Is Monogamy a Myth?

I read this article on Psychology Today that states that humans "carry the biological imprint of polygamy, the opposite of lifelong fidelity to one mate." The article also goes on to state that "80% of early human societies were polygamous." The article goes on to speculate that later societies adopted monogamy just to better raise children, and also because maintaining harems wasn't cost effective for men who weren't sultans. (Here's the link to that article if  you're interested to read it.)

Now this article and various other like it got me thinking about monogamy and its relevance in today's time. You talk to single men and they'll tell you how many women treated them like options and women seem to have the same opinion of guys. Makes you feel like monogamy as a concept might be a myth or redundant for that matter.

While the idea of finding "the one" is still quite revered, the means can be pretty flexible. What with a variety of dating apps available to everyone, meeting people and falling in love or rather just fooling around if you're unsure, seems to be the flavor of the decade. Let me make it clear here that I'm referring to monogamy as "the practice of having one sexual partner at a time". Think about it, how many people do we know that are truly monogamous? The number, when you really think about it, is surprisingly small, isn't it?

I am just trying to establish whether monogamy was a flawed logic to begin with? Like mentioned in the article, monogamy isn't an evolutionary trait for human beings. So for whatever reasons people adopted monogamy, take away those and a person has no reason to stick to one partner. I mean, if you were trying to be monogamous because that was socially acceptable, that is becoming more and more redundant with time. So is it even reasonable to expect monogamy from your partner in this day and time?

Another article (link here) suggests that we should have "realistic" expectations from our partners because we might not be meeting all of their "needs". Then there's the concept of 'pair-bonding' which essentially means that a couple would be socially monogamous while retaining sexual desires for others, and often engaging in sexual activity with strangers. Sounds weird? Well, that's because you are conditioned by the society you grew up in to believe that infidelity is wrong. What if, right from  childhood, you were raised in a culture, where both men and women had several partners simultaneously and it was absolutely accepted? Would you feel differently then?

Here's an excerpt from this article (link here) that talks about the evolutionary need for pair-bonding:

"Monogamous pair-bonds allowed ancient human males to coexist peacefully. The families of the pair-bonded partners came together as a band. The group working together was able to gather many more resources than just two individual humans traveling together.

"At the same time, individual humans were still under evolutionary pressure to find the best mate, the one that will produce the best offspring. And when sexual candidates pair off into monogamy, the best mates can become unavailable.

"The way this plays out for males and females is slightly different. For females, the best thing to do is to get a worse male bonded and committed, i.e. bringing meat or other resources, then sneak off to make sure the better male is the actual father of her offspring. These additional males may also provide gifts and resources like the primary male, further providing for the female’s survival.

For men, of course, the goal is simply to sleep with as many of the females as possible, taken or not."

I started comparing this analysis with how things play out in the modern dating scene and the parallel drawn was astounding. Take, for example, Sahiba, an average single Delhi girl, who has over 1500 matches on Tinder. She goes out with a different guy every week. She is charming and pretty and guys don't mind spending obscene amounts of money to woo her, with the eventual goal of sex/relationship. 

On the other hand, let us take the example of Sheenu, one of Sahiba's matches, a handsome and rich guy who has clearly mentioned on his profile that he isn't looking for anything serious. He's playing the field. He looks at each of his dates as a conquest. In spite of the huge disparity of the Tinder experience, Tinder works well for both of these people. But monogamy as a concept is nowhere to be seen here. 

And I am not arguing about whether it should or should not be. I am really not concerned with the right or wrong of it. I am just wondering if anyone still believes in the concept. Something to think about, isn't it?