Reply to comment

I'm arguing against the kind of open marriage you're advocating.

I don't recall outlining and advocating any specific kind of alternative arrangement. I'm merely questioning the value of the social norm of monogamy as it exists now.

How are men able to attain biological success without raising children?

By siring as many children as they can, obviously.

And women can do this too, though of course the cost per child may be higher for women than for men. But neither strategy works unless someone is willing to raise those children to sexual maturity. Unlike many other animal species, human children need many more years of investment before they can become independent. The question of "who should raise the child to maturity" is largely determined by social expectations.

Yep, or you could force people whose names were drawn from a hat to raise the same children. Or you could force the French to do it. But what's your justification?

Are you seriously asking what the justification is for an enforceable duty parents have to their young children?

And in fact, attempting to force men to provide for their children is a losing game, as women suing for child support usually learn. A "Player" can easily sire more children than he can afford to provide for. Hell, he can do that in six months. Then what?

Then he is broke, and (hopefully) a social outcast. The greater the penalty for irresponsible procreation, the less incentive there is for him to engage in it.

You really don't see the asymmetry between men and women in genetic stakes?

Sure, I understand that bringing a fetus to term is costlier for a woman than for a man, and that women are more limited than men in the number of reproductive attempts they are capable of making in the course of their life. But I don't see how any of this impacts the moral question of who should bear most of the burden for raising those children once they are born.