The Conculture/Conpeople Opinions Thread

[Serena]

Next: At what point does your conculture consider children to have become adults?

In Keleia, people are allowed to leave the birth village at 14. This is also considered the legal working age and the age of consent for sexual relationships.

Because of this particular Keyali habit, I once got me reported in a fanfiction website, with the accusation of "posting child pornography". I tried to argue that in my stories every character is considered an adult, but they didn't take it well.

Is there a coming of age ceremony? Does some task need be completed? Or is it merely based upon age? (I suspect this has been asked before too.)

Keyali people don't consider their own birthdays particularly special, so there is not a coming of age cerimony. However, they usually hold a symposium when a young villager is going to leave the village (which usually occours at 14~15).

Next: What's your conculture attitude towards alcohol and alcoholic beverages in general? Is it kind of a national pride like in southern europe or is it regarded as dangerious and prohibited?

[Täzari]

Next: What's your conculture attitude towards alcohol and alcoholic beverages in general? Is it kind of a national pride like in southern europe or is it regarded as dangerious and prohibited?

Unfortunately alcohol in Lözusöt is very (not to say too much) common and it can cause several problems. Some attempts have been made to reduce the importation of alcoholic beverages into the country, but that turned out to become the cause of a drastic increase of illegal importation, so the anti-alcohol law was immediately abrogated. One good thing is that importing alcoholic beverages is very expensive (even by illegal means) so their price is high enough to somehow prevent eccessive drinking of the same.

NEXT!
Hvåd kägætześ ziśki lælg śakkapiśoidoi dikśköm? Tad śakkapiśi ebberakrëś, téþae hvilśe ina eddkilśekaþit?
How does your conpeople react to strong earthquakes? If an earthquake happened would it be ready to face it?

[Squall]

I missed lots of questions. I will start it now.
More answers will come later.

How would a typical conperson react to impressionist art?
No uniform opinion. Some people like it, other people dislike it. Other people think it is interesting because it looks good when it is seen from a distant place.

What would your conculture think of the US's very high divorce rate?
Marriage is sacred and important for the conpeople. The marriage does not make sense in US because it can be done and undone so easily, then the US is in a crisis.

How does your conculture respond to suicide attempts?
They are crazy, but if they wish to die, then let them do so. The elder people would try to convince to not suicide.

What would your conpeople think of public nudity?
It is a shame. The conpeople are never naked.

A Death Note falls into your conworld, and a member of your conculture picks it up (and is able to read it), what do they do?
The first one will be afraid and abandon it. The next one will take it and kill everyone that that person dislikes and stow it for future use whenever it is needed. If a bad person takes it, the terror will start, because that person will kill for fun.

What would your Conculture think of Dragon Ball Z?
How can they destroy everything? That is an absurd. But I want to fly too.

How would your people view overweight/fat people?
They are healthy and have good alimentation. (They do not know about fast-food.)

Pizza
They will eat everything and fight for the last piece. They will ask for more pizza. (They do not know pizza and do not know about the consequences of the exaggeration.)

Your conpeople comes across the Latin, Cyrillic, Greek, Arabic and Hangul alphabets. Which would they choose to write their language and why? Because of the way it looks? Because of how easily it can be adapted for their language? Other reason?

Latin does not have enough suitable letters, it has upper/lower case distinction, it does not have enough vowels and it is misused by most languages, including the Romans, which ignored double vowels and double consonants.

Hangul is phonetically different and it is not good with combination of consonants even though the conlang does not have heavy cluster.

Therefore, Cyrillic is the choice.

What are some of the common superstitions held by typical members of your concultures?
The deceased ones are watching us and can revenge in the future.

Someone is found guilty of a horrible crime and in their defense they say God made them do it. Would this defense work in your conworld?
In any case, if that person was following orders of a god, it means it is an evil god. The person will be punished as a servant.

If that person's mind was being controlled, there will be a lack of proof and it will be interpreted as a lie.

