@argome321,
Right. As i see it, our natural mating patterns have been 'lost', buried as they are everywhere under the weight of different cultures. The cultural rules of courting, marriage, sex and other things.
I personally don't see culture as bad and nature as good or vice versa, and am not convinced that there ever was a unique 'state of nature' for human mating practices. But if there is at least a common matrix shaped by our evolution, it's worth studying it to understand our common nature AND our diverse cultures.
Now, comparing human with their nearest cousins is one way to go about studying this. It stands to reason that primates, and mammals in general, have some general resemblance in the way their societies are working 'in the wild'. Mammals are defined by their complex reproduction system, in which the female plays a central (and risky) role through gestation and lactation. As a result as as Max rightly pointed out, mammal males are generally expandable (and stronger), while females are precious (and weaker). This is just one consequence that may explain "women and children first", men going to war, the rule that a man must protect his wife from violent attack, and all these sorts of things. But this natural contrast between females and males among mammals may have other consequences, eg in sexuality or mating habits.
