The first domesticated animal was not the dog. It was the husband. Early man was likely a wild creature, larger and stronger than the woman. It was with much difficulty and many generations of clubbed heads to domesticate the husband. Fact was, it was the more docile of the men that hung around and the exclusively paired off man-woman unit had a survival advantage in the savannah over the usual style of primate relations.

The aggression and anti-social tendencies were bred out of men, and husband whispering skills, the innate ones, increased. This allowed for monogamy to prevail and is the established pattern for our species. Our biology demands it -we don’t know when our women are fertile -their vulvae (vulvitae?) don’t turn huge with bright red and blue colors like the baboons’ do, so we are left to guess and protect the woman against couplings with other males while exclusively tending to her to insure that the offspring are ours. Thus the nuclear familial unit.

Cultures evolved over these biologic imperatives to determine how families, clans, and tribes, and nations interacted. But at the very core is the untamed man -the echoes of which we see in our 1-5 year old boys who we “socialize” to not hit people to get their way, to not pull hair, and to obey their mothers.

Of course, with our lifespans increased many multiples beyond the 15-20 years of early primates, we are paired for life which means that the relationship extends beyond the weaning and sending off of the offspring, beyond the reproductive age of the women, and well into our senescence. The result is that men have about 65-75 years to shunt testosterone driven urges into “civilized activities.” The challenge is how to survive in face of the five denials of the long march marriage.

Denial of Solitude -This comes early, with requests for conversation and chores after a long day of hunting and gathering. The cave man only wants to lumber down to the deepest reaches of the cave and draw on the walls, and carve sculpture out of deer bone (see below, image of his wife of 20 years).

Denial of Comfort -The inevitable onset of refractoriness of desire on the part of women and men results in a waning of connubial relations. The cave man only wants to lumber down to the deepest reaches of the cave and …well, you can only imagine.

Denial of Grooming -The hotness of the young she-primate that the caveman paired with ends soon after a few young ones come around. The hair is no longer bunched up with dung like she used to when they were courting. The clay face paint -not even there -just bits of yesterday’s mammoth clinging to her neck. It’s called letting yourself go, but you can see that the cave man had something to say about it (see carving below).

Denial of Male Fellowship -Despite this lack of desire on the part of the cave-woman, she is very suspicious of all the time that the cave man spends away with his hunting and gathering buddies, and assigns many chores -carrying out of animal carcasses, beating of the mammoth hides, and grooming her mother of ticks and fleas.

Denial of Porsche -self explanatory. Very sad. Poor cave man.

Addendum: apparently this has data as someone just published this obvious fact. It relates to species self domesticating to arrive at more sociability. Link here.

Reference

https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2208607120