Same as any laws, the main goal is control. Whether for good, profit or anything else, it depends on who’s in control and their motives.
i agree. everything is about control (which money buys).
i’ll even do you one better and voice my own controversial opinion: even the concept of monogamy and marriage was invented to control the commoner. can’t have just anyone running around with 50 kids and 300 grandkids, all loyal to their patriarch unto death, presenting a threat to the power of the tribe’s chieftain
I disagree on that. Monogamy was invented by rich people to secure inheritance rights.
I think monogamy was invented by men to control women and to validate their claims of owning land and space that actually belongs to a community.
Women tend to do really well in open nonmonogamy and men sometimes not as good. Like in modern times, think of an orgy - women are usually at the center of these and men at the outskirts. If every man agrees to just take 1 woman, then that’s a good deal for men. But maybe not what women naturally want. So we compel women’s behavior by withholding capital and needs from them and their children unless they comply.
Eventually over time, this lead to what you’re talking about - the wealthy and inheritance rights. But I think monogamy came before that and actually caused it. (Which is why full service sex work is illegal/taboo and why it threatens capitalism and the patriarchy itself). I think marriage is a form of soft slavery for women and has been for thousands of years.
