Merriam-Webster

3 : one of a pair: as a : either member of a couple and especially a married couple b : either member of a breeding pair of animals c : either of two matched objects

Mike :)

I think the verb tenses are not in sink (correct me if I'm wrong)

try: might have been... were

or: might be...are

to the advantages of a mate => to the advantages of having a mate

Men might be open to the advantages of having a monogamous relationship

This is not very elegant, sorry, but I assume you wanted an explanation rather than a rephrasing. I think you should be wary of some other suggestions concerning monogamy. I believe that what is being described here is the so-called male dual strategy. There are evolutionary advantages to having a mate and keeping her faithful: your offspring with her, being cared for by both parents, have better prospects of surviving and reproducing. But you can do this and "spread your seed" (i.e. screw around) at the same time. The additional cost of casual sex is negligible, and so it doesn't matter, from an evolutionary point of view, that any offspring resulting from this won't have the benefit of two parents: they're a bonus. Of course, better stil, is to father children by someone else's mate and have him put in the sacrifices of protecting, feeding and rearing them.

None of this relates to how we men in civilised society behave, though, does it?

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 5 hrs 8 mins (2004-09-20 07:15:02 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

Tense of \"might\". This is, according to Collins and my native-speaker intuitions, either subjunctive or past tense (indicative) if \"may\". (Cf \"could\" in relation to \"can\".) For the correct sequence of tenses, it needs to be past tense. So it is not really expressing a hypothetical possibility. It is saying, yes, they had the possibility of doing this, and (by implication) some at least actually did. But they also did the other thing. I get the strong feeling that the men who availed themselves of the advantages of a mate and the men who \"spread their seed\" were not disjoint groups.

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 3 days 6 hrs 55 mins (2004-09-23 09:02:18 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

\"Might\" revisited. I think, on reflection, that might is present subjunctive/conditional (I don\'t want to get into a fight with Dusty over terminology). But I don\'t take it a s counterfactual. It means, IMHO, that some men at least do take mate (most of us do, in fact), but that we are driven by evolutionary forces to ALSO \"spread our seed\". See, e.g. David Buss, \"The Evolution of Desire\" (I think htat\'s right), for an explanation of this.

THanks to Dusty for alerting me, albeit indirectly to this grammatical possibility.

I find \"were driven\" a little misleading; I would prefer \"have been driven\", although, admittedly, the simple past has some currency in US Englishin such contexts.