[StolarStorm]

There is countless information out there regarding this issue. Rather than bore anyone I'll just leave you with a brief question/comment. If humans are monogamous why do almost all humans "mate" with several partners over their lifetime? Many species of birds that are truly monogamous do in fact limit themselves to ONE mate and one mate only. Only a very rare human has sex with one partner only their whole life....

That said I do believe that we are serially monogamous .. mostly... that means that while we are with a partner we are monogamous but then the desire is to move on to another monogamous relationship.

[FITZ]

If humans are monogamous why do almost all humans "mate" with several partners over their lifetime?

They do now that lifespans are longer, families are smaller and women are in the workplace. In other cultures and generations, marriages were arranged by the family ---those were not easily ended to start up a new marriage with someone else. When the life expectancy was mid-forties and living conditions harder, people didn't have much time for that, men were too busy supporting their larger families and women were too busy with babies and small children much of their entire lives.

[discostu]

But it doesn't matter what our instinct is. Civilization and society are the art of conquering our baser instincts. Our instincts don't include things like toilets and clothes either, but when we see naked people defacating in public we don't excuse the behavior as "merely following instinct". We have logic and reason and with those we can and regularly do conquer our instincts, but some people want the best of both worlds, they want the comfort of the stable relationship and the fun of the wild oats. If their partner is hep on this that's OK, every relationship makes it's own rules. But if you swore before God and witnesses to forsake all others then you should do it, if you couldn't then you shouldn't have (these are all hypothetical "you"s I don't like the depersonalized "a person").