What would a typical person from your conculture think of reality television?
A stupid waste of time or the supreme manifestation of idleness.

What does a typical member of your conculture think of belching at a meal table?
It is natural, but there are rules. Never belch in direction of the food or a person that is close. If you are surrounded by people, crouch and release the air in direction of the floor.

What would a typical member of your conculture think of abortion?
It must never be done. After new discoveries in the medicine, it is tolerable when they know that the fetus is degenerated and the baby will be deficient. Mental deficiency is seen as a body without soul because the soul failed to get into the body.

What would your conpeople think of the global warming?
They are not industrial, but will not believe on that in the beginning. Later, their scientists and the priests will detect some unbalance in the nature and will believe that it is a problem that must be stopped.

What would your conculture think of conlanging?
There are thousands of languages in this world and you want to create more?

What would your conpeople think of your favourite/national sport?
That dance is ugly and stupid. Their faces show that they are not enjoying it.

What (if any) justifications does your conculture have for torturing someone?
It is used to get info and confession from criminals. If scientific researches find out that it is useless, this method will cease.

Your conpeople are exposed to guns. What happens? If they already had guns, replace with a similar game-changer in warfare like ICBMs.
In times of war: It is useful. We need it. How can we get more guns?

In times of peace: Are you crazy? Why do you manufacture murderer tools? It is terrible.

What would your conpeople think of Heavy Metal music?
It will not be noticed as music. They think that music must be pleasing and fun. They will think that it is some ritual to summon a demon or a psycho exaggerating all their anger and sorrow near a torture machine.

What would your conpeople think of automobiles, highways, etc.?
A car alone: It is nice. How to build one?

A city with lots of cars: This is a hell, there is too much noise and pollution. Why is everything here so distant that one cannot reach on foot?

Credit cards. Good, bad, divine providence, stupidity, or something else entirely?
It is a stupid money stealer that makes people waste more than what they have and makes them have debts.

How would your conpeople think about competition and success?
Competition is seen as a negative practice, because it is the lack of friendship and cooperation and the excess of selfishness.

What's your conculture attitude towards alcohol and alcoholic beverages in general?
It is illegal and the conculture rejects alcoholic beverages and drunken people.

---

How does your conpeople react to strong earthquakes? If an earthquake happened would it be ready to face it?

They are ready to natural disasters and unaffected areas will send resources to repair the damaged areas.
Most areas are not ready to face earthquakes and the buildings will fall. The survivors will be gathered to a safe area with many people and will receive quilt, food and water.

---

My conpeople sleep at 21:00 to 06:00, when the sun rises. The lazy people will continue sleeping until 07:00. Nobody does anything during the night. The night is silent and noises during the night are illegal.

Next:
When do your conpeople start sleeping and when do they wake up?

[Egerius]

Next:
When do your conpeople start sleeping and when do they wake up?

My conpeople live on a planet which needs 32 hours to revolve around itself. The hours given are condensed into a 24 hour day.
My conpeople generally wake up between 4:30 and 6:30, depending on age; children sleep one or two hours longer than adults.
A nap is obligatory in the summer (between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m.), as it is too hot to work - what is called 'siesta' here is called 'ottesima' by my conpeople. In the winter the same time is used for a meal.
The day ends between 9 p.m. (for children) and 10 p.m. (for adults).

Edit: NEXT: How would your conpeople react to calligraphy and illuminated manuscripts?

[Serena]

Next?

[Squall]

Finally I have finished the rest of the questions.

Television in general.
What is the remote controller for? Why do people change the TV channel so often? It seems they do not know what they want to watch. If I want to watch something, I will turn on the TV, put the channel that will show what I want to watch and watch it. When I am done, I simply turn off the TV.

Television with broadcast will be a failure in the beginning, because forced ads would be illegal. After the introduction of the cable television, they will be able to pay for TV without ads. This system will be replaced with the internet.

