Not to get into the “alpha male” debate all over again, but I just wanted to throw in a little factoid I stumbled across recently: The current human population is descended from about twice as many women as men.

Further, I wanted to reiterate an argument I made here previously regarding whether monogamy is “natural.” I believe it doesn’t much matter.

Democracy and capitalism are hardly “natural,” but these institutions have done a great job of channeling humanity’s natural drives into productive and peaceful pursuits. So it is with monogamy. Men may have a natural urge to stray, and women may have a natural urge to pursue higher-status men than their current partners, but the institution of marriage does us a service by putting the brakes on these tendencies. Monogamy creates a stable environment for children, controls sexual jealousy, and (by forcing men and women to pair up, rather than allowing high-status men to accumulate multiple wives) ensures that most men who want to marry can do so.

There’s a reason, after all, that in the great historical struggle between different human mating patterns, monogamy won.