Leslie Marmon Silko is a good source there, re: pre-Christianization (and to some degree mid-and post-) sexual practices.
However, the question remains of how it’s in the individual parents’ interests to enter into a given family
arrangement. When it’s not, they won’t have kids, and the eventual parenting outcome remains moot; if moms and > dads don’t want to do it, it won’t happen.
I’d find that an easier statement to accept if I didn’t see many, many people routinely make decisions about parenting (or becoming parents) that did not appear to involve such analysis. The only times I’ve seen parents really think and act the way you describe, was when they were financially-stable and comfortable enough in status from the start that any such alterations would change that (and even then, many of them wind up divorcing anyway if things go poorly instead of staying together for the kids’ sake, something which may or may not be in the child’s best interest as well). And even then, I’ve seen parents in such situations adopt polyamory or whatever; either they don’t agree with your assessment, or they’re not thinking about the decision in those terms in the first place.
(FYI: This is what I meant re: your theoretical understanding of human sexuality—it’s not an attack on you, it’s just me stating you appear to have an understanding of how people behave in these situations that’s informed more by your big-picture theoretical beliefs about human behavior, than by a direct assessment of how people really behave—at the very worst, I am accusing you of generalizing too broadly beyond the scope of what you know).
Leslie Marmon Silko is a good source there, re: pre-Christianization (and to some degree mid-and post-) sexual practices.
I’d find that an easier statement to accept if I didn’t see many, many people routinely make decisions about parenting (or becoming parents) that did not appear to involve such analysis. The only times I’ve seen parents really think and act the way you describe, was when they were financially-stable and comfortable enough in status from the start that any such alterations would change that (and even then, many of them wind up divorcing anyway if things go poorly instead of staying together for the kids’ sake, something which may or may not be in the child’s best interest as well). And even then, I’ve seen parents in such situations adopt polyamory or whatever; either they don’t agree with your assessment, or they’re not thinking about the decision in those terms in the first place.
(FYI: This is what I meant re: your theoretical understanding of human sexuality—it’s not an attack on you, it’s just me stating you appear to have an understanding of how people behave in these situations that’s informed more by your big-picture theoretical beliefs about human behavior, than by a direct assessment of how people really behave—at the very worst, I am accusing you of generalizing too broadly beyond the scope of what you know).