Upon consideration at length, inspired by some degree of epiphany, I have gained some insight into the social context in which we find ourselves. While the particular topic of this essay may seem quite limited and ephemeral to much we are concerned about today, on the contrary, it is of the essence in many of matters of current import across a wide spectrum of concerns.
Were we a species that bred yearly, or dispersed our procreative issue on the wind, this would not be the case, but we not only intensively care for our progeny longer than any other species, we are also hypersexual, so reproductive function is integral to human society in almost every way.
Throughout this discussion I will speak generally, since individuals express their association variably, yet as a species, and as classes within that species, we exhibit certain traits which can be considered normal or natural behaviour.
Most species which form pair bonds do so at the earliest possible point in their maturation, which maximizes their chance of success breeding in a dangerous world, and H. sapiens is no different. It is undeniable that just before menarche and puberty both males and females experience overwhelming interest in sex.
Prior to the current intensive social management via various institutional mechanisms undertaken to most profitably exercise productive control of populations, most societies naturally paired their young at about this time. Given the hypervariability of our species culturally, and the desperate intraspecific competition that characterizes our recent history, there is no utterly natural baseline modus for this. Rather the particular mechanisms employed, dowry, bride price, priest, pimp, eloping, and etc., had in common but one trait, which was that nubile females were the primary ingredient in the reproductive mechanism.
As mechanized warfare burgeoned, bonding with males has increasingly been discouraged, and nubile females have been ever more commoditized. When warfare depended on the prowess of individual warriors, rather than mechanization, males needed to be availed of wives early, as incessant war often curtailed the ability of a polity to provide competitive armies to sustain it's survival if warriors hadn't bred prior to dying on the battlefield.
Men are disposable. War is generally how they are disposed of, if natural forces don't remove them from the genepool first. Since the ability to effect and survive violence is a primary evolutionary force on our species, males of greater capacity to wage war are more desirable and this is obvious in the reproductive record. It well explains why we are sexually dimorphic, for example.
Without detailing specific numbers, a small percentage of males (alphas) tend to reproduce with the majority of females, producing harems, bigamy, and philandering. Nubile females are amongst the most desirable spoils of war, and propaganda inspiring defenders of a polity against aggression almost universally emphasizes protecting them, for good reason.
However, where peace breaks out and civilization can erupt, a polity must either suffer the utter disregard of non-alpha males, or provide them suitable solutions to their primary need procreatively. If the majority of the males in a society aren't availed of opportunity to meet their social needs, that society is practically instantly destroyed, consumed by neighbors that do.
This is exacerbated by the exponential increase in warfighting capacity that is provided by technological advance and industrial prowess, and the source of these culturally critical advantages is non-alpha males. The traits necessary to technological advance and industrial production are practically diametrically opposed to those necessary to personally slay enemies on a battlefield, and females have been obligated to raise offspring and thus unavailable for either purpose.
Civilized polities then have best succeeded in post-agricultural times by strongly providing mates to non-alpha males and still leaving alphas opportunity to philander, possess seraglios, or effect rapine while looting during war.
While speciation can take more than 100 generations, intraspecific adaptation occurs far more rapidly, and I expect that such critical matters are effected after even only one, or at the most two, generations in localized theaters, and this localization is repeated globally.
Any failure to adopt such measures to ensure military superiority immediately removes such polity and it's members from the genepool in view of the inexorable pressure of intraspecific competition.
In modern times, i.e. historically, civilizations then have featured mechanisms that pair-bonded nubile females with males about to become either militarily or industrially productive, as all alternative modalities are incapable of competing intraspecifically.
H. sapiens form pair bonds best at about that age. It is cliche how intense the first, or 'puppy' love is to youths, and this enables the individuals to create a life long bond that best empowers competitive civilized societies.
Why then do we see such dramatic discouraging of such pair bonding today? In the West it is even a crime for pubescent individuals to reproduce, and it is likely that the majority of captives of Western polities are enslaved because they undertook what are now called 'sex crimes'. That is the case at least in the state wherein I reside, and given the astounding propaganda and social pressures exerted to counter the natural behaviour of humanity across the West, I doubt it's much different elsewhere.
To understand why this is happening, it is necessary to grasp why power is wielded by particular individuals, who do so not to benefit the species, culture, or polity in which they exist, but themselves. Such a class features specific traits which makes them able to seize power in a polity and successfully pit that power against their ilk and competition.
The traits that induce such success in the present circumstances, what we call civilization, or the regional polities that gain control of the resources and populations and survive in competition with their neighboring polities, are particular and specific, different than those that produce great warriors/alphas, or workers/betas.
Invariably, those individuals whose facility at controlling others, manipulation, deception, betrayal, and etc., is strongest, rise to control given polities, like scum rises to the surface of a sewage pond. Given that this class of individuals has far different interests and abilities than women, alpha, or beta males, the societies they control are directed to best meet their needs, which are not the same as the rest of society.
