Cheryl King
Melbourne
Australia

Good to have the myths lifted with a bit of science.

I’m a bit curious about this assertion. First because it’s based on an assumption that ostensibly-monogamous nuclear families with fathers as the exclusive or primary providers have been the norm long enough, consistently enough, for selection against misattributed paternity to have gotten a foothold let alone long enough to have made it very rare. As you say 10 generations is roughly 250 years, 100 would be 2,500 years, and yet by most accounts the kind of persistent agriculture that makes primary-paternal “breadwinner” economies possible isn’t much more than 10,000 years old. Before that time and, for that matter in much of the world, since that time, maternal contribution of, especially, of family-unit calories tended to be very high. Which suggests paternal “investment” in raising unrelated offspring wouldn’t be terribly high. You could make a case that there was still paternal defense of offspring that could inflict costs but I’m… pretty sure that even in very small social units defense is conducted mutually rather than family-exclusive. So I’m not sure how much exposure to selection would be presented there either.

And then there’s the problem of accounting for possible social benefits of misttribution of mixed paternity in terms of patronage by “higher status” cuckolding fathers on non-cuckolded offspring of cuckolded relationships. And the problem that in small groups both cuckolds and cuckolders are very likely to be closely related. And the further problem that because small groups are often highly related (a problem a co-worker in high-tech said was an issue not in some mythical ancestral “savannah” but in isolated small-town northern Minnesota) genetic admixture from outside the groups has often been encouraged. And finally there’s the part where on average if man A is raising man B’s offspring as his own there’s a very, very good chance that man B is raising man C’s offspring and… man C is raising man A’s offspring… with the result that whereas the genealogy and, especially, estate probate might be complex, from a genetic standpoint it all comes out in the selective wash.

We could no doubt go down the list and quibble back and forth but unless the statistics of selection have changed radically since I studied it (entirely possible since I graduated in the 1980s) the selective pressure that you posit against misattributed paternity just hasn’t been consistently intense enough, for long enough, to have produced the selectively complex result you’re expecting.

I mention this not because I think cuckold fetishes are the bee’s knees (I find them mildly baffling) but because I just think the social notion of property inheritance (where women and children are unfortunately-often considered property) is a much more plausible, and recent, explanation for the observed behaviors. I certainly think the social notion of property inheritance better accounts for the ridiculously-and-increasingly high estimates by anxious men vs. the actual, more plausibly rates you report.

Reflex sociobiology notwithstanding this is a very good post.

figleaf

So no.. This kind of thing, sadly…. doesn’t surprise me at all. I have come to realize that most generally accepted knowledge is neither knowledge nor many times even generally accepted (It is just generally accepted that it is generally accepted).