Share <Embed>

Buy new:

$50.95

List Price: $54.95

Save: $4.00 (7%)

& FREE Shipping. Details

Arrives: Jan 25 - 27 Details

Fastest delivery: Tuesday, Jan 19

Available to ship in 1-2 days.
As an alternative, the Kindle eBook is available now and can be read on any device with the free Kindle app.

Secure transaction

Ships from	Amazon.com
Sold by	Amazon.com

Details

Ships from

Amazon.com

Sold by

Amazon.com

Add a gift receipt with prices hidden

Have one to sell?

Sell on Amazon

Flip to back Flip to front

Listen Playing... Paused You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition.
Learn more

See all 3 images

Despotism and Differential Reproduction: A Darwinian View of History Paperback – April 30, 2008

by Laura L. Betzig (Editor)

6 ratings

See all formats and editions Hide other formats and editions

Price

New from

Used from

Kindle

"Please retry"

$48.40

—

Hardcover

"Please retry"

$160.00

$159.99

—

Paperback

"Please retry"

$50.95

$58.19

"Much light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history," thus ended Darwin's Origin of Species. For many years, the book provoked a flood of argument, but yielded little evidence. In the first century after the book's publication, virtually no one tested Darwin's theory against the evidence of human history. Now that tide has changed. Laura Betzig challenges the proposition that the evolved end of human life is its reproduction by presenting the literature on conflict resolution from over a hundred societies. The research results presented in Despotism and Differential Reproduction convincingly uphold Darwin's prophecy.

A basic premise behind research has always been that understanding the way things are should contribute to our ability to change them to the way we would like them to be. This idea forms the basis for Betzig's research--she sets out to explain how things really are by leading the reader through the historical and natural conditions that have promoted despotism in the hopes that this might eventually eradicate it. She begins with the idea that reproduction is the end of human life, and that all forms of power and strength are exploited in reaching this end. In this way, Betzig shows with startling clarity how power corrupts and how despotic governments continue to exist in the world today. Engaging--even at times railing against--existing literature on human and social evolution, such as that of Rousseau and Marx, Betzig asserts herself as a formidable and undeniable voice in this debate.

Since Darwin's monumental work, more has been said about why questions regarding how human history has been shaped by natural history should not even be asked, than has been said in an effort to answer them. This work puts a stop to that by testing the Darwinian hypothesis and finding that he was right: light has in fact been shed on human political and reproductive history. Controversial and creative, this book makes no apologies for its bold messages and interdisciplinary boundary blending and addresses a topic of continuing interest and importance.

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

Laura Betzig
1
Paperback
6 offers from $13.40
Richard Alexander
3
Paperback
$52.22

Customers who bought this item also bought

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

David Buss
83
Paperback
$70.08

Special offers and product promotions

Amazon Business : For business-only pricing, quantity discounts and FREE Shipping. Register a free business account

Editorial Reviews

Review

-[T]he author commendably puts reproduction at the center of human social arrangements. She has tackled an immensely complex and important subject, a synthesis of the biological propensities that we, as mammals, carry and the cultural features that are a part of our species' environment.-

--Alice Schlegel, The Quarterly Review of Biology

-Laura Betzig's book is about differential reproduction and is therefore ultimately about population quality.-

--Daniel R. Vining, Jr., Population and Development Review

-Laura Betzig reports two primary findings (1) despotism occurs more often in large, hierarchial states (those with three or more administrative levels above the local community) than in societies governed at or near the local community level; and (1) despotic rulers are more likely than other men to have many wives and concubines.-

--Allan Mazur, Contemporary Sociology

-The value of the book is its documentation of extravagant abuse of power by males in a position to do so.-

--Henry Harpending, American Scientist

"[T]he author commendably puts reproduction at the center of human social arrangements. She has tackled an immensely complex and important subject, a synthesis of the biological propensities that we, as mammals, carry and the cultural features that are a part of our species' environment."

--Alice Schlegel, The Quarterly Review of Biology

"Laura Betzig's book is about differential reproduction and is therefore ultimately about population quality."