What opinions would your conpeople have about the internet and the extremely quick access of data is allows?
It is awesome. We want that magic power too. Please teach us it.
It will improve the communication, data storage and access to information.
They do not know about the possible negative consequences that happens when people replace the real world with the internet world.

Your conpeople meet a Jesuit missionary who tells them all about the Christian religion. How would they react? Would they embrace it, or perhaps kill him for heresy?
Their religion is more related to the nature and the world is not controlled by a single entity. The Christian religion would be seen as nonsense, because it is strange to hear about an invisible and hidden guy creating and controlling the world and requiring faith to save the people from an evil that they have never heard about.

What would your conpeople think of the idea of recycling?
It is fundamental to keep the balance of the world. When the industrialization starts, sustainability will be one of the principles.

What is the typical family structure for your conpeople?
The older ones are always superior to the younger ones. The families are usually large, with parents, children and grandparents living together.

The children live with the parents until they get married, when the wife will move to the house of the husband's parents. Or they may need to move to a new house when the available house is not enough.

How closely related do you have to be to someone in your conworld for it to be incest?
They have four rules that make any relationship valid.
-They cannot have the same ancestor until the third level.
-They have to be 18+ years old.
-The difference between the ages cannot be more than 5 years.
-The parents of both the man and the woman must authorize the union.

At what point does your conculture consider children to have become adults? Is there a coming of age ceremony? Does some task need be completed? Or is it merely based upon age?
They divide the life in four stages: childhood, adulthood, parenthood and elderhood.
The adulthood starts when they are 12 years old. The parenthood starts when they get married (it is expected to happen at 22 to 26 years). And the elderhood starts when they are 50 years old.
A task and ceremony is required when they get 12 years and during the marriage.

How do your conpeople feel about showing up one minute late or one minute early? Five minutes late or early? Ten minutes? Two hours? A year?
0 to 5 minutes: They do not care.
5 to 15 minutes: They will be worried and ask if something bad happened.
After 15 minutes: They will give up without knowing what happened.
2 hours: If they are still in the place or building, they will ask about what happened. If they are not busy and have enough time and if the reason of the appointment still exists, they will do that.
A year: They will have forgotten it.

What do your conpeople think of having to fill out long and complicated questionnaires to get medical equipment replaced?
If the new medical equipment is available, why do I have to do that? Will anyone ever read it? (Bureaucracy is not usual in the concountry, but the lack of resources is. They have problems to get new medical equipment.)

What do they think of having to stand in long lines at government offices?
The physical lines will disappear once they have computers to schedule everything.
A new policy will try to increase the availability of important services, such as physicians.

What would your con people think of literacy/illiteracy?
The literacy is part of the conculture. The parents teach the children how to read/write. They would ask why nobody has taught the illiterate person how to read, because if the children learn how to do some tasks and about the culture, literacy should be included.

What would your conpeople do if there were a territorial dispute but the other side is unwilling to go to war? Would they think of unprovoked invasion for territorial gain as inherently bad, or just the natural thing to happen to countries with too many people and too much army in too little space?
The first thing they will see is the ethnicity of the local people. If they are from the same ethnicity, the territory will be invaded or protected against invaders. If there is no predominant ethnic group, they will try a peaceful negotiation.

With regards to criminals, do your people think that punishment or rehabilitation is more important? How are former convicted criminals treated?
When it is possible, the repair of the damage is the most important thing. The criminal will have to do unremunerated jobs to repair the damage and the rehabilitation will be tried. They have to pay for everything, because the state will not spend resources with them. Furthermore, the small criminals will never be put near the worst criminals. Different crimes have different jails.

The case of murder is irreparable, therefore the death penalty is used as a tribute to the victim.

How do your conpeople view impatience?
Patience is a good virtue that everyone should have. They like patience, but they do not learn it.

