Interfaith Group

it poses more problems in advanced societies than it solves. We're naturally randy sorts but some control may be worthwhile.

I'm aware of at least one South American tribe that allows all men access to all willing women so that every male member can share the responsibilities of paternity-- nobody knows who the father is, so every man acts as the father. However, people do pair off and there's that jealousy thing that pops up every so often.

In a more advanced society, however, there are property and inheritance questions that pop up, the jealousy thing is always there, and the society becomes larger and more difficult to track who is doing who and how to spread out those paternal responsibilities so things have to be regulated. Modern experiments in communes and such have rarely worked out well.

What has worked out as a reasonable substitute is that in maybe half the married couples at least one screws around with perhaps a steady boyfriend or girlfriend. Not exactly polyamory, but accomplishes close to the same thing.