--Daniel R. Vining, Jr., Population and Development Review

"Laura Betzig reports two primary findings (1) despotism occurs more often in large, hierarchial states (those with three or more administrative levels above the local community) than in societies governed at or near the local community level; and (1) despotic rulers are more likely than other men to have many wives and concubines."

--Allan Mazur, Contemporary Sociology

"The value of the book is its documentation of extravagant abuse of power by males in a position to do so."

--Henry Harpending, American Scientist

--Alice Schlegel, The Quarterly Review of Biology

"Laura Betzig's book is about differential reproduction and is therefore ultimately about population quality."

--Daniel R. Vining, Jr., Population and Development Review

--Allan Mazur, Contemporary Sociology

"The value of the book is its documentation of extravagant abuse of power by males in a position to do so."

--Henry Harpending, American Scientist

About the Author

Laura L. Betzig is known for her studies in despotism and democracy in history as well as history of the West. In addition to this book she has also written Human Reproductive Behaviour and Human Nature: A Critical Reader. She has held positions at Northwestern University, the University of California, and the University of Michigan.

Product details

Publisher : Routledge; 1st edition (April 30, 2008)
Language: : English
Paperback : 190 pages
ISBN-10 : 0202362019
ISBN-13 : 978-0202362014
Lexile measure : 1300L
Item Weight : 11.2 ounces
Dimensions : 5.98 x 0.42 x 9.02 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #3,118,315 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #506 in Organic Evolution
- #14,793 in Popular Culture in Social Sciences
- #35,011 in Historical Study (Books)

Customer Reviews:
6 ratings

Start reading Despotism, Social Evolution, and Differential Reproduction instantly on your Kindle Fire or on the free Kindle apps for iPad, Android tablet, PC or Mac. Don't have a free Kindle app? Get yours here

Customer reviews

5 star		42%
4 star		29%
3 star		29%
2 star 0% (0%)		0%
1 star 0% (0%)		0%

How are ratings calculated?

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Luc REYNAERT

Power and reproduction.

Reviewed in the United States on June 17, 2003

Verified Purchase

This is without a shadow of a doubt a very important book, based on massive field research.
As prof. Betzig states: this is a book about how things really are: the end of human life is its reproduction, and positions of strength are exploited to this end. Power (bluntly, the ability to kill subjects for trivial or no cause) is essential in the resolution of conflicts of interest to the advantage of those who hold power.
This work demonstrates profusely that self-interest and its corroborations (nepotism, corruption ...) reign mightily in all societies. It answers most clearly why power corrupts. It explains the near universality of despotic governments in hierarchal societies, but also why this kind of government still exists (open and bare, or hidden) everywhere in the world today.
This book has some very important victims: J.J. Rousseau (general will) and Hegel (the moral law) are plainly brushed off: 'law' is not a product of a social contract or of the State, but 'rights and obligations coincide with relative status'. The powerful dictate(d) the laws.
A third victim is Marx with his emphasis on production and not reproduction, and his prescription of a socialist(!) revolution.
Another victim is G. Becker (partly): the family is not fundamentally an economic unit, because men are essentially concerned with the fidelity of their wives.
Why did, for prof. Betzig, the situation become less despotic in modern states? Because people in power have been forced to make concessions to attract mercenaries, craftsmen, defense specialists ... But these people are still used directly or indirectly to contribute to the reproductive efforts of men in power.
This is a formidable modern book. As the author bluntly states: one must first comprehend the basics, before one can implement measures for change.
This small book shows magisterially the depth and enormous power of the Darwinian thought.
An essential read.

12 people found this helpful

Helpful

nicky

despots do screw indeed

Reviewed in the United States on October 4, 2013

Verified Purchase

This book is not really an exciting read, but it is solid.
Despots, males with power over life and death, do use that power to increase their reproductive success, Betzig shows that unequivocally.
Yet there is something missing for the general reader. The lack of narrative? The limited target? It's scientific scope?
Despite the subject, this is not an erotic type of book, somewhat dry, devoid of any frills. It just shows what it says, mandatory reading for those that think sex is about power and not power about sex. A basic reference work and hence important.

It deserves 5 stars for its contents, but only three for readability. So, shall we compromise on four?

