> You, and many, have argued the point about the tribes and whatnot, but I've found that this frequently seems to be just applying one's current day culture to

> You, and many, have argued the point about the tribes and whatnot, but I've found that this frequently seems to be just applying one's current day culture to a speculation of what things might have been like. To be fair we can only speculate but I actually came to this conclusion thinking about the two scenarios mathematically. Women increase the rate at which a tribes population can grow so when women die in combat a tribes growth rate diminishes. When a competing tribe manages to capture a woman in combat the growth rate of her original tribe diminishes and the growth rate of her new tribe increases. So sure, bigger does not always mean better but in a small population faced with constant threats the bigger tribes had a statistical advantage. > One counter point that immediately jumps to mind is the modern concept of "child" is likely far different than in the past, when manhood ceremonies might have occurred as early as 15 years old. We have plenty of young kings and military commanders just from the last thousand years, stretching back 10 or 20 thousand, who knows? I don't understand why this is a counter point. The age of what is considered a child has changed over the years but generally and historically speaking it coincides with the age of puberty so if anything it proves my point instead of diminishing it. > As for women in war, just from written era of history (the last 4k years) there's ample evidence of women fighting in war and being honored for valor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_ancient_warfare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_ancient_warfare No doubt there has been many brave female warriors. My position is that this has been the statistical exception not the norm and that over time the societies that failed to follow the idea of "save the women and children" have declined and been extinguished or absorbed by those that do. > Since you mention tribes I assume you mean more the 5-20k years ago timeline, in which case I'd hesitate to plainly speculate that these societies all tucked their women away in caves like the Flintstones suggests, or that any one of these societies was much like another. It's a very, very long period of time after all. Agreed. It is a very, very long period of time and what we are seeing is the results of experiments played out over that time. Notice the trend in the ratio of male to female combatants in modern and historical armies. > David Graeber is a fun anthropologist to read if you want to challenge some of the "common sense" assumptions we often make about ancient societies. "Debt" and "The Dawn of Everything" in particular I recommend. Thanks for the recommendations. Ill check them out.