What failed were two things. First of all, for marriage to work as a better system of biology, it must be socially enforced. Those who violate the marriage, from the inside, or the outside, must be punished by society as a whole. If society stops enforcing marriage, it has to be self-policed, which is much less likely to work.
The other problem was that marriage was corrupted with the dowry, in an effort to turn a biological system into a business. Essentially prostituting women in biologically undesirable couplings so that her family will profit from selling her.
This was doubly bad, not only for the motive, but the means. This is because there is considerable speculation that prostitution, as such, fills a biological purpose as well.
For a given large group of men and women, there are a considerable number that for several reasons either should not, or cannot reproduce. Yet only some of them are “diverted” away from sexuality by being homosexual. The rest of the non-breeders thus interfere with those couples who should breed.
Prostitutes, often sterile or infertile, function well as such a diversion. It’s noteworthy that this may be such an important function, that even some postmenopausal women become hypersexual, to fulfill the role of prostitutes when there are not enough prostitutes.
And ironically, morality, in this case the opposition to prostitution, is also useful to keep males that should be breeding *away* from prostitutes.
So when a dowry is paid, a breeding female is sold to what usually is what should be a non-breeding male, often far older than the age of optimal fatherhood. As often as not this results both in poor quality offspring, and because the father dies soon after, insufficient, single parent upbringing of the child.
It is ironic that the rejection of this corruption overdid it, assuming that the perversion of dowry was a problem inherent in marriage itself. Which is why in modern times marriage has been so despised.
Wow, what a fascinating post! I will respond, but unfortunately I have to run to work and don’t have the time to respond in suitable detail right now. I will get back to you tonight for sure. I hadn’t thought about the dowry aspect, and that’s really interesting. Also, your comment about homosexuality as a way of taking those who should not reproduce out of the breeding pool makes a lot of sense; I wonder why I hadn’t thought of that “diversion” before. Back in 8-10 hours....
I believe the dowry was intended as a tool to prevent divorce. It may have been a good business deal for the husband to marry, but it would have been terrible to have to return it, ensuring a hopefully better future for the daughter than if he were allowed to use her at will and get rid of her when he wanted, no?