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Originally Posted by Mister Coaster
Perhaps this holds true in "modern sophisticated society." However, such society is only a flash in the pan compared to the evolution of the human race. Men are and were the physcally stronger sex, therefore they simply dominated the females whenever they felt the urge for sexual intercourse. Look to the animal kingdom, monogomy is extremely rare. (yes there are a few species, thats why I'm saying its rare, not unheard of) Whenever males are the dominant sex, they fight it out amongst themselves, and to the victor goes the harem. Females are relagated to the birthing and rearing of the young because they cannot physically stand up to the males and change it. Males held the power.
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I think that this is a mischaracterization of the animal kingdom:
1. Men may have been and are physically stronger on average, but this doesn't necessarily translate into men having free reign to "dominate" females whenever they felt the urge for sexual intercourse. I'm not sure where this idea comes from. Men compete for sexual access to women, but women are not, nor have they ever been available to be dominated for sexual intercourse. Women in modern society, hunter-gather tribes, and likely throughout time have had more roles than sex, birthing, and rearing. Women are mothers, sisters, daughters, aunts, nieces, cousins, grandmothers, leaders, allies, and mates (and likely a variety of other roles). Most women and most men in any given community don't and wouldn't allow men to have free reign to sexually dominate women.
2. Men may be physically stronger, but men are not the "dominant" sex, nor are males generally. I don't know of many evolutionary biologists that would use the term "dominant" in relation to male-female relationships in nature. In fact, many might characterize the female as dominant. Due to the generally greater parental investment of females, you will typically find male-male competition and female choice. Choice, as in females usually have more choice than males regarding with whom they mate.
3. True, monogamy is rare in nature, but there are more mating systems in nature than monogamy and harem systems. Even when there are harem systems of mating, it's not clear that it is the male "dominating" a group of females. As far as systems other than monogamy or harems look at many, many bird species, chimps, bonobos, many species of wild dogs, many species of insects, many species of fish, bears, the list goes on and on.