The alpha-male problem
In the past, when children grew up into adulthood, the assumption was that these young adults would look for someone to marry, get married, and settle down in domestic bliss. That assumption no longer exists.
Nowadays, when children grow up and become adults, family (that is husband/wife and children) is the furthest thought in their minds. In a permissive society where one doesn't need to be in a relationship to have sex, one of the two main reasons to get married is no longer there. Why get married if one can freely get sex? Also, in a society that doesn't value children as much as it used to, the other reason to get married is also no longer there. Why have and raise children if it's such a hassle? Of course there are other reasons to get married, but they are minor and only make themselves known much later in an individual's life.
Lets rewind and go back in time a bit. About say 100 years ago. When a person is young, there are only two main reasons for marriage. One is intrinsic and the other is extrinsic. The first (intrinsic) reason relates to a person's drive to seek sexual pleasure (note that this is not the same as the sexual drive or the biological urge to procreate). The second (extrinsic) reason comes from social expectations. A woman's worth is measured in her ability to have children. A man's worth is measured in his ability to support a family (wife and children). Now both these reasons actually boil down to one thing: having children.
Before discussing sexual pleasure, we will first talk about the sexual drive. Now why does any animal or plant (including humans) have a sexual drive? To produce offspring. Producing offspring is the most energy intensive, difficult, and competitive process an organism has to go through. But you may wonder: surely some organisms would simply choose to not have offspring for whatever reason (perhaps it's too difficult or not worth the hassle)? Yes some did, and some still do. Evolution is not kind to those individuals, however. Those individuals go extinct because they either couldn't produce offspring or didn't want to produce offspring. Those that didn't produce offspring died out and the gene combinations that produced those individuals died out; the individuals' reasons for not producing offspring are irrelevant. Those that remain today produced offspring; they did it for whatever reasons, the details are irrelevant. And the gene combinations of these individuals survived and got passed on through their offspring and their offsprings' offspring.
And that is why we have the sexual drive. The drive to procreate and produce offspring. The sexual recombination process. The sexual drive is a program that was written by Evolution, and living things follow it.
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[edit] The Sentient Stage
With the rise of sentience however, animals gained the ability to be self aware to varying degrees. While sentience had it's advantages, it also had its drawbacks. Instead of blindly following its programming, a sentient being could make rudimentary decisions. While being able to make decisions is generally an advantage (for example, it is a prerequisite for "planning"), the sentient individual can also decide whether to go to all the trouble of having offspring or not. To help these newly sentient beings make the right decision, Evolution added a few treats to the mix. This is how we gained the ability to feel sexual pleasure. It was essentially a carrot to entice us into making the decision that Evolution wanted us to make. There are many sentient species (dolphins, primates, etc) that have the ability to feel sexual pleasure.
[edit] The Social Stage
Unfortunately however, Evolution chose to give us the treats before the difficult and unpleasant bits. Basically sexual pleasure was a way to entice us into having sex. As a result, we tend to have sex and only worry about the consequences later.
As a result, social rules and behaviours developed. Social rules and behaviours developed by Evolutionary processes. Those rules and behaviours that enabled one society to out-compete the others survived, and other rules that resulted in less fitness in a society got eliminated.
In human society, marriage (basically any long-term commitment) was one such rule/behaviour. Marriage (in whatever form) enabled men and women to cooperatively ensure that their children survived into adulthood. This was extremely important because adulthood in humans was a stage that took many many years to reach. Children were in constant danger (see Cinderella Effect) of not surviving into adulthood.
"Parental-influence in mate selection" (PI-MS) was another group of social behaviours that originated soon after. In early human societies, parents were involved in the mate selection process. Those parents that were involved in the mate selection process ensured that their genes were passed on successfully. This state of affairs continued for quite a long time.
Marriage also gave rise to the phenomenon of the "marriage trap". A woman could entice a man to have sex with her, and once pregnant could invoke the social rules to force him to marry her.
[edit] The Technological Stage
Entering the stage of technology, we have managed to figure out ways to open up the package that Evolution gave us and keep the treats while throwing away the unpleasant stuff. That is, we are now able to get sexual pleasure without having to go through all the difficult and painful stuff involved in producing and raising offspring. This marked a sea change in human society.
In many western societies, PI-MS started to erode away. The reasons were quite varied. PI-MS was seen as not being needed anymore, because the consequences of making a mistake in mate selection became minor, thanks to governmental influence, and false vested interest (FVI). Another reason was that the children were no longer burdened with the risk of unwanted pregnancies, so they were now free to learn by themselves. An unfortunate side-effect of this is that inexperienced adults take a very long time to learn the hard way, much longer than with PI-MS because parents already have the experience which they can use to help their children in these matters.
A mistake is, however, still a mistake and there are consequences. Most people of today go through a few relationships before finding success. As a result, people these days are quite cautious about who they hook up with, and they are also quite cautious about the person they hooked up with. Many people with the help of technology (contraception, abortion, etc) simply forgo the perils of commitment and choose to stay single for most of their reproductive lives.
The marriage trap also no longer works (has been rendered obsolete) in the Technological Stage due to marriage no longer being a permanent state of affairs, and also due to contraception and easy access to abortion. Thus it is no longer feasible for a woman to use a bit of subterfuge in getting the man she's interested in.
[edit] The Alpha-Male Problem
In this the Technological environment, the alpha male is king, sort of. If you consider having the freedom to have sex whenever and with whoever to be like a king. Women are drawn to him, attracted by his superior genes. Both the alpha-male and his female suitors are following their instinctual sex drives. The natural behaviour of women is to try for as long as is feasible to pursue such alpha males. And the natural behaviour of the alpha male is to stay single for as long as possible.
The problem arises when there is a lack of available women to Beta-Males, because most of the women are pursuing Alpha-Males. There is a big imbalance in numbers between the number of women and the number of Alpha-Males. It is simply impossible for every woman to have an Alpha-Male to herself. Eventually most women will tire of the game and become more pragmatic. They will make themselves available to Beta-Males, however by this stage they are usually older and cynical and thus unmarriageable.
It should be noted that the Alpha-Male Problem doesn't exist in "marriage societies". The society we now live in is no longer a "marriage society". In a marriage society, Alpha-Males were relatively quickly taken out of the pool of single men. They would have their choice of women, they would select one, marry her, and that was the end of that. Now however, these Alpha-Males choose to stay in the pool of single men for quite a long time and are thus a distraction for the women. As a result, Beta-Males find it difficult to hold the attention of a woman for long enough. In a way, society is headed in a direction that may end up coming full circle. Perhaps we may end up with an early primate-type society. 9
