Origins of patriarchy

1. Origins of patriarchy

2. The origins of patriarchy Smuts, B. B., & Smuts, R. W. 1993. Male aggression and sexual coercion of females in nonhuman primates and other mammals: evidence and theoretical implications. Advances in the Study of Behavior, 22, 1-63. Smuts, B. 1995. The evolutionary origins of patriarchy. Human Nature 6: 1-32. Rosenfeld, D. 2009. Sexual coercion, patriarchal violence and law. Ch. 17 in Muller & Wrangham (ed), 424-447.

3. Class to date • Evolutionary background • Potential for sexual conflict • Influence of social system • Diversity of sexual conflict • Violence in hunter-gatherers • General, species-specific human patterns • Not an end in itself • A starting point for analysis of cross-cultural variation • RW today • Male control of female sexuality • Prehistoric evidence of patriarchy • Why patriarchy? • Biosocial approach (Wood & Eagly 2002) • Evolutionary theory (Smuts 1995)

4. (1) Husbands’ control of female sexuality. !Kung San: Male beating of wives Occasional rape Males initiate sex Secret male initiation rites Australia Husbands direct wives for sex (strangers; arguments etc) Women killed for being in wrong location, or having wrong sex Husbands’ control of wives: culturally widespread Wrangham & Muller (2009) In Sexual Coercion in Primates and Humans

5. 80 40 34.5% 65.5% 0 …more for women than for men …equally for women and men …more for men than for women (1) Husbands’ control of female sexuality. Sexual double standard: male sexual behavior less condemned % societies that condemn extramarital intercourse … 0% Broude & Greene (1976) Ethnology

6.  Husbands’ legal control of wives Rape - a crime of trespass against husband or father Husband-killing - a crime worsened by rejection of male authority “Husband and wife, in the language of the law, are styled baron and femme…if the baron kills his femme, it is the same as if he had killed a stranger or any other person, but if the femme kills her baron, it is regarded by the laws as much more atrocious crime, as she not only breaks through the restraints of humanity and conjugal affection, but throws off all subjection to the authority of her husband. And therefore the law denominates her crime a species of treason, and condemns her to the same punishment as if she had killed the king. And for every species of treason…the sentence of the woman was to be drawn and burnt alive.” William Blackstone’s Commentaries on Law, Book I, 1765-1769 (“the most authoritative British legal text”) (Rosenfeld 2009, 431 in Muller & Wrangham (ed))

7. (2) Deep evidence of patriarchy (1) Prehistoric warfare e.g. “extant osteological evidence indicates that Archaic hunter-gatherers on the [North American] region fought one another with considerable frequency” (Miller 2007) Significance debated: e.g. “Stephen Reyna (1994, 37-38): “My view is that regardless of how much fighting there was in bands, it was relatively harmless.” NB even if rate of killing was low, male-male alliances look important… e.g.Eskimos: If men were seen approaching a camp (identified as strangers from 100s of meters), women and children all hid, men armed themselves and formed a line in front of the village (Burch 1988. The Eskimos)

8. (2) Males overwhelmingly represented in hunter-gatherer rock art compared to females ‘Linton Panel’ by pre-historic San, Eastern Cape, South Africa

9. Thousands of rock art sites, Australia. “The human male predominates as a subject, but females, animal-headed beings, a variety of other anthropomorphs, animals and zoomorphs are also depicted. … Almost all the males are depicted wearing complex head gear… in some areas headdresses continue to be made for ritual occasions…” “The female… wears no apparel and has no apparent body decoration… usual implements are a digging stick and a dilly bag … female bodies are more naturalistically portrayed than those of their male counterparts. There seems to be a total absence of children.” Chaloupka, G. 1999. Journey in Time

10. (3) Bull-roarers ritual, often secret, objects (and sometimes not, e.g. toys) strongly associated with male cults and male dominance over women found in pre-state societies in all continents Ukraine (19,000 ya, France 15,000 ya) Gregor, T. (1985) Anxious Pleasures: The Sexual Lives of an Amazonian People. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, p. 106

11. Melanesian men’s clubhouses. Varied practices, but everywhere they shared: military training supervision and education of boys in masculine realm organization of hunting transmission of cultural knowledge re warrior folklore and hunting magic recognition of difference between men and women socially sanctioned use of ritual objects such as bull- roarers Women must travel only on female paths inside the hamlet. Women must not touch men’s heads, weapons or ritual ornaments. Herdt, G. (1987). The Sambia: Ritual and Gender in New Guinea. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich

12. Arunta (northern Australia) Spencer & Gillen 1938 • p. 128 Bull-roarers… associated with impressing “the women of the tribe with an idea of the supremacy and superior power of the male sex”. • Women or uninitiated men see them only on pain of death or very severe punishment, such as blinding with a fire-stick. Bullroarer, American southwest, 2500 years old African bullroarers

13. (4) Nutrition. Pre-contact sex differences in nutritional quality, based on stable-isotope assays of bone collagen. e.g. Roonka Flats, Australia (11 female, 14 male): Adult females: more fish, shellfish, plant foods Adult males: more mammals (e.g. non-local kangaroos, wombats, dingoes), and marine foods. “adult males had diets that were distinctly different from those of adult females and children” (Pate 2006) Pate (2007) J Anthropol Archaeol

