nothing noble in monogamy

Of course, we do not like to admit it, despite the evidence, but 7 billion more or less sentient monkeys around the globe not go unnoticed. At that, a question arises: apart from the penguins notoriously known, what other kind of animal shares the entire span of life with only one partner, without the need to reproduce everywhere as do humans?
First, there is a famous bird called because its inseparable form stable pairs for the duration of life, but , away from the world of vertebrates, the examples are not lacking, such as termites, or white ants , whose queen always chooses the same male for mating.
But before you settle the nobility of that or that other species in which we seek similarities pathetically inconsistent (since we are all human, less monogamous), it will be well to remember what is the essence of life itself. If we or other animals are like that, is neither an advantage nor a defect, let alone a divine plan, even though it makes us feel so good to believe. We made ​​this because we have evolved for billions of years under the ax of natural selection; question therefore simply in our DNA, why deny it or fight it worse? How to enhance our quality amateur, what ever the feeling? Just because we write Love with a capital L then that idolized? Most of the birds are monogamous... maybe worth less than us because they do not know how to write love poems with rhyme? What matters, therefore, is to understand and not idealize what belongs to us, turning, in full delirious anthropocentric natural phenomena in noble conduct, noble when they are not, or worse making miraculous what miracle is not nor ever will be, if not in our imagination distorted.
First, monogamy in the animal world has evolved a strategy to optimize reproduction: to have next to your patner for life ensures the reproduction every year, without the need to strut every time searching, maybe fighting with rivals, so consuming precious energy. As this strategy is not a choice, but a random mutation that, as such, can only occur in some species, this explains why not all of them have adopted this behavior. If you have not become extinct is because other ways to reproduce equally efficient enabled the perpetuation of the species (and of the DNA molecule that is), although not monogamous .
In species with stable couples naturally occurring immediately behavior based on the so-called "affective" and cohesion, similar to those of some human couples (and I stress, unfortunately, some!).
The great ethologist Konrad Lorenz touched millions of readers in his book when he described the pain of a wild goose male who had recently lost his companion, the animal showed clear symptoms of depression and you would have said, seeing her, she was crying in continuation. But you know, with our mirror neurons there is easy influence ourselves when we look vaguely anthropocentric behavior in other species, often recognizing them where they do not actually exist. But we also love fool ourselves, I do not deny that we are a species rather complicated.
Most of the birds, I said, are monogamous. The hatching of the eggs and the subsequent care of the chicks are in fact demanding and require the cooperation of both parents; efforts are spread over almost until the next breeding season, so there is no need to go and look for a new partner; particularly indicative examples are the golden eagle and the wild swan, two species for which marital fidelity is essential and, as mentioned a little earlier, get to such levels that, if one partner dies, the other will suffer and can not will no longer any "substitute" (which supreme example of love, why we humans are not so?).
Monogamy is also typical in many species of fish, particularly in seahorses even where the male carries the pregnancy instead of the female, and in some invertebrates such as crabs which raise the offspring in burrows that must be constantly monitored and clean.
In mammals, on the other hand, I am sorry for those who expected the opposite, monogamy is actually an exception; stable couples will have in a few examples, such as between wolves and their African cousins​​, the wild dogs that live in packs and lay down rigid hierarchies among their members: the breeding pair (male and female alpha) is faithful all his life: female is responsible for the care of the puppies along with the rest of the pack, the male and his "controlled" hunt for procuring food.
The dik dik, a small African antelope, is also monogamous, why not better than the other cloven-hoofed animals and mammals, but because, having to constantly guard against predators evolved casually beside the need to have a partner that ensures oversight and then also the playback.
And the man? Apparently it is very similar to the gorilla: social rules permitting, would like to have a harem with many females, all to fertilize all well and willing to let him do it because, like the gorilla, which for millennia has been imposed their dominant male, leaving to them the care of the babies while he remained quiet to supervise them (or maybe not even that). Only in case of danger instinct leads him to intervene, and when it does, it really puts fear (the gorilla, not the man) in front of a male gorilla in full display of aggression, no predator would dare definitely come forward .
In concluding this brief and definitely not exhaustive journey into the world of fidelity in the animal kingdom, let's just say that the gorilla is undoubtedly better than some human males, which, far from using the intellectual faculties of which should be provided, after leaving its contribution in the belly of the female chromosome, feel satisfied their every task and disappear... and at this point we are not surprised if our girls are so reluctant to mate with the first one occurring. Although this female behavior is dictated by instinct, evolved over millions of years of wrong pairs. And the instinct you know, tends to prevail over reason. If then also the reason it has few aces up its sleeve, it remains to ask: how did we fill the planet of our fellow until it burst?