This is Part 3 of my series on Human Sexual Strategies and Socio-Sexual interactions. Part 1 covered what human socio-sexual behavior would look like in the state of nature, that is, without any set of rules or guidelines (culture or civilization) to govern it. Part 2 covered the system of “Hard” or Lifetime Monogamy, and why it didn’t always develop, why it took longer to develop than would seem logical, and how female sexual strategies played into this. Part 3 covers the changes in socio-sexual interactions in the last few decades, and tries to explain what is really happening.
The End of “Hard” Monogamy
The last few decades have seen the decline of Hard Monogamy in the West. Whether you call it traditional marriage or Marriage 1.0, it is in severe decline. Manosphere giant Dalrock has covered the decline of marriage numerous times. Ballista over at Society of Phineas also devotes a considerable amount of effort detailing the vast problems with marriage in the west.
So what, exactly, has occurred in the last few decades which caused such an abrupt change? No fault divorce is the most prominent alteration in the marriage landscape, because a more accurate name for it is “unilateral” divorce. When any single party to a marriage can end it on a whim, then it can no longer be considered “Hard” Monogamy. Instead, it becomes yet another version of soft or serial monogamy, but with a (temporary) stamp of moral approval. The removal of the social stigma from divorce is another factor. The perverse incentives for a woman to divorce, based on child support laws and other aspects of the Family Court system also play a role. Then there is the general decline in Alpha traits in men in the west, leaving them less attractive to women. When you combine that lack of attractiveness with incentives to divorce and reduced costs, it is only natural that many women will bolt. Lastly, women don’t need individual men to provide for them or protect them anymore. The State can provide protection, and the job market is such that many women can find jobs to provide for themselves and any children they might have. Men are simply less useful to a woman than they used to be. Hardly surprising then, that women are more likely to ditch them.
Where are we now?
This leads to the point of the post: where are we now? My theory is that we are seeing a reversion back to the state of nature in Western Civilization.
Marriage 1.0 represented a compromise between men that helped ensure that nearly all men could gain sexual access to a woman. However, women and top-tier men did not benefit from the system, and so have cause to see it ended. The top-tier men want sexual access to as many women as they can, while women want sexual access to the top-tier men. For men, hard monogamy got in their way. For women, the problem was that they needed an individual man to provide for them and protect them. They had to play be the rules of lifetime monogamy to get that. If they didn’t, then they were shamed and shunned, and forced into the far corners of society, finding what work they could. This part was critical, because shaming men doesn’t work (because it only takes a small number of men to service a large number of women). Then along came regular police forces, feminism and sexual liberation.
Now a woman no longer needs an individual man for protection. A woman is able to get a job and provide for herself and any children she has. Or she could get the state to help out in the form of welfare. And the social stigma of pre-marital sex is gone as well. We moved from this:
To an organization of society where most good looking females chase after the smaller percentage of top-tier men they find attractive. This is the hook-up culture, where many women spend their youth and beauty (not to mention give up their virtue) in pursuit of men who will never marry them. Instead, they end up as part of a “soft harem” which a man juggles as he sees fit (or spins as plates, if you prefer). The rest of the men are forced to compete over what is left, which is mainly women of a much lower SMV rank themselves. This fact is partly why so few women have a problem with the hook-up culture, because it benefits all of them to some degree. It ends up looking like this:
Which is exactly what human socio-sexual behaviors look like in the state of nature. Hard Monogamy was a social construct, and like everything society builds, it can be destroyed. And that is exactly what has been happening in the last few decades. Stone by stone it is being dismantled, until society finds itself at the same point where it began. Most women don’t have a problem with this, because they end up with sexual access to men of a higher SMV than they would get in a system based on lifetime monogamy. If they rode the carousel, once their looks fade with age and they are good and ready, they can settle down with a man with a SMV closer to their own. If they didn’t, well they can still settle for a man when they are good and ready.
To understand where western civilization is going, it isn’t necessary to look into the future. Just look to the past, and you will see exactly where we will end up.
Donal Graeme 
This is what I meant in the Part 1 version…. like I said someone depict this somewhere else in the manosphere before me but I can’t remember where.
When men as a whole were more valued, that tended to keep women more happy in marriages (aside from the fact that there was no unilateral no fault divorce either) and probably a whole host of other factors. Pretty complex issue though.
You raise a very good point. When women are raised up to be equals to men, it definitely changes the way their hypergamy evaluates those men. I think it safe to say that a woman who sees a man as her equal does not see him as high value, This lowers his attractiveness in her eyes, and she becomes unhappy.
I’d never thought about how police forces devalue men in marriage before.
For those of us who lived in developed countries, it is easy to forget how important protection is to women, and just how vulnerable they are compared to men. Women want a man who makes them feel safe, and Alpha behaviors tend to do that. Which is one reason why women are vulnerable to cads who know game: by creating the perception of being highly Alpha, they make her feel safe and she fails to appreciate the danger they pose.
This is one area where films about the frontier/West are valuable. Many of them showcase the importance of protecting women, because the Law was scarce at best.
I’ve read a little about cultures where monogamy is not the norm and women seem very unprotected and vulnerable, especially if they are poor.
Just finding your blog great series. I’ve been riveted. Bu, aren’t those men who provide police services beta males?
Police are not necessarily beta males. Some are, of course. And some are the worst sort of White Knight. But some of them are pretty Alpha as well, because that is one of the few occupations where men are really allowed to manifest their masculinity. Rather, the better way to think of the police is as a community wide “Beta service”. That is, something the community provides which covers for what used to be a Beta trait (protection, although it has Alpha components as well).