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Just to reiterate - This post came about because I read a comment in an article contributing to a book. The author of the article was suggesting that the idea of marriage as we currently understand it was attributable to religion, and in the absence of religion, all other societal and cultural elements being essentially the same as now, marriage would not happen.
My gut reaction would be that this is incorrect, and that some equivalent to what we recognise as marriage would occur in a society that it is the same as ours except for the lack of religion. Pairing to bring up offspring seems a logical development. I must confess though, that I didnt really consider polyamory / polygamy, nor examples of communal living from the natural world, such as prides of lions, or troupes of meerkats etc.
I just thought the author was reaching a bit, attributing "marriage" to religion ;)