monogomy

our book says that humans are monogamous and it says that it has many evolutionary advantages. It is interesting to e because many geneticists have found that humans used to be polygamous. To be more specific they were polygyny because they had many wives. Women who have many husbands are called polyandry and when its both it is called polygynandry. in order to evaluate if we are monogamous today we need to define monogamy. monogamy is a breeding strategy in which two animals mate only with each other during a given period of time (notice it does not say for life, it could be for just one mating season or perhaps even shorter). Now if it were advantageous we would probably find other animals who are monogamous as well (to help prove that its advantageous finding monogamous mammals would be especially helpful). The most monogamous type of specie are birds: 90 percent of birds are monogamous. only about three percent of mammals are. With a lot of analyzation scientists have realized that many of these birds appear to be monogamous but really the females cheat on their husbands and acquire a second partner. This new phenomena is now called social monogamy. Social monogamous animals can be more directly defined as a pair of animals who live together, reproduce together and cooperate in nailing down the basic necessities of life. This does not say that they are sexually exclusive. now what are humans? to me is seems as though we are mildly polygamous and for sure more socially monogamous than monogamous.