Rethinking human ethology : A response to some recent critiques

As Tinbergen pointed out a quarter of a century ago, ethology employs many levels of investigation. Studies of psychological adaptations, and of current fitness functions, are two of them. All of these investigations are valid, none is intrinsically most important, and each can be enhanced by the others.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/27869/1/0000282.pd

Parental investment by sex on ifaluk

Trivers and Willard (Science 179;90-92, 1973) predict that where investment by parents in good condition increases the fitness of sons more than that of their sisters, while the opposite is true of parents in poor condition, parents with much to invest will favor sons, while those with little will favor daughters. Patterns of parent-child association on Ifaluk atoll are consistent with this prediction.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/26325/1/0000412.pd

A little history of Darwinian history

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/29871/1/0000220.pd

Roman monogamy

Mating in Rome was polygynous; marriage was monogamous. In the years 18 and 9 the first Roman emperor, Augustus, backed the lex Julia and the lex Papia Poppaea, his "moral" legislation. It rewarded members of the senatorial aristocracy who married and had children; and it punished celibacy and childlessness, which were common. To many historians, that suggests Romans were reluctant to reproduce. To me, it suggests they kept the number of their legitimate children small to keep the number of their illegitimate children large. Marriage in Rome shares these features with marriage in other empires with highly polygynous mating: inheritances were raised by inbreeding; relatedness to heirs was raised by marrying virgins, praising and enforcing chastity in married women, and discouraging widow remarriage; heirs were limited-- and inheritances concentrated--by monogamous marriage, patriliny, and primogeniture; and back-up heirs were got by divorce and remarriage, concubinage, and adoption. The "moral" legislation interfered with each of these. Among other things, it diverted inheritances by making widows remarry; it lowered relatedness to heirs by making adultery subject to public, rather than private, sanctions; and it dispersed estates by making younger sons and daughters take legitimate spouses and make legitimate heirs. Augustus' "moral" legislation, like canon law in Europe later on, was not, as it first appears, an act of reproductive altruism. It was, in fact, a form of reproductive competition.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/29876/1/0000226.pd

Roman polygyny

Marriage in Rome was monogamous; mating was polygynous. Powerful men in the Roman empire, as in other empires, probably had sex with more women. To make that case I look, first, at the Latin sources. Tacitus, Suetonius, and Cassius Dio suggest that Roman emperors, like other emperors, were promiscuous; that they had privileged access to other men's women; and that they sometimes had women procured for them. I look next at the modern studies. Literary, legal, and inscriptional data suggest that Roman men kept as many slaves as they could afford--often hundreds and sometimes thousands; that many of those slaves were women; and that slave women were often bought as breeders. They also suggest that masters, who had unrestricted sexual access to their slaves, were often the fathers. Some slave women's children were brought up with, and in the style of, legitimate children; they were freed young; and they were given wealth, position, and paternal affection.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/29873/1/0000222.pd

Politics as Sex: The Old Testament Case

In The Origin of Species and Selection in Relation to Sex , Darwin predicted that success in competition would lead to success in reproduction. In the 20th century CE, that relationship was looked for around 700 times, and almost always found. Sometime after the 10th century BCE, it had already been written into the Bible. In the Old Testament, powerful men-patriarchs, judges, and kings-have sex with more wives; they have more sex with other men's women; they have sex with more concubines, servants and slaves; and they father many children. Bible authors knew that sex and power went together: on his way out of Egypt, Moses warned that a king might ‘multiply wives for himself (Deuteronomy 17:17); and when David took Israel over from Saul, he was given his ‘master's wives’ along with his master's house (2 Samuel 12:8). Throughout the Old Testament, people act on a mandate to reproduce. From Genesis to the prophets, they do their best to ‘be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it’ (Genesis 1:28)