1. On a comment at:
indiafacts.co.in/butchers-teach-the-values-of-satya-and-ahimsa/
While it's true that humans - at least our hominid species - are known as Super Predators*, technically modern humans aren't carnivores. We are scavengers, hence omnivores, like dogs (wolves) and bears.
Our scavenging nature (humans being omnivores) made us more adaptable to different environments. But being omnivores also means humans *can* live -as in, naturally survive- on a vegetarian diet, just like some Indian bears are predominantly "vegetarian" as described by natural historians/biologists (these bears may also eat insects for extra protein, so they aren't actually vegetarian in a strict sense).
While humans and dogs can be vegetarian - because they are omnivores - carnivores, like cats (which are true carnivores) should not be made vegetarian: they can easily die on a vegetarian diet that does not rigorously supplement them with animal products like taurine. Cats can go blind and die if made vegetarian without carefully monitoring that an unnatural vegetarian diet is giving them everything they need in the right amounts.
Yet despite the fact that cats are carnivores (must have meat in their diets), some western vegan and vegetarian PETA types want to make not just their pet dogs vegetarian but also their pet cats. It's part of their monotheistic tendency to force their choice/their very sudden conversion to vegetarianism onto others - no longer just onto other humans in far away animal-friendly heathen climes either, but now onto carnivorous animals too, even their own pets (whom they supposedly love: but only once it has been forced into vegetarianism too, apparently).
A link with some supporting info about making a pet dog vegetarian vs forcing a pet cat to be vegetarian:
theguardian.com/environment/blog/2010/may/24/vegetarianism-pets-national-vegetarian-week-cats-dogs
2. indiafacts.co.in/why-are-hindus-offended-by-m-f-hussains-art/
indiafacts.co.in/why-are-hindus-offended-by-m-f-hussains-art/
Uh, the above seems to have missed out another long-standing (and still not defunct) biological/anthropologically-ascribed reasoning for the evolution of marriage: as a means for the male to acquire right of (often/usually exclusive) sexual access to the female(s). So a component of that is as an attempt to limit sexual access to the same female(s) by other males. Oh, and it's "in return for resources", which the female presumably wants for herself and her future brood.
Don't Indian men know that feminist women keep hitting other wo/men over the head with the above?
It is immediately apparent in a certain common type of polygyny like islamic harems and mormon christianism.
ADDED:
Here:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage
And also:
www.bradley.edu/dotAsset/165805.pdf
Sexual Strategies Theory: An evolutionary perspective on human mating
Though an old paper from 1993, it lists various reasonings for human mating and marriage, besides the above ones on rights of sexual access and paternity certainty.
In Roman society, marriage was a [literal] contract, hence - like all Roman contracts, including between male business partners or army officers - marriage too was sealed with a kiss (it's where the "now you may kiss the bride" in western weddings comes from, though it wasn't originally meant in any romantic sense). Roman men limited sexual access to their wife (though early Roman women already had less freedom than say the Indian women at that time: could not attend some public entertainments for instance, and university and voting were gradually opened up to them, see McCabe, before christianism then appeared and set Roman women and all converted women back forever). Roman marriages meant the wife's children were legitimate in the eyes of Roman inheritance laws - not peculiar to Rome - but which was the practical purpose of marriage among Romans: just as some earlier Greek communities were predominantly homosexual but had a wife restricted to the house for producing offspring*, some Roman men were homosexual individuals and had male lovers, but would still have a wife to reproduce with.
[* There was of course a time in antiquity when the powers that be in a part of Greek society - these powers being male and gay - famously contemplated genociding all women if only they could find some other means of securing progeny. <- Just so that people know that LGBT types don't guarantee to be quite so peaceful when they cease to be a minority - nor that they were always on the receiving end of persecution - and which tendencies are actually also still hinted at in modern gay literature (fiction/fantasy) which often envisions a world without women, and where all men are -of course- gay. And vice-versa seen in lesbian feminist literature.]
