Zeno Society

In Zeno, Zeno mentions his idea of an ideal society. He says that in a society where women get to choose their partners the men would not be sure of who fathered the children, and as a result would treat them all as if they were their own. He says that this would eliminate jealousy because none of the women would belong to any of the men and neither would their children. Although the idea seems to make sense, there are a number of factors that prevent this mechanism from ever working. It assumes that men would happily raise a child that might not be theirs, which would cause them to go against their nature. Also, it ignores that humans are socially monogamous creatures and would inevitably become attached to each other. Finally, it doesn’t

Zeno believed that if women chose their partners men wouldn’t become jealous because none of them would have any claim to the women. If a man isn’t in a monogamous relationship with a woman then he has no reason to get jealous if another man sleeps with her. This is wrong. It is in a man's nature to want to spread his genes and it is also in his nature to want to make sure that it is his blood running through his baby's veins. This is where a man’s need to control his female partner comes from. The more certain he can be that her child is also his, the more successful he has been in passing on his DNA. That means ensuring that his partner is faithful only to him. Although this impulse has changed with the advancement of civilization, at its core it remains the same. It can be seen in 1542 when King Henry VIII had his wife, Anne of Cleves, beheaded for adultery when he had had many mistresses himself. It can also be seen in ancient rituals that meant to check the virginity of young brides before marrying them to their husbands. These were both ways of ensuring the purity of a bloodline. An “impure” woman would only pose a risk to her male partner, as he would have less certainty that any offspring is his. This is why the men in Zeno’s ideal society would be even more jealous of the other men having intercourse with the same woman. Their natural instinct towards protecting the possible vessel of their genes would kick in and they would become jealous of any other man trying to take her from him, even if officially she belongs to no one. Since they would be expected to care for the child as their own, their desire for it to actually be theirs would be heightened and so would their jealousy towards the mother's other