For starters, in a tightly-knit community, everyone contributes to helping women through pregnancy, birth, raising the child, etc. Although parents may give preferential attention to their own children, this should still weaken the pressure on men to “fuck and run” (and, at the same time, the pressure for women to find a committed, monogamous partner). Furthermore, as NancyLebovitz has already pointed out, close social ties make it easier to enforce sexual selection for more attentive and nurturing partners, since you’ve got a reputation to maintain. Add in 500,000+ years of all kinds of complex and poorly-understood selective pressures from competition with other humans (believed to be by far the dominant pressures on the mind during that time) and you’ve got a situation that probably won’t boil down cleanly to a two-by-two game matrix.
The summary of Sex at Dawn that Nancy linked to below suggests that humans may actually be adapted away from strict monogamy. Wildly speculating here, but maybe the anxiety and disinterest men sometimes feel after their first time with a new partner is “meant” to remove them from the situation so the next guy can have a turn?
For starters, in a tightly-knit community, everyone contributes to helping women through pregnancy, birth, raising the child, etc. Although parents may give preferential attention to their own children, this should still weaken the pressure on men to “fuck and run” (and, at the same time, the pressure for women to find a committed, monogamous partner).
If everyone contributes, and there is minimal preferential attention to their own children, then why would anyone do something besides fuck and run? Long-standing relationships come from male parental investment, across species.
Furthermore, as NancyLebovitz has already pointed out, close social ties make it easier to enforce sexual selection for more attentive and nurturing partners, since you’ve got a reputation to maintain.
It only matters whether your sexual partner is attentive and nurturing towards your children. Whether or not they’re attentive and nurturing towards you only determines their value as friends.
The summary of Sex at Dawn that Nancy linked to below suggests that humans may actually be adapted away from strict monogamy.
Human sexual behavior resembles avian sexual behavior rather strongly. Both women and men have incentives to cheat, but for rather different reasons. Strict monogamy makes lower-status men better off at the cost of higher-status men and most women.
Wildly speculating here, but maybe the anxiety and disinterest men sometimes feel after their first time with a new partner is “meant” to remove them from the situation so the next guy can have a turn?
How does that impulse outcompete alternatives? If I feel a need to give the other guy a turn, and the other guy feels a need to monopolize his sexual partner, he will reproduce more than I will. Genes reproduce on the level of individuals, not societies.
Wildly speculating here, but maybe the anxiety and disinterest men sometimes feel after their first time with a new partner is “meant” to remove them from the situation so the next guy can have a turn?
Be very skeptical of explanations that rely on group selection. As explained in the posts linked to from that wiki page, humans love to engage in motivated reasoning to explain why the alien god is nice. Sorry, evolution isn’t.
I’m not referring to group selection. If you’re living in a close community, then once you’ve had your chance to conceive, there’s not a lot of benefit in fighting off other suitors, since you’ll be helping raise the child anyway; conversely, rivalry against other males is risky and socially divisive—which, since your band is probably rather small, can have serious consequences for you as an individual. This is not to say that all men will simply flee the scene once they’ve consummated their desire: for starters, we’re a hell of a long way from evolutionary equilibrium, and even then it’s not clear that the game in question has a dominant strategy, especially once you factor in complicating influences from women’s sexual selection of men and from various social pressures. More likely we’d see a diversity of different strategies.
I’m not referring to group selection. If you’re living in a close community, then once you’ve had your chance to conceive, there’s not a lot of benefit in fighting off other suitors,
If its valuable for the other suitors its valuable for you.
since you’ll be helping raise the child anyway;
Yes, but you want to be as certain as possible about which children are yours so you can favor them. And, yes, even in a close knit community there are many ways to do that short of causing the tribe to break down.
More likely we’d see a diversity of different strategies.
For starters, in a tightly-knit community, everyone contributes to helping women through pregnancy, birth, raising the child, etc. Although parents may give preferential attention to their own children, this should still weaken the pressure on men to “fuck and run” (and, at the same time, the pressure for women to find a committed, monogamous partner). Furthermore, as NancyLebovitz has already pointed out, close social ties make it easier to enforce sexual selection for more attentive and nurturing partners, since you’ve got a reputation to maintain. Add in 500,000+ years of all kinds of complex and poorly-understood selective pressures from competition with other humans (believed to be by far the dominant pressures on the mind during that time) and you’ve got a situation that probably won’t boil down cleanly to a two-by-two game matrix.
The summary of Sex at Dawn that Nancy linked to below suggests that humans may actually be adapted away from strict monogamy. Wildly speculating here, but maybe the anxiety and disinterest men sometimes feel after their first time with a new partner is “meant” to remove them from the situation so the next guy can have a turn?
(Edited to add scare quotes around “meant”.)
If everyone contributes, and there is minimal preferential attention to their own children, then why would anyone do something besides fuck and run? Long-standing relationships come from male parental investment, across species.
It only matters whether your sexual partner is attentive and nurturing towards your children. Whether or not they’re attentive and nurturing towards you only determines their value as friends.
Human sexual behavior resembles avian sexual behavior rather strongly. Both women and men have incentives to cheat, but for rather different reasons. Strict monogamy makes lower-status men better off at the cost of higher-status men and most women.
How does that impulse outcompete alternatives? If I feel a need to give the other guy a turn, and the other guy feels a need to monopolize his sexual partner, he will reproduce more than I will. Genes reproduce on the level of individuals, not societies.
Be very skeptical of explanations that rely on group selection. As explained in the posts linked to from that wiki page, humans love to engage in motivated reasoning to explain why the alien god is nice. Sorry, evolution isn’t.
I’m not referring to group selection. If you’re living in a close community, then once you’ve had your chance to conceive, there’s not a lot of benefit in fighting off other suitors, since you’ll be helping raise the child anyway; conversely, rivalry against other males is risky and socially divisive—which, since your band is probably rather small, can have serious consequences for you as an individual. This is not to say that all men will simply flee the scene once they’ve consummated their desire: for starters, we’re a hell of a long way from evolutionary equilibrium, and even then it’s not clear that the game in question has a dominant strategy, especially once you factor in complicating influences from women’s sexual selection of men and from various social pressures. More likely we’d see a diversity of different strategies.
If its valuable for the other suitors its valuable for you.
Yes, but you want to be as certain as possible about which children are yours so you can favor them. And, yes, even in a close knit community there are many ways to do that short of causing the tribe to break down.
Well, yes this is in fact what one observes.