Sex at Dawn полностью

extra-pair sexual activity. The glue holding the standard narrative together is the assumption that to marry and to mate have universally applicable meanings, like the verbs to eat, or to give birth. But whatever terminology we use for the

socially approved special relationship that often exists

between men and women around the world will never

communicate the universe of variations our species comes up with.

“Marriage,” “mating,” and “love” are socially constructed phenomena that have little or no transferable meaning outside any given culture. The examples we’ve noted of rampant ritualized group sex, mate-swapping, unrestrained casual affairs, and socially sanctioned sequential sex were all reported in cultures that anthropologists insist are monogamous simply because they’ve determined that something they call “marriage” takes place there. No wonder so many insist that marriage, monogamy, and the nuclear family are human universals. With such all-encompassing interpretations of the concepts, even the prairie vole, who “sleeps with anyone,” would qualify.

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Most famously in Nora Ephron’s film Heartburn.

CHAPTER TEN

Jealousy: A Beginner’s

Guide to Coveting Thy Neighbor’s Spouse

[Once] marriage ... becomes common, jealousy will lead to the inculcation of female virtue; and this, being honoured, will tend to spread to the unmarried females. How slowly it spreads to the male sex, we see at the present day.

CHARLES DARWIN¹

In a traditional Canela marriage ceremony, the bride and groom lie down on a mat, arms under each other’s heads, legs entwined. The brother of each partner’s mother then comes forward. He admonishes the bride and her new husband to stay together until the last child is grown, specifically reminding them not be jealous of each other’s lovers.

SARAH BLAFFER HRDY²

A printer’s error in 1631 resulted in Bibles that proclaimed, “Thou shalt commit adultery.” Though not a biblical injunction, a common thread running through many of our examples of S.E.Ex. (Socio-Erotic Exchanges, if you’ve forgotten) is the explicit prohibition against relations with one’s habitual partner(s), sometimes even under threat of death. Why would that be?

Since these rituals have developed in unrelated cultures throughout the world, they probably serve important functions. Internal conflict represented an existential threat to profoundly interdependent groups like those in which our ancestors lived for thousands of generations. Ritualized, socially sanctioned, sometimes even obligatory S.E.Ex. reduced disruptions caused by jealousy and possessiveness while blurring paternity. It’s not surprising that small-scale societies highly dependent upon trust between individuals, generosity, and cooperation evolve and promote ways of enhancing these qualities while discouraging behavior and beliefs that would threaten group harmony and survival for group members.

It bears repeating that we are not attributing any particular nobility or, for that matter, ignobility to foragers. Some behaviors that seem normal to contemporary people (and which are therefore readily assumed to be universal) would quickly destroy many small-scale foraging societies, rendering them dysfunctional. Unrestrained self-interest, in particular, whether expressed as food-hoarding or excessive sexual possessiveness, is a direct threat to group cohesion and is therefore considered shameful and ridiculous.

Photo: Christopher White,

www.christopherwhitephotography.com

Is there any doubt that societies can reshape such impulses?

Right now, girls’ necks are being elongated ring by brass ring in parts of Thailand and Burma to make them more appealing to men. Clitorises are being cut away and labia sewn together in villages all over North Africa to dampen female desire, while in glamorous California, reduction labioplasty and other cosmetic vaginal surgeries have recently become a booming business. Elsewhere, the penises of boys are being circumcised or split open in ritualistic subincision. You get the point.