Ladies, is this true? Since most here have been affected with the JW/Christian ideal of family and sex, I here present a very different conclusion. I only present this information for your consideration:
The Virtues of Promiscuity
Sally Lehrman, AlterNet
July 22, 2002
"Slutty" behavior is good for the species. That is the conclusion
of a new wave of research on the evolutionary drives behind
sexuality and parenting.
Women everywhere have been selflessly engaging in trysts
outside of matrimony. And they have been doing it for a good
long time and for excellent reasons. Anthropologists say female
promiscuity binds communities closer together and improves
the gene pool.
More than 20 tribal societies accept the principle that a child
could, and ideally ought to, have more than one father, according
to Pennsylvania anthropologist Stephen Beckerman. "As one
looks, it begins to crop up in a lot of places," says Beckerman,
who has reviewed dozens of reports on tribes from South
America, New Guinea, Polynesia and India as co-editor of the
newly released book, "Cultures of Multiple Fathers."
Less than 50 years ago, Canela women, who live in Amazonian
Brazil, enjoyed the delights of as many as 40 men one after
another in festive rituals. When it was time to have a child, they'd
select their favorite dozen or so lovers to help their husband with
the all-important task. Even today, when the dalliances of
married Bar ladies in Columbia and Venezuela result in a child,
they proudly announce the long list of probable fathers.
In other words, the much-touted evolutionary bargain of female
fidelity for food -- trotted out by evolutionary psychologists with
maddening regularity -- just doesn't hold up.
"This model of the death-do-us-part, missionary-position couple
is just a tiny part of human history," says anthropologist Kristen
Hawkes, who has spent years studying the foraging habits of the
Ach, a Paraguayan people, and the North Tanzanaian tribe
Hadza, who also celebrate a rich love life. "The patterns of
human sexuality are so much more variable."
American college students still learn that human society is
based on the age-old economic contract between the sexes:
Men hunt and women raise children. Fathers provide meat for
the family, and in exchange, moms offer fidelity and the
guarantee of paternity. While men -- who produce millions of
sperm -- are inveterate philanderers, gals, stuck with relatively
few eggs that require a significant investment, tend to be choosy
and coy. Men therefore are biologically prone to spreading their
seed far and wide, while women focus on finding the perfect
pop.
"This evidence is a real thumb in the eye for that view," says
Beckerman.
Anthropologists claim, good judgment aside, evolution has
nudged women a bit toward promiscuity and sexual adventure.
In all well-studied primates, females exhibit a polyandrous
tendency when given the opportunity to stray. Some who cheat
appear to be more fertile, and the offspring of most are more
likely to survive. Fooling around appears to have helped our
ancestral mothers equip their little ones for success -- the
sexual equivalent of reading to them every night or enrolling
them in the after-school chess club.
"Women tend to do things that are associated with the welfare of
their kids," Hawkes says.
In contrast to the sex-for-food model, multiple and various sexual
pairings have little to do with adding to the larder in the groups
Hawkes studies. The average Hadza hunter, who can only bring
in a big game carcass once a month, has to share his kill with
everyone. His wife and kids just have to get in line. Extra mates
add a little genetic diversity. But Hawkes says females likely
hook up with multiple males for safety more than any other
benefit -- a mother's strong emotional bonds with more than one
fellow provide an extra protective hand in times of danger.
An economic incentive promotes female infidelity in Bar society.
All of the Bar children who had more than one father were more
likely to survive into adulthood, fortified by small gifts of fish and
game in times of scarcity. Multiple dads also help ensure a
child's health. Since a father is necessary to blow tobacco
smoke over the little one's body if he or she falls ill, the more
potential volunteers the better.
Elderly Bar ladies chuckle and nudge each other as they talk
about a lifetime of lovers. But the pleasure wasn't only their own.