Compared to Rome, marital monogamy rather than sexual monogamy was more common in the very ancient Greece of the epic era, and in China (where marital monogamy is on the increase again among very rich and powerful males, as per the news): men will marry one woman (and her sexual access is limited thereby, but children by the wife have slightly more priority/legitimacy than others) but the man may sleep with other women, or even keep other women to sleep with:
- Ancient Greeks could keep female slaves captured during war for this - which the Greeks felt was more ethical than murdering the women, although the (often already married) women's existing kids were at times murdered and her husband and brothers and relatives usually were too.
- Chinese men kept a spouse and concubines, regarded as 2nd to nth wife.
No genetic monogamy.
Some modern Indics [males, as becomes obvious] of the "Indic Civilisation" kind (who are outspoken about not being heathen, btw) declare loudly that ancient Indians also did marital monogamy not sexual monogamy, and argue that such is therefore also the culture that modern Indians should continue to have: where men will marry one woman, and sexual access to her is restricted by marriage, whereas he may visit prostitutes. (<- Transferring direct statements of such people.) Genetic monogamy seems to be implied in such a scenario: as less rights are accorded to the other female mates, than in China and ancient Greece.
However, India has all kinds of marriages: polygamies (polygynandry, polyandry and polygyny), and not just some forms of monogamies, but also a combination of social-marital-sexual-and-genetic monogamy (of which Sri Rama is often held up as the example by Hindoos, perhaps because monogamy is not expected of kShatriya kings since they have to ensure succession).
In most of these cases - even in polygynandry - there are restrictions on sexual access, but in several of these cases can see that it is not merely incumbent on one gender.
[Contrastive with the above is christowestern society which - with the exception of polygyny Mormon types - claims to be of the most restricted/exclusive version of monogamy, but is not only often a serial monogamy nowadays, but was always hypocritical as to its alleged exclusive monogamy, and broke each of these. A recent infamous case is that of an outspoken anti-gay US politician who - upon reaching middle-age/midlife crisis - sneakily went behind his wife's back and donated his sperm to many lesbian couples in a distant western country - where lesbians were allowed to have children and which women were waiting for sperm to get pregnant - all so that he could have many more children than the many he already had spawned with his wife: he felt compelled by his smattering of biology to spread his genes - of the christist, hypocrite and philanderer variety - on into as many future offspring as possible. When his wife found out about his infidelity - he broke the genetic monogamy component of the all-exclusive monogamy proclaimed by western christians but which they barely ever keep to, whereas many heathens do to this day - the wife didn't just feel cheated, she was furious.]
Anyway, while basic biology motivates human mating and hence initially motivated human mating systems, there is also a social and behavioural component to marriage that's unique to humans, as testified by the construct of legitimacy and inheritance laws etc around such matters. That is, marriage has moved past biological factors into anthropology territory.
Since humans have the marriage construct - which is more sociological than biological - the reasons given from anthropology for the origins of marriage may be more applicable. Dr Roberts below is an anthropologist:
Extracted from
Can also compare the complex marriage/social contract systems regulating what is official (e.g. recognised by law or society) among modern humans - since even before the neolithic - with how far they are removed from some biological motivations to mate in certain other species:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monogamous_pairing_in_animals
Also:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_conflict
Fortunately humans don't seem to as frequently exhibit the more extreme of the tendencies described in
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_conflict#Sexual_conflict_before_and_during_mating
whereas these are biological features of some species. While others are behavioural features*, though too general across the species to be dubbed the local "culture" of a subgroup of the species (which contrasts with more sadistically violent tendencies in one killer whale group vs another killer whale group that doesn't engage in the same 'pastime' at all, and which behaviour of the first is therefore regarded as "culture" by biologists).
* E.g. as a general behavioural feature of a species, dolphins and some large sea mammals gangrape (combined with often murdering) females for "sport": they prevent the female that's being force-mated by the gang from coming up for air. Such matings by dolphins are not always aimed at producing viable offspring. (Dolphins were known early on to enjoy mating, i.e. not always aiming at reproduction.)
