MARRIAGE AND THE MISSING LINK

[This Monday’s Archive was published in TTP on May 21, 2009.  It describes the evolutionary way marriage made us human and why the Left hates it, just as much now as 26 years ago because it always has.]

You’ve all heard about the 47 million year old fossil named Ida, heralded as “the Missing Link” in the human evolutionary chain.

For paleontologists, it’s an exciting find – a fossil that old so intact and complete they can see what Ida ate (seeds and leaves). It certainly is an exceptional addition to the primate evolutionary tree. But the whole “missing link” hype is just a media circus to sell a book plus advertising for a television documentary.

Man’s evolution in the fossil and genetic record is known and established. We share the same Hox genes providing the body blueprint for every animal with a front end and back end including a digestive tract with a mouth and anus going back to the first such “bilateran” creature, Kimberella, 555 million years ago.

We share the same gene set that enables us to have a backbone and spinal chord in common with all vertebrates including fish and dinosaurs. We share the same gene set in common with all mammals, the first of which emerged some 200 million years ago. All mammals, for example, possess a neocortex brain region.

The same applies to us and all primates, going back to the earliest primate, plesiadapaform, some 55 million years ago, with a hand for grasping and long fingers with nails not claws. So Ida is a great find, but no “missing link.”

You can follow this primate development to the emergence of the first humanoid species, Australopithecus, some four million years ago. One feature it had in common with its primate cousin, chimpanzees, was sexual dimorphism – the males being much larger than the females.

Australopithecines (the first bipedal or walking apes) evolved some 2.5 million years ago into Homo habilis, the first tool-maker with twice the brain size – from 400 to 800 cc’s. Habilis, however, was still sexually dimorphic.

One branch of Habilis, in accelerated evolutionary speed, took only a few hundred thousand years to evolve into Homo ergaster about 1.7 million years ago. With Ergaster, we have the first hominid recognizably human.

Human not just in appearance but behavior. The Greek word ergaster means “workman,” chosen for the far more advanced stone tools – finely chipped axes, knives, and cleavers – Ergaster invented. It was Ergaster who invented fire for keeping warm.

His brain had evolved. It was only larger than Habilis’s by some 50cc’s, but the contours were more complex and modern (you can tell this by the imprint of the brain on the inside of the skull). That, and the repositioning of the hyoid bone in the throat, makes it likely he was the first hominid to speak, to articulate a language.

(Many mammals have a hyoid bone, but only humans and our immediate ancestors starting with Ergaster have it where it is, providing a voice box that can make sounds no other animal can.)

Ergaster had the same body proportions as modern humans – longer legs and shorter arms, slim hips, a barrel chest, and a small belly (which means he was a hunter who ate a lot of meat, and didn’t need a big belly like other primates to digest a diet of plants). Unlike his ancestors, he was capable of sweating as he had lost most body hair.

He stood straight and erect (another name for Ergaster is Homo Erectus, erect man), and he was tall – taller than the average modern human. Males were six feet or above – and women were 5½ to six feet. With Ergaster, gross sexual dimorphism vanishes from human evolution.

This is the true human revolution. The males of Ergaster’s ancestors, Australopithicus and Habilis, were twice as large as the females – meaning they were polygamous. In species where males have a lot of competition for access to mates, the bigger the male is the greater his selective advantage. The more sex he has with as many females as he can, the more his genes get replicated.

This changes with Ergaster. The males became 50% bigger than their ancestors, while the females became 70% bigger. This reduction of dimorphism signals that the greatest revolution in human society was occurring: pair-bonding. One man mating with one woman, the nuclear family as the foundation of a human community.

“Pair-bonding” is what paleontologists call it. We call it marriage. Marriage – monogamous pair-bonding for mutual support and to raise children (human infants are far more helpless than those of other primates – this again starts with Ergaster) – is what made us human. Marriage is the missing link.

For one million seven hundred thousand years, monogamous pair-bonding or marriage and the resultant nuclear family has been the foundation of human society. However compromised by non-monogamy through the ages, it is nonetheless the source of evolutionary humanity.

Which is why the Left constantly wages war against it.

Think back. Wasn’t the first argument for socialism you ever heard a memorized slogan spouted by some idiot kid in your 5^th grade class, “Well, socialism would work if it just wasn’t for human nature”?

Marxism, like all variants of Leftism, is hatred of human beings for what they are, what makes them human. Further, it is politicized hatred. Marxists have always hated marriage and the nuclear family, and are constantly contriving rationales to destroy it because it is an obstacle to state control.

Destroy marriage and you can atomize individuals, making it easier to control them, to switch their loyalty and be more subservient to the State.

Which is why the Left’s entire campaign for homosexual “marriage” has nothing to do with marriage. It is a political agenda, a subversive attack on the institution of marriage itself for the purpose of expanding government fascist control over people.

Homosexual or “same-sex” “marriage” will supplant abortion as a key battleground issue for the selection of the next Supreme Court Justice. All of the above provides the context in which to understand the debate.

It is not a debate over the rights of homosexuals. It is a debate over the fascist agenda of the Left. It is a debate for and against what makes us human. It is a debate that will be lost unless we understand that one man-one woman pair-bonding – marriage – is what made us human in the first place.