What would your conpeople think of hackers?
They appeared after the introduction of machines.
The conpeople import old machines and copy buggy foreign softwares and need someone with reverse engineering skills.

The hackers are heroes. They are able to make usable computers with junk parts. They also fix crappy operating systems and nullify the license of important softwares to allow everyone to use them.

Since the calendar, which starts with the spring of the Southern hemisphere, is different from the one used by the developed countries, which are located in the Northern hemisphere, and the software developers do not support the users of the concountry, the hackers are the only ones that can fix the calendar.

The national technology is still being developed and will take a while until it is good enough to replace the foreign ones. When it is done, the hackers will be bored and they will disappear, because the technology will be open and there will be nothing to hack.

Your conpeople's favourite activity.
There are multiple activities.
They like music, reading and food. They like milk, juice and tea.
They like silent green environments and like places near the water (but they do not enter in the water).

Some people like to speak and their mouths are unstoppable.
Other people like to produce something and do activities like writing, handicraft, arts and cooking.
There are people that like to discover new things, no matter how disastrous the result is.

Some people get bored when they are idle and alone and hate when a friend is doing something alone. They may play pranks sometimes. If a friend is enjoying a book, they may hiddenly steal and hide the book in order to "help" the friend to find the book together. The friend will be annoyed because of the prank, but will forget it in the next day.

What would your conpeople think of body-hair or the removal thereof?
They do not remove it.

How do the people in your conculture deal with bathing and personal hygiene?
They use a faucet and a luffa sponge to wash the dirty parts. They do not have showers and do not clean what is clean.

How is freedom of speech handled in your conpeople?
Anyone can write anything.
If anyone uses the speech or the writing to start campaigns against the principles of the conculture, the person will be arrested.
Lies are intolerable too.

What are the highest virtues a member of your conculture can exhibit?
Temperance, loyalty, patience, sincerity, humility, discipline.

What are the holidays and festivals in your conculture?
My conculture have some annual festivals and they always happen during the weekend. A birthday would be moved to the weekend. Each season starts with a festival. The spring is the beginning of the year and represents the rebirth after the winter. The new year is important and represents reflection, review of the last year and wishes for the new year. They also have holidays for the sun, for the deceased ones, for the sea, for the earth and for the moonlight. The leap day is also a holiday.

How would your conpeople view the traditional Western gender roles?
There are similarities and differences.

The conpeople have roles defined for each gender. Residential tasks, cooking and babysitting are female tasks. Teachers, physicians and priest(ess) are usually young or old females, or old males. Politics, commerce, heavy work, such as building, and jobs far from the home, such as transportation of goods, are male jobs.

The clothing depends on the job. The only difference between the male and the female clothing is the presence or absence of brassiere and menstrual pad.

They do not understand why the Western women worry too much about their appearance.

Even though 2000 years have passed, the sages and philosophers have not managed to understand the women.

---

Edit: NEXT: How would your conpeople react to calligraphy and illuminated manuscripts?

The illuminated manuscripts are illegible and the conpeople does not like it.
The conpeople use the same traditional drawing style in manuscripts and general writing. Any other forms are artistic styles and have to be legible, otherwise it will be seen as another alphabet.

---

The polygamy is allowed in the conculture, but it requires the authorization of the first spouse. The idea was created in an era when there were so much wars and the number of females were much larger than the number of males. The polygamy prevented many women from being alone.

Next: Polygamy.

[Täzari]

Next: Polygamy.

Wow! It's great you actually found the time to answer all the previous questions!
I'll stop with replying to this last one....sorry for being lazy!

Polygamy is not contemplated in Lözusöt culture, not so much because it's considered a sin or inconvenient but just because people in Lözusöt prefer to concentrate their love towards just one person.... Furthermore, there aren't so many people in the country so accepting polygamy would mean that a large number of people would stay alone forever not by choice but because there would be no partner left!

