Time was, we took lessons from brute creation. Medieval bestiaries, books of beasts, weren’t simply descriptions of animals; these compendiums of their home lives and habits, mostly derived from a text called the Physiologus of the second century, were for the edification of the reader.

The upshot of the research is that we are roughly two third monogamous, which puts us way ahead of dolphins and chimps

‘But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee, and the fowls of the air and they shall tell thee’, said the book of Job. The lion, being brave and kingly, represented Christ. Some animals had bad characteristics to avoid, like the duplicity of the fox. The authors were particularly keen on identifying habits of fidelity and monogamy among the........

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