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From the article: "In earlier societies where marriage did not exist..." I could stop reading right there. There are essentially no known human societies, pas
by mikebenfield 10y ago
From the article:
"In earlier societies where marriage did not exist..."
I could stop reading right there. There are essentially no known human societies, past or present, in which marriage does not exist. (Possible exceptions for a few very small societies in highly unusual situations.) Marriage is considered a human universal by anthropologists.
But a bit further on:
"This study looked at research being done on 33 nonindustrial populations (nonindustrial = pre-marriage, pre-contraception)"
You're seriously equating nonindustrial with a lack of marriage? You understand that the industrial revolution was less than 200 years ago, right? And that people have been getting married for all of recorded history?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- Jyaif 10y agoPrimates have existed for 50 million years. Marriage is what, 10k years old at most?
- andreasklinger 10y agonitpicks: - anthropologists don't study primates. - primates don't strive for money.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- lwhalen 10y agoNitpick: WE are primates. Therefor, at least some primates strive for money.
- baobrain 10y agoAgreed. The entire thing is based upon a false premise. Also weren't most very early societies without marriage matriarchal? Addition: Isn't this also ignoring polygamist marriage?
- mikebenfield 10y agoWell, I hate to crap on someone agreeing with me, but no, I don't think so. There are no known societies that are clearly matriarchal. The idea that early human society was matriarchal comes out of wild speculation by certain authors with a political bent.
- at-fates-hands 10y agoactually there are quite a few in Asia and Africa: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_matrilineal_or_matrilocal_societies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_matrilineal_or_matrilo... The Akans of Ghana, West Africa, are matrlineals. Akans are the largest ethnic group in Ghana. They are made of the Akims, Asantes, Fantis, Akuapims, Kwahus, Denkyiras, Brongs, Akwamus, Krachis etc. "Matrilineal" means property is passed down through the maternal line on the death of the mother, not that of the father.
- Kadin 10y agoMatrilineal != Matriarchal. There are a substantial number of matrilineal societies, probably due to the ease of knowing who your mother is compared to your father, before genetic testing was developed. They are quite often not matriarchal, though.
- jnaz343 10y agoI recall a quote from Margaret Mead stating that there is no evidence that a matriarchal society has ever existed.
- ap22213 10y agoNot saying your wrong, but I just read "Sapiens" by Yuval Noah Harari, and my take away was that there were plenty of matriarchal tribes before agriculture and industry. And, generally it's not an unusual thing for primates. He even goes into a lot of detail on why things changed within the last 12,000 years. No offense, but I'd rather trust that guy's story than some random dude on the internet's.
- finid 10y agoYou left out the sentence before that: Marriage stops the "natural" dynamic by tying every male to a maximum of one female That guy must be kidding, right? Monogamy is one thing, but what about other forms of marriage that involves more than one man and one woman? But the rest of the sentence that you quoted is even worse, but so that it makes more sentence, I'll quote the entire sentence: In earlier societies where marriage did not exist, the most dominant males had children with many women, and the males at the bottom of the hierarchy did not get to procreate at all. But in most societies around the world, the poor tend to have more kids. Who is the author of that article? He's: a 33 year old semi-retired entrepreneur (I co-founded the Swedish marketplace Fyndiq where I was CTO for the first six years). Nowadays I spend my days mostly reading, writing and photographing stuff. And making up crazy ideas about society.
- misja111 10y ago> But in most societies around the world, the poor tend to have more kids. That might be true for women but not for men. And the author is talking about men.
- stuaxo 10y agoI very much doubt that most of the extra children these women are having are all sired by rich fathers, as opposed to men in their own social group.
- misja111 10y agoThere's plenty of statistical evidence for a positive correlation between income and offspring for men, e.g. http://iussp2009.princeton.edu/papers/91467 http://iussp2009.princeton.edu/papers/91467
- mcguire 10y agoQuick question: what proportion of modern humanity is a descendant of Gengis Kahn?
- Mz 10y ago
- minhaz23 10y ago"Marriage is considered a human universal by anthropologists." Can you provide any sources?
- mikebenfield 10y agoJust about any introductory anthropology textbook. I think the idea may have originated with anthropologist Donald Brown, who wrote a book Human Universals (which I haven't read) about traits that are pretty much ubiquitous across all cultures. If you can tolerate a Wikipedia article, here it is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_universal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_universal
- mwidell 10y agoSorry, I was very sloppy with the wording. What I meant to say is that monogamous marriage of the kind that is popular in many societies today is a fairly new thing in the perspective of evolution. Most evidence suggests that we introduced monogamy when we went to agricultural societies. I have updated the text. But my argument still holds.