At 11:36 2000-09-22 -0400, Robert wrote:

>If pair-bonding occurred regularly,
>the males would also cease reproducing and really have no reason left to live,

This could be true for worm or perhaps frogs, but a Homo Sapiens is a
much
more complex thing. The "original" human society was already very much
a information society. Knowledge had to be remembered and transmitted
in
a safe form to the next generation. Old people in hunter gatherer
societies sit talking a lot, telling stories and remembering. This is
listened to by younger people who collect the knowledge in an implicit
way. This is only one of the important things an old person can do.
A society where the men die at 40 will soon degenerate. There are also
some degenerated cultures around :-)

- Hans