The winner takes all for the right to reproduce.

(B)onobos are matriarchal. If it’s usual for female chimps to get pushed around and battered by males, bonobo females run things. Once, while in the Congo, I witnessed Tatango, this young male bonobo, start to do what the chimps in Uganda regularly did: he went up to the alpha female, Mimi, and backhanded her across the face. She gave him the most withering look. Within seconds, five unrelated females chased him into the forest. Poor guy. They almost took his testicles off. After that, he never made another problem. Bonobo females seem to know that if they stick together, the males can’t dominate.

The common consensus from experts are that most of history, the strategy is 1. The winner takes all approach.

TuringEquivalent wrote:

The common consensus from experts are that most of history, the strategy is 1. The winner takes all approach.

I think it's important to remember that "most of history" was actually in pre-history. Human evolution and human behavior are deeply derived from lifestyles which were geared for environments which were much more difficult to survive in. And yet, we have the ability to supersede our instincts by choice (a major adaptive advantage for humans).

I think the mating behaviors of groups of mammals are extremely dependent on what type of environment they are living in. Civilization(s) have given us more choices which work.

The most common adoptive strategy is 1 according to common consensus. The whole notion of one man, one wife is a recent development due to judeo_christian norms.

Since Darwin's day, we've been told that sexual monogamy comes naturally to our species. Mainstream science--as well as religious and cultural institutions--has maintained that men and women evolved in families in which a man's possessions and protection were exchanged for a woman's fertility and fidelity. But this narrative is collapsing. Fewer and fewer couples are getting married, and divorce rates keep climbing as adultery and flagging libido drag down even seemingly solid marriages.
How can reality be reconciled with the accepted narrative? It can't be, according to renegade thinkers Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá. While debunking almost everything we "know" about sex, they offer a bold alternative explanation in this provocative and brilliant book.
Ryan and Jethá's central contention is that human beings evolved in egalitarian groups that shared food, child care, and, often, sexual partners. Weaving together convergent, frequently overlooked evidence from anthropology, archaeology, primatology, anatomy, and psychosexuality, the authors show how far from human nature monogamy really is. Human beings everywhere and in every era have confronted the same familiar, intimate situations in surprisingly different ways. The authors expose the ancient roots of human sexuality while pointing toward a more optimistic future illuminated by our innate capacities for love, cooperation, and generosity.
With intelligence, humor, and wonder, Ryan and Jethá show how our promiscuous past haunts our struggles over monogamy, sexual orientation, and family dynamics. They explore why long-term fidelity can be so difficult for so many; why sexual passion tends to fade even as love deepens; why many middle-aged men risk everything for transient affairs with younger women; why homosexuality persists in the face of standard evolutionary logic; and what the human body reveals about the prehistoric origins of modern sexuality.
In the tradition of the best historical and scientific writing, Sex at Dawn unapologetically upends unwarranted assumptions and unfounded conclusions while offering a revolutionary understanding of why we live and love as we do. (edited by author)

In our closest evolutionary relatives (i.e. Chimpanzees and Gorillas) there is a dominant male that has a harem of females over whom he claims exclusive ownership.

You're leaving out our closest evolutionary relatives, bonobos, who are matriarchal.

So according to "Sex At Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins Of Modern Sexuality", the chimp model is not at all accurate. The book proposes that humanity actually evolved with group sex and multiple partners rather than a winner takes it all or monogamous model. Book excerpt from Amazon:

Quote:

Since Darwin's day, we've been told that sexual monogamy comes naturally to our species. Mainstream science--as well as religious and cultural institutions--has maintained that men and women evolved in families in which a man's possessions and protection were exchanged for a woman's fertility and fidelity. But this narrative is collapsing. Fewer and fewer couples are getting married, and divorce rates keep climbing as adultery and flagging libido drag down even seemingly solid marriages.
How can reality be reconciled with the accepted narrative? It can't be, according to renegade thinkers Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá. While debunking almost everything we "know" about sex, they offer a bold alternative explanation in this provocative and brilliant book.
Ryan and Jethá's central contention is that human beings evolved in egalitarian groups that shared food, child care, and, often, sexual partners. Weaving together convergent, frequently overlooked evidence from anthropology, archaeology, primatology, anatomy, and psychosexuality, the authors show how far from human nature monogamy really is. Human beings everywhere and in every era have confronted the same familiar, intimate situations in surprisingly different ways. The authors expose the ancient roots of human sexuality while pointing toward a more optimistic future illuminated by our innate capacities for love, cooperation, and generosity.
With intelligence, humor, and wonder, Ryan and Jethá show how our promiscuous past haunts our struggles over monogamy, sexual orientation, and family dynamics. They explore why long-term fidelity can be so difficult for so many; why sexual passion tends to fade even as love deepens; why many middle-aged men risk everything for transient affairs with younger women; why homosexuality persists in the face of standard evolutionary logic; and what the human body reveals about the prehistoric origins of modern sexuality.
In the tradition of the best historical and scientific writing, Sex at Dawn unapologetically upends unwarranted assumptions and unfounded conclusions while offering a revolutionary understanding of why we live and love as we do. (edited by author)

Turing, it seems like you entered the discussion with an concrete outcome in mind. My main point is that if you want to judge between two strategies, you need to establish some criteria for judging.

How do they explain the fact that the one man to many women model is so much a part of multiple human cultures?

One man may have many wives, but that doesn't mean that all the children are his. I've only read reviews of the book. You would have to check it out to see what proof if any it offers for consenual mutual partners.