their rights. It is upon this premise that the government of the United States, as well as many other democratic states, was founded. It can be shown, however, that people did not abandon any sort of "state of nature" in order to form society. On the contrary, the social organization of humans is largely a result of our "state of nature," which can be modeled by and compared with non-human primate group behavior, itself largely a result of non-human primate sexual strategies. In non-human primates, particularly the higher primates, one finds myriad sexual strategies. It is important that one understand these various strategies, which can be grouped into several main types, in order to classify the group behavior that is exhibited in the "state of nature" by each of the non-human primates and, in turn, humans. As far as sexual strategies are concerned, there are five main types that are found in primates. The first of these is the monogamous pair. The monogamous pair is the least common "state of nature" found in non- human primates and is found, to some degree, in gibbons, indris, titis, sakis, owl monkeys and pottos. The monogamous pair consists of the mating male and female and dependent young. There is ample evidence that young that are dependants of a monogamous pair need not always be progeny of the pair. Some dependent young have been found to be "young males from the neighborhood who left their relatives in favor of a reconstituted family" It is also often the case that mating is not for life,