Next:
Hvad silteś ziśki lælg te tinöbnöittum? Zaressöś to taglyæ mülyæ i beśśæzyæ?
What does your people think about solar eclipses? Does it see them as good signs or bad signs?

[Serena]

Next: Polygamy

Hanilian Empire
Keyali people, and all the other provinces of Hanilia, don't have a standardized concept of marriage. It's not uncommon among the higher rank classes to have irregular and unfaithful relationships. Two-timing and even three-timing or more-timing is fairly common.

New Country
Arcadians would find polygamy quite disgusting. In the 29th century America, marriage is more than ever an important relationship, it's a sort of political pact of mutual faithfulness between two passionate supporters of the Government. Marrying more than one person would violate every law of common sense.

What does your people think about solar eclipses? Does it see them as good signs or bad signs?

Hanilian Empire
According to Hanilian philosophers, eclipses are very interesting and aesthetically pleasant. Hanilia has also a developed tradition of astrology, and it is thought that eclipses are powerful symbols of luck.

New Country
This is a very delicate question. Being a future society, the New Country is aware of the science behind eclipses, and yet they tend to reject this awareness. The sun not being in the sky when it normally should be is considered an abomination.

Next: What would your people think of judaism?

[Shemtov]

Kalushian: Seeing as their religion is BASED off of Judaism, the Answer is obvious
Pikpamian: Seeing as they are based on Nazis, the Answer is obvious
Thagi Union: Seeing as they're in the far future, and a certain event already occurred, the Answer is obvious.

NEXT: What would your conpeople think of Pokemon?

[Squall]

Many questions are good to develop a conculture. My next subjects are laborer culture and buses.


In my conculture, the workers work for 6 hours a day, but the total of useful work is 4 to 5 hours. They waste time with chat, snack, games and other distractions. They are lazy, but they care for the duty. Nobody cares if the worker arrives late or leaves early.
The workers only have to accomplish the assigned tasks until a deadline and have to be around whenever they are needed.
Efficient administration acts and rigid bosses always fail.


But in order to continue, someone has to answer the last question, then I will invent anything.

NEXT: What would your conpeople think of Pokemon?

Those are so beautiful! What is the name of this one?
Pikachu? Go to wash your mouth with soap and never see it again.

"Pikachu" is a bad word in their language.


NEXT: How are the laborer culture and conditions in your conculture?

[Firebird766]

The Folk work based not on time, but on tasks and quotas. If you have something that needs done that night, then you do it. Don't worry about how long it takes, just do it. If you finish early, then you have the rest of the night to yourself. If you don't finish before the sun rises, then you need to hurry up and start early tomorrow (or trade a favor with your friends and family to see if they'll help you with your share of the work).

What work they do is specific to their social class and village, with little mobility. If you grew up in a farming village, you won't have much of a chance to move to a big city to find a new job, and cityfolk are not welcome in rural towns. You can join the local horse raiders, though, if you can prove yourself. That, however, will severely alienate your friends and family and the only way to leave the raiders is by dying.


The arokhihn are in the process of developing a labor culture. Right now, it's pretty ad hoc, leaning into chaotic. They're trying to change that, but every clan has a different idea of how things should go. The one most commonly seen in the wider galactic community borrows a lot from jaran practices. That is to say, each member works loosely-scheduled three-hour shifts, with multiple shifts per day, with the number of shifts depending on how much work needs done.

My question: What does your conculture think of GM food?

[Serena]

My question: What does your conculture think of GM food?

They think it's healthy.
Technology in the New Country revolves around advanced chemistry and bioengineering more than it does on electronics, so GM food represents a fairly large part of their food.

Next: What are common guilty pleasures among your people?

[Firebird766]

Among the Folk of the Broken Empire, it revolves primarily around class-appropriateness and social structure. The upper class claim that they don't indulge in anything they would feel guilty or embarrassed about, but some of them have a weakness for food and drink that would normally be considered low-class (such as the rotgut served near the docks and trading posts). The culture of the Broken Empire is generally contemptuous of foreigners and foreign goods, so foreign food would also be included in that.