14. (5) Mortuary practices “At Roonka Flat, mortuary practices provide indicators of social differentiation in three areas: gender roles related to subsistence activities; some specialised hierarchical role for older men; and differential treatment of older men not being extended to their wives or children.” “some form of ranking based on sex and age was clearly operating at Roonka” “The greater mortuary attention associated with older males at Roonka throughout the Holocene provides archaeological evidence for the possible existence of male authoritarian roles such as headman, law-man, cult-lodge leader, or sorcerer.” Pre-European contact, south Australia Up to 7000 ybp; cemeteries, 100s of burials Elaborate grave foods (necklace, pearls, ochre, stone and bone tools, bone and tooth headbands, etc) Most early burials were adult males only. Later burials: both sexes, but more grave goods with males, especially older males. Pate (2006) J Anthropol Archaeol

15. (3) Why patriarchal control of female sexuality? Complementary hypotheses • Male ownership of property • Wood & Eagly (2002) • (2) Male primate sexual strategy Smuts (1995) (3) Polygyny McDermott • (4) Male coalition and cooking Wrangham (2009)

16. Why patriarchal control of female sexuality? (1) The Male Property Ownership Hypothesis. Complex economy Male-owned property, paternity Patriarchy (male dominance) Sexual double standard, sexual jealousy. Wood & Eagly (2002) Psychological Bulletin, 128, 699-727 Following Engels and many others, assuming that children yield economic benefits for men

17. “The variety of sexual practices encountered in nonindustrial societies do not support the claims … that patriarchy is a product of men’s evolved disposition to control female sexuality.” Wood, W. & Eagly, A. (2002) A cross-cultural analysis of the behavior of women and men: Implications for the origins of sex differences Psychological Bulletin, 128, 699-727. Wood & Eagly’s key example: The Canela (Brazil). trysts according to ceremonial customs… group sequential sex… even sex with three or four men sequentially in a completely casual and chance situation.

18. “A useful example of a society that is especially divergent from these familiar sexual practices is the Canela of the Timbira nation-tribes in Brazil. In this society, extensive extramarital relations are usual and accepted, sexual jealousy violates social values, and paternity confusion is the rule rather than the exception.” “In summary, the variety of sexual practices encountered in nonindustrial societies do not support the claims of some evolutionary psychologists that patriarchy is a product of men’s evolved disposition to control female sexuality, which in turn produces a sexual double standard and sexual jealousy (e.g., Smuts, 1995; Wilson & Daly, 1992). Across world societies, women’s extra-marital sexual relationships are not uncommon and are sometimes legitimized despite their obvious threat to paternity certainty. The behavioral patterns that evolutionary psychologists believe are intrinsic to human nature, including greater restriction of women’s than men’s sexuality, greater sexual jealousy expressed by men than women, and the prevalence of rape (Betzig, 1989; Thornhill & Palmer, 2000), are not human universals but tendencies that emerged as by-products of the patriarchal forms of social organization that developed under particular socioeconomic conditions.” Wood, W. & Eagly, A. (2002), p. 716

19. Female promiscuity: the most extreme culture? The Canela of Brazil. Socially sanctioned female promiscuity Up to 6 FF appointed to a hunting party Each F expected to have sex with all MM ‘Nests’ 30 meters from camp --> sex with multiple MM per hour Sex = reward for M hunting success Female sexual initiative: Festival of Oranges FF (up to 50) choose high-stamina MM Up to 10 days of sex-fest in forest MM could not refuse Post-menopausal women Sex with adolescent boys Crocker, W. & Crocker, J. 1994. The Canela: bonding through kinship, ritual, and sex. Harcourt Brace.

20. BUT: Canela women not as free as they first seem… Female promiscuity: a phase “This marital musical chairs is stopped by the arrival of a child.”(Crocker 1994). First ‘real’ husband was after childbirth ( jealousy, mate-guarding). Female sexual initiative: coerced? Council of elders (men) gave young FF as rewards for socially useful M activity. ‘Stingy’ FF were threatened with gang rape, little meat, delayed marriage, lethal ‘spell’. Female pleasure: limited! Apparently no female orgasm. No female masturbation sanctioned.

21. Why patriarchal control of female sexuality? (2) The Male Property Ownership Hypothesis. Male concern for paternity can be … low in subsistence societies … intensified by property ownership Patriarchal control can be absent in subsistence societies (Wood & Eagly 2002)

22. Why patriarchal control of female sexuality? Complementary hypotheses • Male ownership of property • Wood & Eagly (2002) • (2) Male primate sexual strategy Smuts (1995) (3) Polygyny McDermott • (4) Male coalition and cooking Wrangham (2009)

23. Why patriarchal control of female sexuality? (2) Male Primate Sexual Strategy Hypothesis. Men’s evolved disposition to control female sexuality Patriarchy (male dominance) Sexual double standard, sexual jealousy. Smuts (1995)

24. “Evidence from other primates of male sexual coercion and female resistance to it indicates that the sexual conflicts of interest that underlie patriarchy predate the emergence of the human species.” “Humans, however, exhibit more extensive male dominance and male control of sexuality than is shown by most other primates.” Why? Low social support from female kin Male control of resources Male-male alliances Some males very powerful Female alliances with males Language-based ideologies Barbara Smuts 1995, Human Nature 6: 1-32

25. Why patriarchal control of female sexuality? Complementary hypotheses • Male ownership of property • Wood & Eagly (2002) • (2) Male primate sexual strategy Smuts (1995) (3) Polygyny McDermott • (4) Male coalition and cooking Wrangham (2009)

26. Test Test The polygyny hypothesis (McDermott et al. in prep) Simultaneous polygyny More unmarried males Intensified male competition for females Intensified control by husbands Women suffer