In most species the male splits and lets the female(s) raise the kids.

Maybe this is not such a bad system after all, assuming, of course, that the male kicks in a big chunk of support, enough to compensate the female for her efforts, also. In the state of Nature, they don’t, of course. If the male and female can still love each other in this process, then so much the better. If not, then what’s the point anyway? Maybe too much emphasis is put on the ‘nuclear family’ and its many faults and failures, a rarity these days in countries where there’s a choice. Certainly no better is the broken family where children make rounds like the morning milkman. The lower the food supply, the more that animals seem to remain monogamous, and the male will help in exchange for the opportunity to drop his genes. When food is plentiful, fewer males are needed, and tend to kill each other for the chance to ham the harem. This phenomenon seems to apply even when a wild species becomes domesticated. The number of males and females seems to always be equal at birth, some sort of genetic law, the law of averages, the law of large numbers.

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