Reply #20: We're gregarious [View All]

[Ravenseye]

The whole 'it takes a village' thing encompasses that. We are programmed to group together. Grouping allows us to better protect our offspring, and pass along those genes to future generations, making this grouping beneficient.

Look at the smallest level that we know about by first hand experience in hunter gatherer groups. Mostly gone now, but still a few groups remained long enough to be studied.

The smallest bands were maybe three or four families raising children. They were generally monogomous, but married between bands. This has to be an adaptation. If you had multiple small bands they would share their offspring. Those that didn't woudl have more genetic diseases and inbreeding and die out eventually. So you'd send the male, or the female, to another group to marry and better your survival.

So the gregarious nature of humans matched with the need for new genes led to social pair bonding. Maybe.