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posted by martyb on Friday June 30 2017, @02:26AM   Printer-friendly
from the Search-the-personals? dept.

Individuals in polyamorous relationships report more commitment and investment with their primary partners and report more time spent on sex with their secondary partners, a new study authored by Western researchers has found.

While previous research suggests that consensually non-monogamous relationships do not significantly differ from monogamous relationships on a number of relationship-quality indicators, this is one of the first studies to examine potential differences in the relationship dynamics between an individual's multiple partners, said lead author Rhonda Balzarini, a PhD candidate in the Psychology.

The authors asked 1,308 people in online questionnaires (drawn from polyamorous affinity groups on social media) about the dynamics of their polyamorous relationships.

"The study suggests people who are 'primary' partners – those who share a household and finances, for example – experience greater commitment and investment in the relationship. However, the secondary partnership experiences greater proportion of time spent on sex, and this remains a factor even when we account for relationship length and living arrangements," she said.

Does this explain why kings and sultans had harems?


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 30 2017, @04:55AM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 30 2017, @04:55AM (#533293)

    "It does not make evolutionary sense for women to be particularly promiscuous"

    Bullshit.
    Polyandry would provide more diverse offspring and the extra investment from multiple men contributing as providers and protectors would increase the chances for the offspring.

  • (Score: 1) by ewk on Friday June 30 2017, @12:21PM

    by ewk (5923) on Friday June 30 2017, @12:21PM (#533390)

    Just as long as those men do not use that extra investment to bust each others skulls (to become and remain the one and only provider for and to the woman involved...

    --
    I don't always react, but when I do, I do it on SoylentNews
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 30 2017, @02:46PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 30 2017, @02:46PM (#533467)

    Polyandry was never even a realistic possibility until recently. If a woman has 3 husbands, that means that she needs to have a bare minimum of just over 4 children in order to maintain the population. And she'd have to have a whopping 5 in order to increase the population. Pregnancy up until relatively recently was extremely dangerous and women regularly died as a result.

    What's more, aside from pregnancy related deaths, the world was far more dangerous for men. For example Europe would lose a third of it's male population on a relatively regular basis in their massive wars.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 30 2017, @04:35PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 30 2017, @04:35PM (#533544)

      Whether or not it is a viable population strategy has no bearing on it being a favorable evolutionary position for an individual.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 30 2017, @03:12PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 30 2017, @03:12PM (#533485)

    Arbitrary genetic diversity is not a good thing.

    The whole process through which evolution has brought us from nonsentient blobs to what we are today is natural selection. It's not fair and it's not meant to be. Nature and randomness result in a variety of different traits and characteristics. Those that make individuals more well suited to their environment get passed on, traits that make individuals less well suited disappear. This is the reason that women have always been attracted to strength, power, and intelligence. Men by contrast have been attracted to physical characteristics which tend to be indicative of somebody capable of birthing and raising a child healthfully.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 30 2017, @04:22PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 30 2017, @04:22PM (#533534)

      Hindsight makes it relatively easy to explain which traits would be favorable, but genetic diversity is evolutionarily favorable because it hedges against unpredicted environmental changes. You are correct that certain traits are instinctually considered as favorable, but there are always fitness costs (metabolic cost for bigger muscles and a larger brain).