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Michael L Detzler

Says a lot about the propensity of men in power ...

Reviewed in the United States on August 5, 2015

Verified Purchase

Says a lot about the propensity of men in power to keep many wives and stop other men from fathering children with them.

Outlines the facts regarding powerful men and their propensity to have many wives and foster many children at the same time keeping other men from these wives.

Helpful

VEL – The Contemporary Heretic

The 'Means of Reproduction' and the Purpose of Political Power

Reviewed in the United States on February 23, 2018

Although little known today, Moulay Ismail Ibn Sharif, alias 'Ismail the Bloodthirsty', a late-seventeenth, early eighteenth century Emperor of Morocco is, in a strict Darwinian sense, probably the most successful human ever to have lived.

Ismail, you see, is said to have sired some 888 (or, in some versions, 867) offspring. His Darwinian 'fitness' therefore exceeded that of any other known person.

Some have questioned whether this figure is realistic (Einon I998). However, the figure seems eminently plausible (Gould 2000; Oberzaucher & Grammer 2014).

Indeed, as Laura Betzig demonstrates in 'Despotism and Differential Reproduction', Ismail is exceptional only in degree.

Summarising Betzig, Matt Ridley records:
“[Of] the six independent 'civilizations' of early history – Babylon, Egypt, India, China, the Aztecs and the Incas… the Babylonian king Hammurabi had thousands of slave 'wives' at his command. The Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten procured three hundred and seventeen concubines and 'droves' of consorts. The Aztec ruler Montezuma enjoyed four thousand concubines. The Indian emperor Udayama preserved sixteen thousand consorts in apartments guarded by eunuchs. The Chinese emperor Fei-ti had ten thousand women in his harem. The Inca… kept virgins on tap throughout the kingdom” ( The Red Queen : p191-2; Betzig 1993a).

Betzig acknowledges, “The number of women in such a harem may easily have prohibited the successful impregnation of each… but, their being kept from bearing children to others increased the monarch’s relative reproductive accomplishment” (p70).

Extensive efforts also were made to ensure the chastity of these women.

Even in ancient times, “evidence of claustration, in the form of a walled interior courtyard, exists for Babylonian Mai; and claustration in second story rooms with latticed, narrow windows is mentioned in the Old Testament” (p79).

Indeed, Betzig proposes, “elaborate fortifications erected for the purposes of defense may [also] have served the dual (identical?) function of protecting the chastity of women of the harem” (p79).

In some cases, concubines were guarded by eunuchs employed – and castrated – specifically for this purpose.

[Chastity belts, however, seem to be a misconstrued medieval joke.]

The women’s movements were highly restricted, and, if permitted to venture beyond their cloisters, they were invariably escorted.

For example in Dahomey, “the king’s wives’… approach was always signalled by the ringing of a bell by the women servant or slave who invariably preceded them [and] the moment the bell is heard all persons, whether male or female , turn their backs, but all the males must retire to a certain distance” (p79).

However, such women were often “equipped with their own household and servants, and probably lived reasonably comfortable lives in most respects, except… for a lack of liberal masculine company” (p80).

Thus, residents of Inca 'Houses of Virgins' “lived in perpetual seclusion to the end of their lives… and were not permitted to converse, or have intercourse with, or to see any man, nor any woman who was not one of themselves” unless and until chosen as a concubine by the king (p81-2).

Finally, methods were employed to enhance their fertility.

Thus, “wet nurses, who allow women to resume ovulation by cutting short their breast-feeding periods, date from at least the code of Hammurabi in the eighteenth century BC”; while “Tang dynasty emperors of China kept careful records of dates of menstruation and conception in the harem so as to be sure to copulate only with the most fertile concubines” and “Chinese emperors were also taught to conserve their semen so as to keep up their quota of two women a day, and some even complained of their onerous sexual duties” ( The Red Queen : p192).

Thus, confirming Betzig's conclusions, researchers have recently uncovered genetic evidence of the fecundity of one particular powerful ruler (or lineage) – namely, a Y chromosome marker, found in 8% of males across a large region of Asia and in one in two hundred males across the whole world – the features of which are consistent with its having spread across the region thanks to the exception prolificity of Genghis Khan, his male siblings and descendants (Zerjal 2003).