POST EDITED: for more links, less "IIRC".
indiafacts.co.in/butchers-teach-the-values-of-satya-and-ahimsa/
Quote: Jishnu Radha Rajan ââ¬Â¢ 11 days ago
[...]
2. That
any vegetarian does not appreciate
butchering to be a virtuous act goes without saying. But that is the nature of
one set of people that is all. There are beings whose primary nature is
predation and human animal since creation has been carnivorous in
majority. As I understand such a basic prAkRta aspect cannot be seen judgmentally. Corollary of this is that his profession is
one of the most commonly involved and permanent ones in the history of
mankind, how much ever seen with contempt both by herbivores and fellow carnivores.
[...]
While it's true that humans - at least our hominid species - are known as Super Predators*, technically modern humans aren't carnivores. We are scavengers, hence omnivores, like dogs (wolves) and bears.
Our scavenging nature (humans being omnivores) made us more adaptable to different environments. But being omnivores also means humans *can* live -as in, naturally survive- on a vegetarian diet, just like some Indian bears are predominantly "vegetarian" as described by natural historians/biologists (these bears may also eat insects for extra protein, so they aren't actually vegetarian in a strict sense).
While humans and dogs can be vegetarian - because they are omnivores - carnivores, like cats (which are true carnivores) should not be made vegetarian: they can easily die on a vegetarian diet that does not rigorously supplement them with animal products like taurine. Cats can go blind and die if made vegetarian without carefully monitoring that an unnatural vegetarian diet is giving them everything they need in the right amounts.
Yet despite the fact that cats are carnivores (must have meat in their diets), some western vegan and vegetarian PETA types want to make not just their pet dogs vegetarian but also their pet cats. It's part of their monotheistic tendency to force their choice/their very sudden conversion to vegetarianism onto others - no longer just onto other humans in far away animal-friendly heathen climes either, but now onto carnivorous animals too, even their own pets (whom they supposedly love: but only once it has been forced into vegetarianism too, apparently).
A link with some supporting info about making a pet dog vegetarian vs forcing a pet cat to be vegetarian:
theguardian.com/environment/blog/2010/may/24/vegetarianism-pets-national-vegetarian-week-cats-dogs
2. indiafacts.co.in/why-are-hindus-offended-by-m-f-hussains-art/
Quote:Jishnu Radha Rajan 12 days ago(Aside: The above forgot to note that polar bear males counter-intuitively kill off their own offspring too - without knowing that it's their own kids. Polar bear males mate for a period then leave a pregnant female, which raises the kids solo and has to keep them away from the constant threat of adult male polar bears, any of whom - including the offspring's biological father too - can kill the cubs. Outside the mating period, an adult male polar bear can also attack and kill a pregnant adult female polar bear, including the one it impregnated.)
Animal has a wide spectrum of behaviors just as humans and human being more evolved and complex has even wider range of behaviors. There are evolved vertebrates that stay true to single mate, as there are polygamous ones in packs/prides. There are animals that part ways after mating and the female is left fending for the offspring. There are males that kill the offspring of other males so the female can be motivated into a relation. So it is not factually wrong to say female animal with her knowledge of male parent and her own commitment to offspring seeks to bind the male in the family.
indiafacts.co.in/why-are-hindus-offended-by-m-f-hussains-art/
Quote:"when Western women vociferously asserted their sexuality and demanded equal rights to have sex without marriage being a precondition"
but the very notion of marriage and commitment is the human evolution over animal life. It is the female that knows the male parent of offspring. It is for the male's commitment towards offspring that female seeks to bind the male in the family. So it is quite silly to say women demand right to sex without marriage/commitment when the stake lies with female and displays ignorance of nature and biology both.
