I think I've discovered some of the origins of that old dilemma that women are not allowed to have sex with more than one partner and men are.

This is quoted from my Western Civilizations book. It's about Hammurabi's time in ancient Mesopotamia.

"The laws recognized men as heads of their households. In the interests of protecting the reputations of husbands and the legitimacy of offspring, the laws prescribed death by drowning as the punishment for adulterous wives, as well as for their partners, while permitting men to engage in consensual sexual relations with concubines, slaves or prostitutes without penalty. Mesopotamian men progressively tightened their control over the social and sexual behavior of women during the second millennium B.C.E. To protect family fortunes and guarantee the legitimacy of heirs, Mesopotamians insisted on the virginity of brides at marriage, and they forbade casual socializing between married women and men outside their family."

So think about it, men, in a patriarchal society, with probably the earliest motivation to have an heir for their fortunes and status, want to assure the legitimacy of their offspring. They sort of see women as the means of getting an heir, therefore to be controlled and protected. Possessed, in short - as babymaking people.

But the men also have promiscuous sex. Well that creates a problem because either they have a group of women who owe allegiance to only him, making them all virginal wives, at least for him, or there are two groups of women, those respected and possessed as virginal wives. And those who are concubines and prostitutes who are known to have sex with many partners, but aren't seen as babymakers, they're seen as sexual toys. Prospective wives have to be seen as pure because otherwise men's families are tainted, their kids may not even be their kids... and there's no way to tell in ancient Mesopotamia.

So now we have a black and white thinking. Either you're a virginal wife or you're a concubine, but there's nothing in between because if you have sex before marriage, you're not fit to be a wife and pure mother, therefore all you're really left with is being fit for sex. Also, we have possessiveness and jealousy. Men are very possessive and protective of their wives. My text goes on to say that "married women began to wear veils when they ventured beyond their own households to discourage the attention of men from other families." Men are used to controlling and protecting their babymakers. I'm sure emotions arise when men lose their "rights" to control and possess their babymakers, jealousy comes in.

Thousands of years later, mindsets are still survived, even if the times have changed. Men still have something ingrained in them. Women do too, in different areas. So, ingrained in men is the black and white mindset that women are either virginal wives, or if not, they must then be concubines. And also ingrained is the possessiveness and jealousy for girlfriends and wives. Men don't want their girlfriends to have had sex with anyone else in the past. Men are protective of women's socialization with other men. They're quick to see situations where they lose their possessiveness and protection of their women. They see and predict threats to their possessions very quickly.

I can't even remember what it was, I think it was Valley of the Dolls... in any case, some kind of book or tv show made the distinction that there are the women that men like to fuck and then the women that men like to settle down with. Even today, men still want two groups of women at their disposal. They want women who they can sleep with but not make babies with. And they want women who they can count on to keep the legitimacy of their families. You can't be both. You can't be pure and be a sexual object. So if you're not pure, you're automatically regarded as a sexual object, i.e. a slut.

Of course, this only makes sense if my history book is accurate. But if it is accurate, no wonder, even today that women aren't socially allowed to have many sexual partners.