Betzig’s Methodology
Laura Betzig’s 'Despotism and Differential Reproduction' shows how cross-culturally pervasive this pattern is.

Ismail the Bloodthirsty is never mentioned by Betzig. Instead, to avoid the charge of 'cherrypicking', Betzig uses a random sample of cultures across the world.

The results are similar: Throughout history and across the world, wherever individual males acquire great power, they convert this power into reproductive success by asserting exclusive access to multiple fertile sex partners.

Female Rulers?
In contrast, limited to only one pregnancy every nine months, a woman can bear fewer children, even with the aid of evolutionary novelties like wet nurses, bottle milk and IVF treatment.

As a female analogue of Ismail the Bloodthirsty, it is sometimes claimed that a Russian woman gave birth to 69 offspring in the nineteenth century.

However, this much smaller figure is both physiologically implausible and poorly sourced. Even her name is unknown, and she is referred to only as 'the wife of Feodor Vassilyev'. It is surely an urban myth.

Feminists have argued that the overrepresentation of males in positions of power is a consequence of such mysterious and non-existent phenomena as 'patriarchy' or 'male dominance' or the 'oppression of women'.

In reality, however, it seems that, for women, seeking positions of power and wealth simply doesn’t have the same reproductive payoff as for men. This then, in Darwinian terms, is why women rarely make the necessary effort, or take the necessary risks, to attain power in the first place.

This is, of course, the essence of 'Bateman’s Principle', later formalized by Robert Trivers as 'differential parental investment theory' (Bateman 1948; Trivers 1972).

This calculus then, rather than the supposed 'oppression of women', explains, not only the cross-culturally universal over-representation of men in positions of power (see Why Men Rule ), but also much of the so-called 'gender pay gap' in our own societies (see Biology at Work ).

Beyond Popular Cynicism
The notion that powerful rulers use their power to gain access to multiple nubile sex partners is hardly original to sociobiology. On the contrary, it accords with popular cynicism.

What a Darwinian perspective adds is the ultimate explanation of why political leaders do – and why female political rulers have different priorities.

Moreover, a Darwinian perspective goes beyond popular cynicism in suggesting that access to multiple sex partners is not just another perk of power. Rather, it is the ultimate purpose of power and reason why men evolved to seek power in the first place.

As Betzig concludes, “political power in itself may be explained, at least in part, as providing a position from which to gain reproductively” (p85).

Darwin vs. Marx
Betzig contrasts the predictions made by sociobiological theory with those of a rival theory – Marxism.

Superficially, Marxism appears almost as cynical as Darwinism. Like Betzig, Marx regards most societies in existence throughout history as exploitative – designed to serve the interests, not of the population in general, but of the dominant class within that society.

However, sociobiological and Marxist theory depart in three respects.

First, Marxists propose that exploitation will be absent in future anticipated communist societies.

Second, Marxists also claim that such exploitation was absent among hunter-gatherer groups, where so-called 'primitive communism' supposedly prevailed.

Thus, the Marxist, so cynical with regard exploitation in capitalist societies, suddenly turns naïve and innocent when it comes to envisaging future communist utopias, and when contemplating 'Noble Savages' in their 'Eden Before the Fall'.

Unfortunately, Betzig herself is also rather confused.

On the one hand, she rightly dismisses 'primitive communism' as a Marxist myth.

“Men,” she writes, “accrue reproductive rights to wives of varying numbers and fertility in every human society” (p20) and “unequal access to the basic resource which perpetuates life, members of the opposite sex, is a condition in [even] the simplest societies” (p32). Likewise, “conflicts of interest in all societies are resolved with a consistent bias in favor of men with greater power”, and “some form of exploitation has been in evidence in even the smallest societies” (p67; see also Chagnon 1979).

However, Betzig refuses to rule out the possibility of communism in the future, claiming her theory does not “preclude the possibility of future conditions under which individual interests might become common interests: under which individual welfare might best be served by serving the welfare of society” (p68).

However, this is impossible.

