The nature of man

I am going to go out on a limb here and say the nature of man is not monogamous. In fact, recent genetic testing done on supposed monogamous animals have found that only one of the creatures that supposedly mate for life were truly monogamous, the rest were getting it on the side. Dolphins and killer whales? Adulterers every one of them. Hawks, eagles, parrotts, all creepin' on the down low. The only animal they could find that was truly monogamous? The round intestinal worm. What's my point here? Last night the wife of a friend came over the house. We know her husband quiet well, better than we know her in fact since he was our friend first and better than she apparently knows him too. We know in fact that he is cheating on her with another woman. He hasn't been too quiet about it actually. Knowing this made my girlfriend very uncomfortable around his wife since she felt as though she was doing something wrong by not telling the woman what her husband was up to. She was surprised that I was okay with it. Given my admitted history I was frankly surprised that she was surprised. I ain't no saint. And not to condone what's going on but adultery is far from uncommon.
Not rare enough to be considered shocking. It is more the norm than th exception in fact. The other thing that I found curious about the whole thing is that the woman in question is perhaps the most conniving, gold-digging, manipulative, conrolling woman on earth and everyone who knows this couple feels sorry for her husband and hopes that one day he'll wise up and leave her. She has all but ruined his life. Not to say I condone what he's doing but I understand and I'm surprised my girlfriend doesn't either. Her point though is that he should leave her not cheat on her and I understand that. I'm also sure that leaving her is just a matter of time.

So this got us to discussing the nature of man. Is man monogamous by nature? In my opinion, no. Adultery happens too often for it to be an aberration and as stated above, true monogamy is almost unheard of in nature. However, man is an intelligent creature capable of overcoming his nature. So even though man's nature is polyamorous I believe he can control these instincts given the proper incentive and personal commitment just as we control the instinct towards violence and larceny, both of which are also natural and instinctual. We are civilized beasts. We have been domesticated and are now capable of surpressing these base desires. In theory at least. It rarely works that way in practice. At heart, man is just another animal and when faced with extreme circumstances he will revert to his animal nature. A starving man will steal. An enraged or terrified man will kill. And a man with a raving bitch of a wife will cheat. I don't neccessarily condone it, but I understand. I understand what it is like to be in the unenviable position of being desperately in love with one woman while being hopelessly inextricably attached to another. What it is like to have to chose beween being the heartbreaker or the heartbroken. I have been there and I would not wish it on anyone. So, yes I sympathize with this seemingly unsympathetic scoundrel. I wish him good luck in finding an answer to his predicament, one that I was never quite able to come up with myself. You may throw your stones now.