Interestingly, exotic foods and goods are considered entirely differently, even though the only real difference is price. "Rare and expensive" tends to win over "foreign," when you're considering the upper class.


Among commoners, cityfolk are dismissive of villagers, and villagers are dismissive of cityfolk. Cityfolk aren't supposed to like village fun and games and villagers aren't supposed to like cityfolk fun and games, but many do anyway.


The many bands of raiders are absolutely shameless and generally don't feel guilty about anything they like. This is a serious problem, as much of what they find entertaining is detrimental to everyone not in their particular band.

[Shemtov]

Um.....Firebird, where's the next question?

[Firebird766]

Oh crap. I had one, and I thought I'd typed it, but it turns out I hadn't.

Okay, here it is: What is the staple crop or whatnot of your conpeople?

[Egerius]

Okay, here it is: What is the staple crop or whatnot of your conpeople?

My chinchilla conpeople mostly eat wheat (fruménto) (and its products, like bread (pane)) and hay (fèno). The most popular beverage is water with honey (aqua dolce) or some wine mixed with water and honey (vino dolce).
In the far east of their (former) empire, meat (carne) is gaining some ground, although it's forbidden by a conservative interpretation of their religious scriptures.

Certain herbs are eaten for medical purposes, fruits are eaten, but not much (and not a single fruit is eaten from the trees in my con people's graveyards - it's a sin).

Next question(s): Do your con people have religious taboos? Is there a motivation behind them?

[k1234567890y]

Okay, here it is: What is the staple crop or whatnot of your conpeople?

My chinchilla conpeople mostly eat wheat (fruménto) (and its products, like bread (pane)) and hay (fèno). The most popular beverage is water with honey (aqua dolce) or some wine mixed with water and honey (vino dolce).
In the far east of their (former) empire, meat (carne) is gaining some ground, although it's forbidden by a conservative interpretation of their religious scriptures.

Certain herbs are eaten for medical purposes, fruits are eaten, but not much (and not a single fruit is eaten from the trees in my con people's graveyards - it's a sin).

Next question(s): Do your con people have religious taboos? Is there a motivation behind them?

it seems that long-longs don't have religious taboos, but it seems that they don't talk about god or gods very much, even most long-longs, like most human beings in almost every culture, believe firmly in souls and afterlife.

Next: How do your con-people, be they human beings or not, think about enjoyments(entertainments, luxuries, delicacies, etc.)? Are they more hedonistic or more stoic?

[Salmoneus]

Polygamy is not contemplated in Lözusöt culture, not so much because it's considered a sin or inconvenient but just because people in Lözusöt prefer to concentrate their love towards just one person.... Furthermore, there aren't so many people in the country so accepting polygamy would mean that a large number of people would stay alone forever not by choice but because there would be no partner left!

Thought this was worth debunking.

Yes, polygamous societies can have competition to find mates, and yes, this can result in a number of people remaining alone. However, societies largely address this problem through age differentials, with the 'single' partner marrying at an older age. That is, in polygynous societies women marry older men - since by marriage age many older men have been killed off in wars, or just generally died of disease or accident (particularly as polygyny is often restricted to a military elite class), relatively few men end up without a wife.
This is part of why polygyny is declining (and causing problems where it has not declined) with the decline in warfare and violence and the increase in medical abilities: a demographic problem that death had previously been solving is now becoming real.

In fact, this is actually a much bigger problem with monogamy. Monogamous societies are much more sexually picky. Consider polygyny: lots of women get to marry the sexiest guys, and even the unsexy girls can get married (because if you're marrying four or five or ten women, you're more willing to put up with one who isn't sexy (or is annoying or can't cook or is prone to sickness, etc) but has other virtues, since you have other wives with the virtues she lacks). The only people who miss out are the unattractive men, but as I say above in a traditional society male solitude is dealt with through high death rates (which in turn makes the survivors at least partly sexy (healthy, rich, good in a fight, etc)). By contrast, in monogamy people are less willing to make unsatisfactory matches (because it's your only shot and you'd better get it right), which leads to many more people not finding 'the one' for them.

