Marriage and Evolution

In the Biological evolution forum, the topic "morality, charity according to evolution" led into a partial debate about marriage. From research done in Parish Records in England, I found that formal marriage was only introduced there in the 16th century. Prior to that a man and woman exchanged private promises/vows. However, the church found that too many men were promising too many women in too many different places the same thing. The parishes were left supporting and "holding" the many babies, so to speak. Thus, the church introduced the placing of wedding bans on the church door prior to anyone taking the plunge; and also insisted on having the marriages witnessed. The religious officiant of marriages is him/herself a witness and does not actually "marry" the couple - who marry each other. The officiant just presides. This indicates that the morality of marriage, implied in a ceremony, was due to pragmatic economics, not the evolution of morality. AdminModulus drew my attention to the 24th session of the Council of Trent (MDLXIII) which, setting out the requirements of marriage, indicates that the above problem was not an artifact of England, but widespread across Christendom. This tends also to suggest that monogamy is not the natural state for human beings - at least the male.Council of Trent: http://history.hanover.edu/texts/trent/ct24.htmlAlso, during this period people did not move very far from their original villages, this came later with the Industrial Revolution, so there would have been quite a lot of inadvertent incest and inbreeding in communities. This must have affected the gene pool.At a much earlier period, the aristocracy married in formal ceremonies, but these marriages were political and dynastic mergers.The little blue wren in Australia was used as the benchmark by which the natural state of monogamy was proven. A few years ago, a scientist took blood samples from these birds and found that, indeed, these birds were not monogamous but were at it like fruit flies. However, the females stayed with the one partner throughout life. The conclusion was that the females mated with the males with the stronger/better genes, but selected a life-time partner which was ideally suited for raising the young. Various church groups unsuccessfully tried to get this report suppressed.Does the concept of marriage; a man-woman monogamous relationship fit with evolution and the theory of survival of the fittest in procreation. In other words, is marriage really necessary for our species to survive?

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Lucy

No, I would say marriage is not necessary for our species to survive.Procreation is.Good support structures for the child will help it grow to fitness but there are many forms of support structures that include, but are not exclusive to marriage.I seem to recall (but I can't remember where I read it-some time at uni I reckon) that the 'seven year itch' was an expression of the fact that after about 7 years a child borne in the passionate phase of a relationship (about 18 months) would be independent enough not to require two parents (assuming a multi generational tribal social structure).The gentleman would then be free to bond with new females.Xians (among others) have attached a divine morality to marriage.

Of course polygamous marriage (of various sorts) has been and still is recognised in some cultures.And there is a bit more to the relationship between evolution and marriage than the need for reproduction.Evolutionary success is all about producing a new generation of adults. In humans, specifically, there is a long childhood which must be survived. More so than any other species (AFAIK) human young require care and attention. It is in the genetic interests of both parents to see their children raised - and only theirs. Which leads to an emphasis on sexual fidelity (directly on the female part, and likely indirectly on the male part).A monogamous marriage is quite an efficient way of arranging this. It is not the only way and humans have a strong capability to learn behaviour so we should not expect it to be the only arrangement. But it is not surprising that it is common.

Hi, Larni.

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I seem to recall (but I can't remember where I read it-some time at uni I reckon) that the 'seven year itch' was an expression of the fact that after about 7 years a child borne in the passionate phase of a relationship (about 18 months) would be independent enough not to require two parents (assuming a multi generational tribal social structure).

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I also seem to recall reading that men's preference for women in short skirts is an expression of the fact that women in long dresses are more likely to trip over them and squash their babies.Let's see if we can get some more good ones!

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Kings were put to death long before 21 January 1793. But regicides of earlier times and their followers were interested in attacking the person, not the principle, of the king. They wanted another king, and that was all. It never occurred to them that the throne could remain empty forever. -- Albert Camus

LOL, point taken It is easy for me to get carried away with things like this.How about this:Men go for women with smaller feet so they can stand closer to the sink and make less mess.Boom boom!