We have evolved to seek to maximize the representation of our genes in subsequent generations at the expense of those of other individuals. Only a eugenic reengineering of human nature itself could change this.

As Donald Symons emphasized in The Evolution of Human Sexuality , reproductive competition is inevitable – because, whereas there is sometimes sufficient food that everyone is satiated and competition for food is therefore unnecessary and counterproductive, reproductive success is always relative, and therefore competition over women is universal.

Thus, Betzig quotes Confusius as observing “disorder does not come from heaven, but is brought about by women” (p26).

It therefore seems inconceivable that social engineers, let alone pure circumstance, could ever engineer a society in which individual interests were identical to societal interests, other than a society of identical twins (see Singer, A Darwinian Left ).

Marx and the 'Means of Reproduction'
The third conflict between the Darwinist and Marxist perspectives concerns “the relative emphasis on production and reproduction” (p67).

Whereas Marxists view control of the so-called 'The Means of Production' as the ultimate cause of societal conflict, socioeconomic status and exploitation, for Darwinians conflict and exploitation instead focus on control over what we might term 'The Means of Reproduction' – in other words fertile females, their wombs and vaginas.

Thus, Betzig observes, “Marxism makes no explicit prediction that exploitation should coincide with reproduction” (p68) – i.e. that high-status individuals should convert their power into reproductive success.

In contrast, for Darwinians, this is the very purpose, and ultimate end, of exploitation.

As sociologist-turned-sociobiologist Pierre van den Berghe observes, "the ultimate measure of human success is not production but reproduction" and "economic productivity and profit are means to reproductive ends, not ends in themselves" ( The Ethnic Phenomenon : p165).

Production is, from a sociobiological perspective, just another means of gaining the resources necessary for reproduction. Reproduction is, from a biologic perspective, the ultimate purpose of life.

Therefore, unlike his contemporary Darwin, Marx was, for all his radicalism, in his emphasis on economics rather than sex, just another nineteenth-century Victorian prude.

'The Polygyny Threshold Model'
One way of conceptualizing the tendency of powerful males to attract multiple wives is 'The Polygyny Threshold Model', formulated by Gordon Orians to model the mating systems of passerine birds (Orians 1969).

Here, males practice 'Resource Defence Polygyny' – i.e. defend territories containing valuable resources (e.g. food). Females then distribute themselves between males in accordance with size/quality of male territories.

Thus, if the territory of one male is twice as resource abundant as that of another, he would attract twice as many mates.

Applying this theory to humans, one might predict that, if Bill Gates is a hundred thousand times richer than Joe Schmo, then, if Joe has one wife, Bill should have around 100,000 wives.

Interestingly, 'The Polygyny Threshold Model' was anticipated by George Bernard Shaw, who observed:
“Maternal instinct leads a woman to prefer a tenth share in a first rate man to the exclusive possession of a third rate one” (Shaw 1903).

[However, in referring to the “maternal instinct”, Shaw perhaps had in mind also desire for genetic qualify in offspring, as presumably inherited from “first rate” fathers, akin to what biologists call 'Good Genes Sexual Selection'.]

Male Coercion?
'The Polygyny Threshold Model' seemingly views 'female choice' as the sole determinant of mating systems, with males merely 'taking what they can get'.

However, women recruited into the harems of Inca, Aztec and Chinese emperors had little choice.

Data from the Dogon of West Africa suggests that, whereas polygynous males had more offspring overall, they had fewer offspring per wife, suggesting that males benefit from polygyny, but their wives incur a fitness penalty (Strassman 2000).

This reflects the fact that even male reproductive output is limited, and so are male resources.

Indeed, even prodigiously wealthy males have a limited supply of one resource – namely, time – and time spent with offspring may be an important determinant of offspring success, which paid child-carers, lacking a direct genetic stake in offspring, are unable to replicate.

Thus, if Bill Gates were able to attract for himself the 100,000 wives that the 'Polygyny Threshold Model' suggests is his due, then, even if he were capable of providing each woman with the 'two point four children' that is her own due, it is doubtful he would have enough time on his hands to spend much 'quality time' with each of his 240,000 offspring – just as one doubts Ismail the Bloodthirsty was himself an attentive father his own mere 888.

