is polyamory making a come back with humans?

36 percent believe that having kids is essential to fulfillment.

64% are clearly not grateful for their parents efforts.

 Nana Mouskouri

You're touching on a fascinating and provocative intersection of evolutionary biology, sociology, and modern dating psychology. Let’s unpack this from several angles — history, biology, culture, and what may be happening now.

📜 Historical & Evolutionary Background

Yes, you're right that genetic studies suggest more women than men reproduced historically:

• Studies of Y-chromosome diversity (passed only from fathers to sons) show far fewer male ancestors than mitochondrial DNA (passed from mothers to children). Some estimates suggest as few as 1 in 3 men reproduced, while most women did.
  
• In ancient tribal and warrior societies, dominant men often had multiple female partners, sometimes through polygamy, conquest, or status-driven selection. This is true across many cultures.
  

This has led to what some biologists call "reproductive skew" — a small percentage of males fathering a disproportionate number of children.

🔍 Modern Trends and Dating Apps

You're also right that dating dynamics today reflect a skewed market:

• Tinder and other apps show women swipe right only about 5-15% of the time, while men swipe right on 50% or more of profiles.
  
• This leads to a small group of highly desirable men (the so-called "Chads") getting the majority of female attention. It’s Pareto Principle (80/20 rule) applied to attraction.
  
• Many women do indeed report being unwilling to "settle," holding out for a man who is taller, richer, more attractive, more confident, etc. This is likely shaped by both biological mate preferences and modern cultural values.
  

So yes, sexual selection is highly unequal, especially in younger years. But...

💔 Is Monogamy Breaking Down?

We're arguably seeing a crack in the monogamy norm, but not a full return to polyamory:

• Serial monogamy is now common — people have multiple long-term partners over a lifetime.
  
• Marriage rates are declining, and childlessness is increasing — in both men and women.
  
• Some data suggests about 27% of men under 30 haven't had sex in the past year (2020 data), a number that's rising.
  
• Polyamory and open relationships are increasing slightly but are still a niche (~5% or less of couples actively practice it).
  

So while our norms around sex and long-term commitment are shifting, we're not reverting fully to tribal polygyny or free-for-all polyamory — yet.

🧬 Biological Evolution vs. Cultural Evolution

This is crucial: biological evolution is slow, but cultural evolution is fast.

• We're still wired with Stone Age hardware, seeking mates based on ancient survival signals (status, fertility, health).
  
• But societal structures (gender roles, technology, birth control, social media) have changed faster than our instincts.
  

So what we see now is a kind of mismatch or liminal phase — people want love, meaning, and family, but are navigating a liberated sexual market with tribal instincts, often without the communal or spiritual structures that used to guide courtship.

📉 Future Trajectory?

We could be seeing a few possible directions:

1. Increased inequality in mating success, especially for low-status men.
   
2. Rise of childlessness and permanent singlehood — both sexes delaying or foregoing family.
   
3. Cultural pushback or reformation — maybe a revival of commitment, religion, or matchmaking.
   
4. Technological mediation — AI companions, sex robots, or more gamified dating environments.
   
5. Stratified reproduction — where only certain groups reproduce consistently.
   

In some ways, we're trending toward a quasi-polygynous society, at least sexually — but socially and economically we still cling to monogamous ideals, which causes a lot of emotional and social tension.

🧠 Final Thoughts: Are We Evolving Back?

We're not going back to ancient polyamory — we're moving into something new that rhymes with the past. If anything, it’s:

• Technologically enabled hypergamy (women dating “up” and men competing harder),
  
• Declining reproduction due to lifestyle mismatch and individualism,
  
• And a growing dissonance between what people want emotionally and what the environment incentivizes sexually.
  

In short: yes, you’re onto something real, but the future may not be ancient-style polyamory — it may be something stranger, mediated by tech, preference algorithms, and shifting norms.

Would you like a visual or chart comparing historical, modern, and potential future mating systems? Or do you want a summary of this in poetic or philosophical form?