This is the real reason why polygyny is associated with higher birth rates. You'd think that it's because the wives could be pregnant all the time - the husband can move on an impregnate one wife after another without waiting nine months, while the non-pregnant wives can help out with housework. But in reality, polygyny appears to be associated with LOWER fertility rates (ie birth rates per woman) - women in group marriages have fewer babies (perhaps because their and their husbands' desires for children are met by the children of their sister-wives? Also in some cases because women have more power in polygynous groups). What polygny DOES do is massively reduce the number of reproductively inactive women - i.e. the large number of women in monogamous societies who never find an acceptable partner.

[Serena]

Next question(s): Do your con people have religious taboos? Is there a motivation behind them?

Yes, actually there’s a plenty. Keyali people don’t seem to have most of the problems we have with sexual stuff, most of the time taboos revolve around the blasphemous use of words.
Keyali ethics is about respect. They have the belief that everything in nature should be respected including matter, light and living beings and this is reflected in their highly honorific way to talk about pretty much anything.
If you happen to have an unproductive wheat field, you can’t say ‘this soil sucks’, because it can be easily interpreted as disrespect towards the element of Earth.

Next: What is a popular sport/game event in your concountry?

[Ahzoh]

Sorry, but wanted to say something to Salmoneus:

Polygamy is not contemplated in Lözusöt culture, not so much because it's considered a sin or inconvenient but just because people in Lözusöt prefer to concentrate their love towards just one person.... Furthermore, there aren't so many people in the country so accepting polygamy would mean that a large number of people would stay alone forever not by choice but because there would be no partner left!

Thought this was worth debunking.

Yes, polygamous societies can have competition to find mates, and yes, this can result in a number of people remaining alone. However, societies largely address this problem through age differentials, with the 'single' partner marrying at an older age. That is, in polygynous societies women marry older men - since by marriage age many older men have been killed off in wars, or just generally died of disease or accident (particularly as polygyny is often restricted to a military elite class), relatively few men end up without a wife.
This is part of why polygyny is declining (and causing problems where it has not declined) with the decline in warfare and violence and the increase in medical abilities: a demographic problem that death had previously been solving is now becoming real.

In fact, this is actually a much bigger problem with monogamy. Monogamous societies are much more sexually picky. Consider polygyny: lots of women get to marry the sexiest guys, and even the unsexy girls can get married (because if you're marrying four or five or ten women, you're more willing to put up with one who isn't sexy (or is annoying or can't cook or is prone to sickness, etc) but has other virtues, since you have other wives with the virtues she lacks). The only people who miss out are the unattractive men, but as I say above in a traditional society male solitude is dealt with through high death rates (which in turn makes the survivors at least partly sexy (healthy, rich, good in a fight, etc)). By contrast, in monogamy people are less willing to make unsatisfactory matches (because it's your only shot and you'd better get it right), which leads to many more people not finding 'the one' for them.

This is the real reason why polygyny is associated with higher birth rates. You'd think that it's because the wives could be pregnant all the time - the husband can move on an impregnate one wife after another without waiting nine months, while the non-pregnant wives can help out with housework. But in reality, polygyny appears to be associated with LOWER fertility rates (ie birth rates per woman) - women in group marriages have fewer babies (perhaps because their and their husbands' desires for children are met by the children of their sister-wives? Also in some cases because women have more power in polygynous groups). What polygny DOES do is massively reduce the number of reproductively inactive women - i.e. the large number of women in monogamous societies who never find an acceptable partner.

I wonder if this could solve the whole "many people will be left without mates" thing, where in Vrkhazh, men can marry up to three women, while women can marry up to three men.