Contemporary Rulers and Elites
There is, however, one obvious exception to the general pattern whereby powerful males possess multiple wives and father large broods – namely the contemporary West.

Here, polygyny is unlawful, bigamy a crime and the people who have the most children and the highest Darwinian 'fitness' are, at least according to popular stereotype, single mothers on government welfare.

This has been memorably and deservedly termed the 'Central Theoretical Problem of Human Sociobiology' by University of Pennsylvania demographer and eugenicist Daniel Vining (Vining 1986).

Thus, contrary to the predictions of the 'Polygyny Threshold Model', Bill Gates does not have 100,000 wives, nor even a hundred thousand concubines, but rather has only one wife, and, to the best of my knowledge, she is not currently guarded by any eunuchs.

The same is true of political leaders.

Indeed, if any contemporary western political leader does attempt to practice polygyny, even on a comparatively modest scale, then, if discovered, scandal invariably results.

Yet, viewed in historical perspective, the much-publicized marital infidelities of, say, Bill Clinton, though they may have outraged the sensibilities the of mass of monogamously married 'Middle American' morons, positively pale into insignificance besides the reproductive achievements of someone like Ismail the Bloodthirsty.

Indeed, Clinton’s infidelities don’t even pack much of a punch beside those of a politician just a generation removed, namely JFK – whose achievements in the political sphere are perhaps overrated on account of his early death, but whose achievements in the bedroom, while scarcely matching those of Ismail the Bloodthirsty, certainly put the current generation of American politicians to shame.

What then has become of the henpecked geldings who pass for politicians in the contemporary era?

Monogamy as Male Compromise
According to Betzig, the mass media 'moral panic' that invariably accompanies sexual indiscretions on the part of contemporary Western political leaders is no accident. Rather, it is exactly what her theory predicts.

According to Betzig, the institution of monogamy as it operates in Western democracies represents a compromise between low-status and high status males.

According to the terms of this compromise, high status males agree to forgo polygyny in exchange for the cooperation of low status males in participating in the economic life of complex modern economic systems (p105) – or, in Richard Alexander’s alternative formulation, in exchange for serving as necessary 'cannon-fodder' in wars (p104).

Thus, the hysteria that accompanies sexual infidelities by our elected rulers reflects outrage that the terms of this implicit agreement have been breached.

Interestingly, once again, this theory was anticipated by Shaw:

“Polygyny, when tried under modern democratic conditions, as by the Mormons,” Shaw wrote “is wrecked by the revolt of the mass of inferior men who are condemned to celibacy by it” (Shaw 1903).

'Socially Imposed Monogamy'?
Consistent with this theory of 'Socially Imposed Monogamy', it is indeed the case that, in all Western democracies, polygyny is unlawful, and bigamy a crime.

Yet these laws are seemingly in conflict with western liberal democratic principles of tolerance and inclusivity, especially in respect of 'alternative lifestyles' and 'non-traditional relationships'.

Thus, we have recently witnessed a successful campaign for the legalization of gay marriage. Yet polygynous marriage seemingly remains anathema.

Indeed, strangely, whereas the legalization of gay marriage was perceived as 'progressive', polygyny is associated, not with sexual liberation with rather with highly traditional groups such as Mormons and Muslims.

It is also strangely associated with the 'oppression of women'.

However, most women actually do better, in purely economic terms, under polygyny than monogamy.

Thus, if Bill Gates is 100,000 times richer than Joe Schmo, then a woman is financially better far off becoming the tenth wife (or even the 99,999th wife), of Bill Gates rather than the first wife of poor Joe.

Thus, Robert Wright concludes “In… Darwinian terms, most men are probably better off in a monogamous system, and most women worse off” ( The Moral Animal : p96).

Indeed, the only women to lose out under polygyny are those women currently married to men like Bill Gates – since, under conditions of polygyny, they would be forced to share their resource-abundant 'alpha male' provider, and his resources, with a whole hundred-fold harem of co-wives, and/or concubines.

