Things such as basic emotions, happiness, sadness,anger, fear or reflexes are innate to humans. It's an inbuilt feature we all are born with. But is monogamy innate to humans ? Is it necessary for humans to have sexual relationships with one partner at a time or is it normal to have multiple partners? There is no answer to this question but there are some possible explanations which we will see.
We have all evolved from apes, animals basically and we all have noticed how there is a pattern of an alpha male mating with an alpha female and over generations the alpha male or female prefers to mate with its own alpha kind only it need not be the same partner. This is trying to indicate that more than monogamy the need for having healthy and fertile offspring is what defines how most animals bond. And animals being ancestors of humans, we in the initial evolutionary line had inherited this pattern of polgamy for producing healthy offsprings. Basically incorporating the ideology of Herbert Spencer, survival of the fittest.
Apart from evolutionary basis we have proof that polygamy prevailed in ancient India. Various rulers and warriors practiced polygamy. Lord Krishna is said to have multiple wives and this is seen as a form of devotion to humanity, King Chandragupta Mourya, King Bimbisara and various others had multiple wives as few of these marriages were based on gaining political power and building alliances with the emperor and the kingdom. Thus the game of power again over rules monogamy. This kind of power is political rather than biological.
So then how did we humans evolve to become monogamous? The paternal instinct for the father to protect his children led the way towards monogamous nature. In order for the father to protect his infants he would have to stay around more and eventually create a bond with the female in the form of attachment. Neurological and hormonal influences added an extra touch to the bond created while mating and child rearing. This is the biological aspect of it , let's review the social aspect. As human societies became more complex, with larger groups and the development of agriculture, monogamy may have been culturally reinforced through social norms and legal systems. In agricultural societies, property inheritance and family structures often favored monogamy to ensure that land and wealth were passed down to legitimate heirs.
We evolved ourselves from having polygamous relations to monogamous ones but our society still has some elements of polygamous relations which cannot be completely erased. Thus the idea of monogamous being innate to humans seems apocryphal.
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