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kb1968 -> RE: Dominance and submissiveness in evolutionary biology - what are people's thoughts on this ? (7/15/2016 5:46:16 PM)
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For the vast majority of the human species time on this planet, we lived as hunter/ gatherers. This we know as fact. These humans lived in tribes numbering up to not many more than 150 people, this we can reasonably confidently assume, as any more than that number becomes too fractious to control. Nobody, not even the most popular politician, can know many more than that number to enough depth to have a meaningful relationahip with.
After that, behaviour and patterns are mere theory and speculation. Our hunter/ gatherer grandparents had few possessions, no writing implements and no way to leave a marker for us. I read recently, that is is probably likely that females mated with as many men as possible, to obtain the protection of a larger number of men who 'might' be daddy to her offspring. This gives her children the best chance of survival within a small community. It is even suggested that primitive society was unclear as to whether or not babies were made by one mans sperm, or several mens sperm bandied together to make a 'super' offspring.
My point is, that, while it is fun to theorise and contemplate evolutionary habits and preferences, we really have no idea what women preferred, with whom, and how often. It is most probable that different tribes of hunter/ gatherers formed their own norms, some being paternalistic and patriarchal, others more egalatarian, still others living in nuclear families.
Fun to theorise, impossible to prove.
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