Thus, the only women we would expect to object to polygyny are these women, plus a glut of low-status male bachelors terminally condemned to celibacy by lotharios like Bill Gates and Ismail the Bloodthirsty.

However, contrary to Betzig’s theory, it seems that the people who object most vociferously to sexual infidelities on the part of male politicians are, not low-status males, but rather women.

Moreover, such women typically affect concern on behalf, not of the mass of lower-class males presumably indirectly condemned to celibacy by philandering male politicians, but rather on behalf of the wives of such politicians – even though the latter are, as we have seen, the chief beneficiaries of monogamy, doing very well indeed out of their exclusive monogamous marriages to resource-abundant alphas, while these other women, precluded from signing up as second or third-wives to alpha-male providers, are the main losers.

This suggests that the 'Male Compromise Theory' of 'Socially Imposed Monogamy' cannot be the whole story.

Serial Monogamy as De Facto Polygyny?
An alternative suggestion is that western society is not really monogamous at all.

Robert Wright claims:
“The United States is no longer a nation of institutionalized monogamy. It is a nation of serial monogamy. And serial monogamy in some ways amounts to polygyny.” ( The Moral Animal :p101).

Thus, he observes that many wealthy males divorce first wives to marry considerably younger second- and sometimes third-wives. In this way, they monopolize the peak reproductive years of multiple successive young females.

This is true, for example, of current President Donald Trump, who has married three women, each younger than her predecessor.

This then is not so much 'Serial Monogamy' as 'Sequential/Non-Concurrent Polygyny'.

Misassigned Paternity?
Another possibility is that wealthy males sire more than their share of offspring via extra-marital liaisons.

Thus, pointing to the surprisingly high rates of misassigned paternity reportedly uncovered in some (mostly unpublished) studies, demands “Where are the b******s’ daddies?” (Betzig 1993b).

However, the best evidence suggests that rates of miss-assigned paternity are not as high as previously reported (Gilding 2005; Bellis et al 2005).

Contraception as Evolutionary Novelty?
Alternatively, evolutionary novelties may disrupt the usual association between social status and reproductive success.

On this view, since natural selection takes many generations, our behaviour is adapted, not to modern western societies, but to the environments in which our ancestors lived during the period of our evolution – i.e. what evolutionary psychologists call the 'Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness' or 'EEA'.

Effective contraceptive technologies became widely available only recently and our evolved psychologies may not have had sufficient time to evolve adaptive responses.

Thus, researcher Daniel Pérusse demonstrates that, while wealthy high-status males may not father more offspring than low-status males, they do have more sex with a greater variety of partners – i.e. behaviours that would have resulted in higher reproductive success prior to contraception (Pérusse 1993; Kanazawa 2003).

Of course, this presupposes that high-status males (or their sex partners) use contraception either more often, or more effectively, than lower-status males.

One suggestion is that individuals of higher socioeconomic status generally have greater intelligence, and also greater self-control, and the capacity to defer gratification, than those of lower socioeconomic status, since these are precisely the traits that enabled them to achieve the qualifications, and occupational advancement that resulted in their higher socio-economic status in the first place.

Yet these are also traits, it has been argued, which facilitate the successful use of contraception (Kanazawa 2005).

The Welfare System as Evolutionary Novelty?
Another evolutionary novelty that may disrupt the usual association between social status and number of offspring is the welfare system.

Welfare payments to deprived parents, especially single mothers, undoubtedly help these families raise to adulthood offspring who would otherwise perish in infancy.

In addition, they probably also increase the number of offspring these women choose to have in the first place.

While it is highly controversial to suggest that welfare payments to single mothers give the latter an actual financial incentive to bear additional offspring, they surely, at the very least, reduce the disincentives otherwise associated with raising additional children. Therefore, given that the desire for offspring is probably innate, women would rationally respond by having more children.

Feminism as Evolutionary Novelty?
Another evolutionary novelty is perhaps the feminist movement, which has encouraged women from high socioeconomic backgrounds to postpone childbearing in favour of pursuing 'rewarding' careers.

Meanwhile, low status women probably have fewer 'rewarding' careers available to them and find feminist ideology less appealing.

