The Virtues of Promiscuity
By Sally Lehrman, AlterNet
Posted on July 22, 2002, Printed on September 11, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/13648/
"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 Barí 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 Aché, 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 Barí
society. All of the Barí 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 Barí 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 Barí 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 Barí 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.
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