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If you guys are interested in this stuff, I highly recommend "The Red Queen" by Matt Ridley. http://amazon.com/Red-Queen-Evolution-Human-Nature/dp/0060556579/r

• ardit33 12y ago
  This is a great passage from the Red Queen, that might explain what was happening at the time: In the ancient empire of the Incas, sex was a heavily regulated industry. The sun-king Atahualpa kept fifteen hundred women in each of many “houses of virgins” throughout his kingdom. They were selected for their beauty and were rarely chosen after the age of eight—to ensure their virginity. But they did not all remain virgins for long: They were the emperor’s concubines. Beneath him, each rank of society afforded a harem of a particular legal size. Great lords had harems of more than seven hundred women. “Principal persons” were allowed fifty women; leaders of vassal nations, thirty; heads of provinces of 100,000 people, twenty; leaders of 1,000 people, fifteen; administrators of 500 people, twelve; governors of 100 people, eight; petty chiefs over 50 men, seven; chiefs of 10 men, five; chiefs of 5 men, three. That left precious few for the average male Indian whose enforced near-celibacy must have driven him to desperate acts, a fact attested to by the severity of the penalties that followed any cuckolding of his seniors. If a man violated one of Atahualpa’s women, he, his wife, his children, his relatives, his servants, his fellow villagers, and all his lamas would be put to death, the village would be destroyed, and the site strewn with stones. As a result, Atahualpa and his nobles had, shall we say, a majority holding in the paternity of the next generation. They systematically dispossessed less privileged men of their genetic share of posterity. Many of the Inca people were the children of powerful men. In the kingdom of Dahomey in West Africa, all women were at the pleasure of the king. Thousands of them were kept in the royal harem for his use, and the remainder he suffered to “marry” the more favored of his subjects. The result was that Dahomean kings were very fecund, while ordinary Dahomean men were often celibate and barren. In the city of Abomey, according to one nineteenth-century visitor, “it would be difficult to find Dahomeans who were not descended from royalty.” The connection between sex and power is a long one.
  • swagasaurus-rex 12y ago
    Killing the llamas is one step too far.
    • ionwake 12y ago
      Thanks for a good laugh
    • brc 12y ago
      In those times, they really wanted to get the point across.
    • clarky07 12y ago
      I came here to say "Not the llamas!"
  • littletimmy 12y ago
    If wealth keeps getting concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, coupled with the sexual liberation of women, perhaps we'll see something like this again. 1% of the men enjoying 99% of procreation.
    • dropit_sphere 12y ago
      Doubtful. Child support means that if wealth is used for procreation, it will diffuse.
      • mhuffman 12y ago
        Child support is a very small part of a rich man's wealth. It will not diffuse in any noticeable way.
        • dropit_sphere 12y ago
          Yes, you're right; I should have included alimony.
    • 12y ago
• peter303 12y ago
  Bryan Sykes has written a series of popular science books about these kinds of genetic discoveries. Very interesting.