Heh. I'm glad you got into the spirit of it. I just realized, rereading my post, that it could have come off as a put down, which was not intended.I just tend to be skeptical of claims from what used to be called sociobiology and is presently being sold as evo-psych.For one thing, it is clear that whatever environment our ancestors lived in, natural selection favored very weak instincts and drives. Presumably because it was advantageous to develop intelligence to figure out novel solutions and behavior patterns, and instinctual drives that are too strong would tend to pre-empt innovative behavior.But whatever the reason, it is clear that humans do not have the same degree of strong instincts and drives that other animals do. Our drives are fairly weak and very flexible, so much so that it is very easy for culturally transmitted behavior to overwrite this. In fact, it is a very tricky business to figure just what behavior is the result of innate drives and to what degree.What is more, for a lot of behavior there are other explanations. Cultural Materialism, for example, attempts to explain most behavior as being simply adopted by the culture in question as a practical response to the environment that culture found itself in. I actually like cultural materialism myself, although I admit that I am neither an ethologist nor an anthropologist. I admit that some advocates of cultural materialism are also guilty of some of the same excesses that some advocates of evo-psych are; namely they try too hard to explain even the most mundane cultural practice or ritual or belief as the practical solution of some problem. However, the point is that even when some behavior is almost universal among cultures, it is not clear whether that behavior is innate or whether many cultures have adopted a similar solution to some problem.It does detract from the credibility of the whole enterprise when people try to come up with fanciful reasons why people would evolve to do that particular behavior. Even if a particular behavior is innate, there is no reason to immediate assume that it was selected because of some sort of survival advantage. That particular result could simply be a consequence of something else that was advantageous, or could be the result of sexual selection. Or, admitting that they are very weak, they could be like vestigial organs, the useless remnants of behavior that were advantageous to long extinct ancestors. In fact, in many cases, at least when it gets into the popular press, it starts smelling like justification for "traditional" ideas as being "natural"In the extreme cases, it does seem clear that this gets advocated by people who have a political axe to grind. The worse case was a book review I read in The Skeptical Inquirerer for Pinker's book The Blank Slate. The review basically turned into a hyperbolic anti-leftist screed, comparing the leftists with Stalin. I am still surprised that SI published something like that.I admit that it is an interesting set of questions, though. What behavior is the result of innate drives? Were the residuals retained because they provide or provided until recently a survival advantage? Are they merely vestigial behaviors, retained only because natural selection has not yet eliminated them completely? Or are they merely the "unintended" results of a large, complex brain, a side effect of the structures that give us intelligence?

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Kings were put to death long before 21 January 1793. But regicides of earlier times and their followers were interested in attacking the person, not the principle, of the king. They wanted another king, and that was all. It never occurred to them that the throne could remain empty forever. -- Albert Camus

I think you need to examine marriage as it is practiced, not marriage as it is promoted, to see if this is the case. Humans are not a monogamous species.

The concept of marriage is very rubbery, especially in other societies. I know a very well educated Islamic woman, who was divorced by her Islamic doctor husband on the grounds that he thought there was something wrong with his son. She fled with her son to Australia. She told me that both she and her son would have had very limited life expectancies if she, being divorced, stayed in her country of origin. In their society, it would appear, cultural mores dicate the need to procreate, especially sons, but not “damaged” ones. This may of course, be an isolated incident; but obviously her fear of them both being killed was founded on contemporary wisdom. Women are seen as necessary vehicles by which to procreate, and as demonstrated by honour killings, they must remain free of any other male’s genetic material until their arranged marriage.Many westerners still maintain this latter attitude; and we can’t deny the subtext of the father handing over the bride to the groom in western marriages.Prior to the feminist movement, men did not take much interest in their children; although their primary concern was generally to produce a son to “pass on the family name.” The SNAG didn’t exist. Evidence suggests rivalry emerges between fathers and growing sons - often spilling over into competition and conflict.In Australia, dna tests are conformly taken to ascertain the fatherhood of children in messy divorces - albeit impossible to prove with female children. But men demonstrably do not want to support other men’s children, even if they have perceived and loved them as their own offspring for some years.In other mammals, such as elephants, males are actively kept away from “female and young” herds; lions will kill the young of any other males. Also other primates have “societies” in order to protect their young from adult males.So has human evolution moved us very far forward with regard to procreation, than witnessed in other primates or species.

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Lucy

...wha? No, paternity tests work on girls, too.