Ideology as Evolutionary Novelty?
Indeed, even 'socially imposed monogamy' itself (i.e. laws against bigamy and polygyny) might be conceptualized as an 'evolutionary novelty', that disrupts the usual association between status and fertility by preventing high-status males from accumulating additional wives.

However, whereas technological innovations such as contraception were certainly not available until recent times, ideological constructs and religious teachings – including ideas such as feminism, prohibitions on polygyny, and the socialism that motivated the creation of the welfare state – have surely existed ever since we evolved the capacity to create such constructs, in other words for as long as we have been fully human.

Therefore, one would expect that humans would have evolved resistance to ideological and religious teachings that go against their genetic interests. Otherwise, we would be vulnerable to indoctrination and exploitation by third-parties.

Dysgenics?
Finally, it must be observed that the anomalous fertility patterns in evidence in modern Western societies are not of purely academic interest.

On the contrary, since socioeconomic status correlates with both intelligence and with personality traits such as consciousness, both of which are substantially heritable, contemporary patterns of 'Dysgenic' fertility may have long-term and potentially catastrophic consequences for the genetic posterity we bequeath future generations.

References
Bateman (1948), "Intra-sexual selection in Drosophila", Heredity, 2 (Pt. 3): 349–368
Bellis et al (2005) 'Measuring Paternal Discrepancy and its Public Health Consequences' Journal of Epidemiology 59(9):749
Betzig 1993a. Sex, succession, and stratification in the first six civilizations: How powerful men reproduced, passed power on to their sons, and used power to defend their wealth, women and children. In Lee Ellis, ed. Social Stratification and Socioeconomic Inequality, pp. 37-74. New York: Praeger.
Betzig 1993b. Where are the b******s’ daddies? Comment on Daniel Pérusse’s “Cultural and reproductive success in industrial societies.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 16: 284-85
Chagnon N (1979) Is reproductive success equal in egalitarian societies. In: Chagnon & Irons (eds) Evolutionary Biology and Human Social Behaviour: An Anthropological Perspecitive pp.374-402 (MA: Duxbury Press).
Einon, G (1998) How Many Children Can One Man Have? Evolution and Human Behavior, 19(6):413–426
Michael Gilding (2005) Rampant Misattributed Paternity: The Creation of an Urban Myth. People and Place 13(2): 1
Gould, RG (2000) How many children could Moulay Ismail have had? Evolution and Human Behavior 21(4): 295 – 296
Kanazawa, Satoshi. 2003. “Can Evolutionary Psychology Explain Reproductive Behavior in the Contemporary United States?” Sociological Quarterly. 44: 291–302.
Kanazawa, Satoshi (2005) An Empirical Test of a Possible Solution to 'the Central Theoretical Problem of Human Sociobiology.' Journal of Cultural and Evolutionary Psychology. 3: 255–266
Oberzaucher E, Grammer K (2014) The Case of Moulay Ismael - Fact or Fancy? PLoS ONE 9(2): e85292
Pérusse, Daniel. 1993. Cultural and Reproductive Success in Industrial Societies: Testing the Relationship at the Proximate and Ultimate Levels.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 16:267–322
Shaw GB (1903) Man and Superman, Maxims for Revolutionists.
Strassman B (2000) Polygyny, Family Structure and Infant Mortality: A Prospective Study Among the Dogon of Mali. In Cronk, Chagnon & Irons (Ed.), Adaptation and Human Behavior: An Anthropological Perspective (pp.49-68). New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
Trivers, R. (1972). Parental investment and sexual selection. Sexual Selection & the Descent of Man, Aldine de Gruyter, New York, 136-179. Chicago
Vining D 1986 Social versus reproductive success: The central theoretical problem of human sociobiology 9(1): 167- 187
Zerjal et al. (2003) The Genetic Legacy of the Mongols, American Journal of Human Genetics, 72(3): 717–721.

4 people found this helpful

Helpful

Buy new: $50.95

Despotism and Differential Reproduction: A Darwinian View of History Paperback – April 30, 2008

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

Customers who bought this item also bought

Special offers and product promotions

Editorial Reviews

Review

About the Author

Product details

Customer reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Buy new:

$50.95