The True Purpose of Marriage

I'd like to dispel the myth of marriage. I wrote about it at dispellingmyths.com. These are my thoughts.

Marriage didn’t exist before the agricultural revolution. Prior to the agricultural revolution humans lived as Hunter Gatherers in small tribes. The concept of ownership didn’t exist, at least not nearly to the extent as it does today. The land was a shared resourced to feed from, the tribes people hunted and gathered food such as nuts and berries. Nobody owned a particular area of land, it was to be shared by the tribe until they moved on to a new area to hunt and gather food. Monogamy, even notionally, didn’t exist. Group sex was not uncommon, the tribespeople were quite promiscuous. This was their true nature, as it is yours. I’d recommend you read “Sex at Dawn” and Sapiens”, two fascinating books to give you a better understanding of humans and human sexuality.

What happened, why was the marriage contract introduced? With the advent of agriculture, the concept of property and property rights was introduced. Rather than moving from forest to forest, people became settled, they found a piece of land and built a home there where they could farm the land. The farmers wanted to have sex and wanted to have children, children could help the famer with the farming duties to help him yield more crops. At some point however it became apparent that it was difficult for the average man to find a woman who would be faithful to him. As a result, it was not uncommon for men to unknowingly raise children that were not their own.

The farmers put their heads together to try and find a solution, the solution was a marriage contract. In return for a home, food and security, women would agree to have sex with only one man and be faithful to him for life. What the farmers didn’t realise was that human nature is powerful, despite the marriage contract, wives continued having sex with other men, often cuckolding their husbands.

This presented a difficult problem for the farmers. They came up with a solution whereby they would use religion to terrify women with the prospect of hell if they broke new rules which were introduced into the text. “Thou shalt not commit adultery” and “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife” are two such rules, two of the ten commandments. It was also important for farmers that property rights were respected, therefore rules relating to observing property rights were introduced too.

The overarching goal was to create a productive civilisation, in order to have this, men must feel motivated to work, this means property rights must be respected and enforced where possible. Additionally, it was important that the average man could find a woman to have sex with, the marriage contract and updated religious teachings made this much easier for men. However, female sexuality doesn’t care about rules and religion, when a woman is ovulating all that goes out the window. If she is in the right place at the right time, she is liable to have sex with an attractive man. Those who created Islam likely understood this, as they went even further, they forced women to wear garments such as the hijab, the latent purpose of this was to prevent wives having sex with other men. If their attractive features were covered up it was less likely that other men would pursue them for sex. It was also found that women were more likely to cheat on their husbands when alcohol was consumed, so it was banned. Even to this day women have been known to be stoned to death for being unfaithful. When women are ovulating, which is usually about 3-4 days per month, they even cheat when the punishment is death by stoning, that is how powerful women’s urge to procreate with attractive males is.

The truth of the matter is this, only a minority of men are sexually attractive to women. This makes sense from an evolutionary perspective. Women who only have sex with the most attractive men are more likely to have attractive children, and sons who are attractive to women, thus increasing the chances of gene propagation.  A study on OKCupid found that women find approximately 80% of men as less than average in terms of attraction. The average man is simply not attractive to women, this is why the typical wife routinely avoids sex with her husband, often by faking a headache or pretending to be too tired. She simply does not find him sexually attractive. The reason she married him without finding him sexually attractive is simply a matter of supply and demand. If only 20% of men are sexually attractive to women then there aren’t enough attractive men to go around, so if a woman wants to settle down and have a family, she must settle for an unattractive man.

In summary, the true purpose of marriage is economic growth, it does this by allowing the average man to find a woman to have sex with. A man who cannot find sex is less productive, or even destructive. Therefore, marriage has been important to keep these men contributing to the economy.