Uh, the above seems to have missed out another long-standing (and still not defunct) biological/anthropologically-ascribed reasoning for the evolution of marriage: as a means for the male to acquire right of (often/usually exclusive) sexual access to the female(s). So a component of that is as an attempt to limit sexual access to the same female(s) by other males. Oh, and it's "in return for resources", which the female presumably wants for herself and her future brood.
Don't Indian men know that feminist women keep hitting other wo/men over the head with the above?
It is immediately apparent in a certain common type of polygyny like islamic harems and mormon christianism.
ADDED:
Here:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage
Quote:Right of sexual access
In a 1997 article in Current Anthropology, Duran Bell describes marriage as "a relationship between one or more men (male or female) in severalty to one or more women that provides those men with a demand-right of sexual access within a domestic group and identifies women who bear the obligation of yielding to the demands of those specific men." In referring to "men in severalty", Bell is referring to corporate kin groups such as lineages which, in having paid brideprice, retain a right in a woman's offspring even if her husband (a lineage member) deceases (Levirate marriage). In referring to "men (male or female)", Bell is referring to women within the lineage who may stand in as the "social fathers" of the wife's children born of other lovers. (See Nuer "Ghost marriage")[7]
And also:
www.bradley.edu/dotAsset/165805.pdf
Sexual Strategies Theory: An evolutionary perspective on human mating
Though an old paper from 1993, it lists various reasonings for human mating and marriage, besides the above ones on rights of sexual access and paternity certainty.
In Roman society, marriage was a [literal] contract, hence - like all Roman contracts, including between male business partners or army officers - marriage too was sealed with a kiss (it's where the "now you may kiss the bride" in western weddings comes from, though it wasn't originally meant in any romantic sense). Roman men limited sexual access to their wife (though early Roman women already had less freedom than say the Indian women at that time: could not attend some public entertainments for instance, and university and voting were gradually opened up to them, see McCabe, before christianism then appeared and set Roman women and all converted women back forever). Roman marriages meant the wife's children were legitimate in the eyes of Roman inheritance laws - not peculiar to Rome - but which was the practical purpose of marriage among Romans: just as some earlier Greek communities were predominantly homosexual but had a wife restricted to the house for producing offspring*, some Roman men were homosexual individuals and had male lovers, but would still have a wife to reproduce with.
[* There was of course a time in antiquity when the powers that be in a part of Greek society - these powers being male and gay - famously contemplated genociding all women if only they could find some other means of securing progeny. <- Just so that people know that LGBT types don't guarantee to be quite so peaceful when they cease to be a minority - nor that they were always on the receiving end of persecution - and which tendencies are actually also still hinted at in modern gay literature (fiction/fantasy) which often envisions a world without women, and where all men are -of course- gay. And vice-versa seen in lesbian feminist literature.]
Compared to Rome, marital monogamy rather than sexual monogamy was more common in the very ancient Greece of the epic era, and in China (where marital monogamy is on the increase again among very rich and powerful males, as per the news): men will marry one woman (and her sexual access is limited thereby, but children by the wife have slightly more priority/legitimacy than others) but the man may sleep with other women, or even keep other women to sleep with:
- Ancient Greeks could keep female slaves captured during war for this - which the Greeks felt was more ethical than murdering the women, although the (often already married) women's existing kids were at times murdered and her husband and brothers and relatives usually were too.
- Chinese men kept a spouse and concubines, regarded as 2nd to nth wife.
No genetic monogamy.
Some modern Indics [males, as becomes obvious] of the "Indic Civilisation" kind (who are outspoken about not being heathen, btw) declare loudly that ancient Indians also did marital monogamy not sexual monogamy, and argue that such is therefore also the culture that modern Indians should continue to have: where men will marry one woman, and sexual access to her is restricted by marriage, whereas he may visit prostitutes. (<- Transferring direct statements of such people.) Genetic monogamy seems to be implied in such a scenario: as less rights are accorded to the other female mates, than in China and ancient Greece.