This is why we see nubile females so strongly sexualized, pair bonding not only discouraged but criminalized, and the predatory sexuality of alphas both criminalized, and encouraged tacitly. Many aspects of extant global and regional civilization are immediately and clearly explained by societies being molded to best meet the needs of sociopaths and psychopaths.
Strong pair bonds that produce stable families are critical to beta males, and unsatisfied populations of workers produce extremely unstable societies. Such pair bonds are of little interest to alphas, whose interests instead are best served by hypergamy, as are the interests of women, whose reproductive success may best be effected thereby. While a functional society is, of course, of critical import to successful reproduction, it is a rather distant mechanism to be under the control of the evolutionary force on females, who have historically not had direct control of polities.
Sociopaths and psychopaths have but little interest in pair bonds, and more closely mirror alphas in their reproductive strategy. Since they do not fight on battlefields and rape the hapless women their armies have conquered, their hypergamy must therefore be effected off the battlefield, and depends on a large population of sexually unbonded and available women, particularly nubile females. A novel mechanism that has eventuated in modern times is stake-weighting, which strongly favors sociopaths due to their ability to self-aggrandize. Not only does this facilitate prostitution, but also has ineluctably affected how societies do enter their young into pair bonds as well.
Across the West we see that society is effected to produce exactly this situation in every respect, and every institution from school, to factory, to church, demonstrates nearly maximal pressure to produce nubile females sexually available to wealthy psychopaths. Further, mechanisms that reduce beta pair bonding, from chemical castration, enslavement and captivity, to homosexuality and similar anti-reproductive dementias, are strongly exerted.
One of the factors that makes this possible to the scum of psychopaths that tend to control polities is that they cooperate internationally to create this situation, insofar as this can be effected without imperiling them competitively with their neighbors. Since they have this common trait, and can cooperate to serve it without affecting their desperate competition, they do.
Note: I use polities rather than nations, countries, or cultures for a reason. Whether an institution is a school, a company, or a government, it is a political entity, and thus a target for the sociopath on the make.
For most of humanity this is not only not optimal, but extremely harmful. Males that enter into a strong pair bond and breed are transformed by the experience, becoming mature adults due to the extraordinary hormonal and cultural changes that induces. While squalling offspring are easily regarded as a difficult burden at best by rational consideration, there are native biological effects that reward successfully caring for young practically immeasurably, and this cannot be explained to the childless, as the benefits are practically only psychological and emotional, which are difficult to convey at best, and impossible to understand without benefiting from them, particularly in a society so strongly affected by indoctrination effected by psychopaths for their aggrandizement.
However, it should be immediately obvious that our biology necessarily benefits successful breeders, and that such mechanisms must be substantial, given the difficulty of doing so.
Since civilization is essentially the product of these betas, who are the technologists, scientists, and workers of the world, so decreasing their ability to be rewarded has not only alarming but existential import to humanity. While pair bonds can be successfully created after the optimal pubescent time, such bonds are far less strong and certain. We see that over half of marriages presently end in divorce, and that society very, very strongly induces this tendency by making it so profitable to women that marriages that don't end in divorce (or necessitate tolerating hypergamy) are quite remarkable statistically, and between people that have very strong abilities (particularly the women) to resist corruption and maintain the family that is the basis for civilization. Many other factors also inhibit the success of beta bonding, such as the hypersexualization of nubile females, criminalization of pubescent bonding, and sexual dementias, as well as financial and political impediments.
This is existentially perilous because the traits that empower psychopaths are diametrically opposed to those necessary to prevent a civilization from suffering military defeat, or other cataclysmic destruction. Given the increasingly potent technology that is deployed, and the purely self-aggrandizing nature of sociopaths, the danger that catastrophic failure of civilization will result from being under the control of individuals that do not care in the least about it and are in possession of the power to utterly destroy it is obvious.
Perhaps more germaine to most of us than the threat to civilization itself are the personal lack of fulfillment, and the harm done most of us by societies designed not to optimize our success and happiness, but instead that of psychopaths.
In conclusion, it seems obvious that for most people, just relying on the self-serving of psychopaths to control society is less than optimal at best, and existentially harmful generally. We certainly have the capacity to effect society far differently than it is presently, but doing so not only has immense costs that would have to be borne, but also requires a substantial and radical change in how we think of everything - particularly our selves.
I'd appreciate any feedback you might care to offer, and am quite interested in how you expect things will evolve over time, as technology continues to increase the power of individuals versus institutions, and society increasingly destabilizes. If you have specific insight into how technologies can critically contribute to successful stabilization and increase in civilization, such as cryptocurrency, 3D printing, etc., I'd be very interested in reading your comments.
Merry Christmas!