The men benefited, too. It turns out Bar males can't count on a
very long life. The Venezuelan tribe suffers from bouts of malaria
and tuberculosis and, until 1960, was repeatedly attacked by
landowners, oil companies, and homesteaders in the region.
Most of the victims have been reproductive-age males. "You
know that if you die, there's some other man who has a residual
obligation to care for at least one of your children," Beckerman
explains. "So looking the other way or even giving your blessing
when your wife takes a lover is the only insurance you can buy."
Even evolutionary psychologists, stout defenders of the
meat-for-fidelity model, are beginning to acknowledge the
benefits of women's "slutty" behavior. University of Texas
psychologist David Buss gives the most credit to what he terms
"mate insurance," a backup replacement in case the male
partner doesn't survive.
Social approval of infidelity does not, however, imply a
corresponding devaluation of marriage. "They're very, very
faithful," says Beckerman's co-author Paul Valentine about the
Curripaco, who live on the border between Columbia and
Venezuela. The tribe believes that conception is a process that
requires a lot of work, and the men are quick to take credit for
their joint labors. "They say, 'Hey, this is really hard work having a
baby,'" Valentine says. "And they really put on a smug look."
Physiological data supports the theory that women have been
sleeping around for centuries. For starters, men have evolved to
compete in their partner's reproductive tract. Human males have
large testicles that manufacture plenty of semen, especially
when they reunite with their wives after separation. Their sperm
includes coil-tailed versions that block instead of carry the ball.
Females cooperate when they want to -- more often with their
lovers than with their mates, according to one study. Women
retain slightly more sperm after orgasm, and in the throes of
excitement may even draw the virgin swimmers up through the
cervix and into the uterus, according to British sexologist R.
Robin Baker.
Still, David Buss places most of the blame for all this wanderlust
on the guys. Bottom line, sperm are cheap and eggs are
expensive, he says. He cites his own 1993 studies of college
undergraduates. Women said they'd like maybe up to five
partners in a lifetime. Men in various surveys ranged from 18 up
to 1,000. Sure, both sexes have one-night stands. Both also can
mate for life. But men tend toward variety and women will most
often stay true to the stable, dependable provider, Buss claims.
"Women typically have high standards in either case; men are
willing to go down to the tenth percentile (for short-term
partners), as long as she can mumble," he says.
Anthropologists are not so sure. Some say today's emphasis on
female monogamy may have more to do with socio-economic
trends than evolutionary instincts.
Extramarital trysts were a way of life for the Canela -- until the
encroachment of outsiders. "Multiple lovers, that's just part of the
life. It's recreation, just like races and running. It's all done in the
spirit of joy and fun," says William Crocker of the Smithsonian
Institution, who has studied the Brazilian tribe since 1957. When
a woman got pregnant with her husband, she would go out to
find as many as five more "fathers" for her fetus. Since every bit
of semen was believed to contribute to the baby, a dedicated
mom looked for a variety of desirable traits in her lovers: sexual
skills, good looks, oratory talents, top-notch singing abilities --
and naturally, a good provider.
Crocker says the Canela's sexual customs began to disappear
after the arrival of traders, who brought in material goods such
as machetes, axes, pots and pans, introducing the idea of
exclusive ownership. The missionaries came next. The
evangelists, who arrived in the early 1970s, translated the Bible
into Canelan and did their part to discourage the tribe's sexual
intimacy.
The pattern is repeating itself with the Bar as missionaries
import rural Catholic values. Beckerman says, "I suppose it
doesn't mean there's any less fooling around, it's just that the
fathers don't take responsibility for it and the mothers don't admit
it."
Modern relationships are not all that different. High infidelity,
remarriage and divorce rates may have less to do with modernity
than with our collective sexual past. "It makes the variation we're
seeing in modern society so much more understandable,"
Hawkes says.
If the anthropologists are right, monogamy may well be
counter-evolutionary or an adaptation to modern life. Or perhaps
the nuclear family has always been more of an ideal than a
reality.