However, India has all kinds of marriages: polygamies (polygynandry, polyandry and polygyny), and not just some forms of monogamies, but also a combination of social-marital-sexual-and-genetic monogamy (of which Sri Rama is often held up as the example by Hindoos, perhaps because monogamy is not expected of kShatriya kings since they have to ensure succession).
In most of these cases - even in polygynandry - there are restrictions on sexual access, but in several of these cases can see that it is not merely incumbent on one gender.
[Contrastive with the above is christowestern society which - with the exception of polygyny Mormon types - claims to be of the most restricted/exclusive version of monogamy, but is not only often a serial monogamy nowadays, but was always hypocritical as to its alleged exclusive monogamy, and broke each of these. A recent infamous case is that of an outspoken anti-gay US politician who - upon reaching middle-age/midlife crisis - sneakily went behind his wife's back and donated his sperm to many lesbian couples in a distant western country - where lesbians were allowed to have children and which women were waiting for sperm to get pregnant - all so that he could have many more children than the many he already had spawned with his wife: he felt compelled by his smattering of biology to spread his genes - of the christist, hypocrite and philanderer variety - on into as many future offspring as possible. When his wife found out about his infidelity - he broke the genetic monogamy component of the all-exclusive monogamy proclaimed by western christians but which they barely ever keep to, whereas many heathens do to this day - the wife didn't just feel cheated, she was furious.]
Anyway, while basic biology motivates human mating and hence initially motivated human mating systems, there is also a social and behavioural component to marriage that's unique to humans, as testified by the construct of legitimacy and inheritance laws etc around such matters. That is, marriage has moved past biological factors into anthropology territory.
Since humans have the marriage construct - which is more sociological than biological - the reasons given from anthropology for the origins of marriage may be more applicable. Dr Roberts below is an anthropologist:
Extracted from
Quote:(Narrator is AR)(Seen from this point of view, more symbiotic than parasitic.)
We (humans, i.e. the species) evolved as hunter gatherers, living on similar foods as the Hadza (African community). Finding food shapes their society, but it has affected all of us. It seems that the Hadza, and presumably our ancestors too, found a very efficient and effective way of surviving here. Men and women each have different and distinctive roles. So the women go digging for tubers and collecting berries, whilst the men go out hunting for meat and honey. They'll eat some of it while they're out in the bush, but they'll bring a lot of it back home to share, so it makes sense to pair up.
Having a partner to share food with is a massive advantage in this harsh environment. And many Hadza men and women marry for life.
Sharing food like this is thought to be the origin of pairing up and staying together.
[...]
(OOU-2)
Can also compare the complex marriage/social contract systems regulating what is official (e.g. recognised by law or society) among modern humans - since even before the neolithic - with how far they are removed from some biological motivations to mate in certain other species:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monogamous_pairing_in_animals
Quote:From a new biological point of view, monogamy could result from mate guarding and is engaged as a result of sexual conflict.[7](A form of mate guarding is still seen in humans, as explained earlier above - marriage as a means to restrict sexual access to the mate, enforced by society, e.g. obvious in Victorian England - but not quite the at times more literal ways in which mate guarding happens among some other animal species.)
Also:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_conflict
Fortunately humans don't seem to as frequently exhibit the more extreme of the tendencies described in
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_conflict#Sexual_conflict_before_and_during_mating
whereas these are biological features of some species. While others are behavioural features*, though too general across the species to be dubbed the local "culture" of a subgroup of the species (which contrasts with more sadistically violent tendencies in one killer whale group vs another killer whale group that doesn't engage in the same 'pastime' at all, and which behaviour of the first is therefore regarded as "culture" by biologists).
* E.g. as a general behavioural feature of a species, dolphins and some large sea mammals gangrape (combined with often murdering) females for "sport": they prevent the female that's being force-mated by the gang from coming up for air. Such matings by dolphins are not always aimed at producing viable offspring. (Dolphins were known early on to enjoy mating, i.e. not always aiming at reproduction.)
POST EDITED: for more links, less "IIRC".