Chiroptera:
Remember how it used to be a sit-com staple, that the philandering husband would try to justify his philandering on the evolutionary drive to "spread his genes"?
Nature has certainly distributed the tasks for men and women in reproduction in uneven ways. The numbers have held constant through millennia of human history. This will have an inevitable effect on how individuals gauge their investments and risks in sexual behavior.
Everyone knows the numbers.
All persons are the product of sexual coupling.
Distribution of gender among genetic parents: 50% men, 50% women.
All persons are the results of pregnancies.
Distribution of gender among those having pregnancies: 0% men, 100% women.
Percentage of sexually active women who can be absolutely sure of their parentage of a given newborn: 100%
Percentage of sexually active men who can be absolutely sure of their parentage of a given newborn: 0%
Womb space for the reproductive process is relatively rare, too, while sperm for the process is relatively plentiful.
On an island populated by one man and 100 women, number of infants that can be born in a year: 100
On an island populated by 100 men and one woman, number of infants that can be born in a year: 1
These longstanding numbers exercise their influence on any sexual phenomenon we want to consider: fidelity and infidelity, courtship rituals, monogomy and polygamy, sexual aggression, sitcom moms and dads.
We have begun to see the equations fundamentally altered, of course, in our own day. We live in interesting times.
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Archer
All species are transitional.