It is said that monogamy is under siege from many sides.

Here is one, although you may think that genes tend to get taken as the reason for just about everything.

"Is Sexual Infidelity Genetic?"

"Serial cheaters and randy bachelors often seem deeply unable to stay monogamous; could there be scientific proof to their claims that they “just can’t help it”? According to a new study out from Binghamton University, the propensity for infidelity might possibly be blamed on DNA."

Read more: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/is-...#ixzz1C9FFSmmU

Another is an article by David P Barash called "Deflating the Myth of Monogamy"
(which was followed by a book with the same title).

In it, he reports that research in animal behaviour the last decade show that very few animals are monogamours, even among species thought to be.

"By the 1980's, studies employing blood typing as well as analyses of proteins were leading researchers to question whether social monogamy and sexual monogamy were necessarily synonymous."

His conclusion: "there is no question about monogamy's being natural. It isn't.

http://www.trinity.edu/rnadeau/fys/b...20monogamy.htm

Helen Croydon: "Monogamy is not our natural state"
(Helen Croydon is a print and broadcast journalist, specialising in investigations and features on relationships, sex and the sex industry.)

"Choosing our family members, wasn't, you would have thought, a matter for the high courts, not in a democratised world anyway. But it seems judicial teams in the most unlikely of places are taking on these new roles, attempting to define our marital nirvana. Last week, a Californian judge ruled that the state's ban on gay marriages was unconstitutional, leaving thousands of people free at last to choose who they marry.

In the same week, Canada resumed its stab at modernising family values. The supreme court in British Columbia – a province unlike California in every possible way – has been asked to review its centuries-old law which forbids polygamy. It has called on the research of sociologists and evolutionists in an attempt to rule whether the monogamous family unit really is the route to Utopia.

"Canada isn't the only country questioning whether monogamy is an outdated ideal. France's first lady, Carla Bruni, famously declared she is "easily bored by monogamy". Last month, Cameron Diaz proclaimed relationships can last "two, five or 20 years" but she doesn't believe in sharing her bed with the same person her whole life."

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion...e-2047116.html

So what do you think?

Is monogamy biological or cultural?

Is social monogamy and sexual monogamy synonymous?

Is it still the best way, and if so, why? If not, why?