As I understand it, DNA tests only identify sons of fathers. Sons show both the mother's and father's dna; daughters only show the mother's. Perhaps someone can confirm this. I wanted to have a dna test for myself to find out my pre-historical roots, however, I was informed that women only inherit the mtDNA. This was only a couple of years ago, and I was told it would be a long time off if they would ever detect the paternal line for women.I don't know how effective blood typing is to identify with certainly whether a man was the father of the child, unless of course it is distinct from another man's, who may be the actual father.

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Lucy

In humans, each individual has two sets of chromosomes. One set comes from the father, and the other set comes from the mother.Added by edit:My oops. You are talking about mtDNA. Yes, those are only inherited from the mother. But paternity blood tests do not use mtDNA -- they use nuclear DNA which have contributions from both mother and father.Another addition:I am reminded that they were doing paternity tests even before DNA analysis was possible. I'm not sure what they entailed. I was under the impression that it was simple blood typing; but if so, that can only rule out the possibility under some conditions -- that is, it can either say that no relationsip exists or that there is a possibility of a relationship. It wouldn't have been able to determine positively that a relationship does exist.Edited by Chiroptera, : No reason given.Edited by Chiroptera, : No reason given.

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Kings were put to death long before 21 January 1793. But regicides of earlier times and their followers were interested in attacking the person, not the principle, of the king. They wanted another king, and that was all. It never occurred to them that the throne could remain empty forever. -- Albert Camus

Without trying to be rude, your understanding of sex genetics in humans seems deeply flawed. (Not surprising; genetics is a difficult subject.)Both male and female offspring inherit chromosomes from both of their parents. A human cell contains 46 chromosomes - 23 from the father and 23 from the mother. (2 of those chromosomes, 1 from each parent, are the chromosomes that determine sex.) DNA tests compare "markers" on chromosomes from two people to see if they're the same. If the putative father and the child - regardless of sex - share half their chromosomes, then the man is the father of that child. Establishing maternal lineages via mitochondrial DNA is a different proceedure than what you're referring to. Establishing paternity is done with nuclear DNA, which works on either sex.Moreover - you were informed incorrectly. Both men and women inherit mtDNA; but they inherit that DNA soley from their mothers, which is why mtDNA shows only maternal lineage. The father does not contribute mtDNA to his offspring. It has nothing to do with the sex of his children, either.If daughters had only their mothers DNA, they would be clones. If women could reproduce themselves without needing a father's DNA, they could reproduce asexually - virgin births. I'm not saying this is impossible (there was one potential case of this about 50 years ago), but it's certainly not very common, is it? It's certainly not the case that every woman is a clone of her mother. If that was true, all women would be clones of each other. Iffy, but it's better than nothing. Of course, the DNA test is conclusive, cheap, and quick. So I don't imagine paternity suits come down to blood tests anymore.

I thought you were going to say about 2006 years ago.TTFN,WK

Crashfrog,Thank you for the quick journey through genetics. I was aware that children inherited DNA from each parent; but was under the misapprehension (obviously) that women only SHOWED mtDNA. Does this mean nuclear DNA testing will show both patrilineal and matrilineal lineages in women? That would be great. How would this work if the parents' lineages orginated in very different places?As for virgin births. What about Kliendfelders inseminating themselves. Never heard of it. Undoubtedly difficult as they don't have a uterus; however, I have heard of conception outside of the womb. So perhaps not impossible, unfeasable, but not impossible.

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Lucy

I know this is going off-base and will no doubt get a rap across the knuckles from Admin, but just ONE other question regarding dna.From another site, I have been informed that: "Each mutation in y dna that determines the haplogroup of a male is believed to have occurred only once and the sons of that male led to the members of that haplogroup and its subgroups. (The exact same thing occurred in the mtDNA of females.) There are major arguments over the geographical location of the birth of the first member of every grouping.”This was in response to a query I had posed regarding an article in Journal of Genetic Genealogy 1:12-33, 2005 A MOSAIC OF PEOPLE: THE JEWISH STORY AND A REASSESSMENT OF THE DNA EVIDENCE by Ellen Levy-Coffman.The particular question I raised was regarding the following passage from this article:"These UEPs represent a single historical mutational event, occurring only once in the course of human evolution."Can you explain what Levy-Coffman means by "a single historical mutational event, occurring only once in the course of human evolution" What actually was that event. when did it occur, and why only 'once' in human evolution?”

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Lucy