the myth of monogamy 
by david barash 


THE
MYTH OF
MONOGAMY
Fidelity and Infidelily in
Animals and People
OJ\ VID P. BARASH, PH.D.,
AND JUDITH EVE LIPTON, M.D.
A W. H. Freeman I Owl Book
Henry Holt and Company New York

Henry Holt and Company, LLC
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Copyright© 2001 by W. H. Freeman and Company
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Distributed in Canada by H. B. Fenn and Company Ltd.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-P ublication Data
Barash, David P.
The myth of monogamy : fidelity and infidelity in animals and people I
David P. Barash and Judith Eve Lipton.
p. em.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8050-7136-9
1. Adultery. 2. Sex customs. 3. Sexual behavior in animals.
I. Lipton, Judith Eve. II. Title�
HQ806.B367 2001 2001023209
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First published in hardcover in 2001 by W. H. Freeman and Company
First Owl Books Edition 2002
A W. H. Freeman I Owl Book
Designed by Victoria Tomaselli
P rinted in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

· To nona and Nellie, -
for helping to mate it an worthwhile

Contents
CHAPTER 1 Monogamy for Beginners 1
CHAPTER 2 Undermining the Myth: Males 15
CHAPTER 3 Undermining the Myth: Females
(Choosing Male Genes) 57
CHAPTER 4 Undermining the Myth: Females
(Other Considerations) 87
CHAPTER 5 Why Does Monogamy Occur At All? 113
CHAPTER 6 What Are Human Beings, Naturally? 139
CHAPTER 7 So What? 181
Notes 193
Index 223
VII

We have been working together for twenty-five years, and we are grateful
to each other for deep friendship and wonderful evenings. We thank our
editor John Michel for seeing merit in this project and for helping to
improve it as it developed. Project editor Jane O'Neill was also crucial in
making this book become a reality. We offer particular gratitude to Nellie
Barash, our fifteen-year-old daughter, who assisted in correcting page
proofs and slang. Thank you, Nellie, for being our culture maven. We want
most of all to thank the many researchers who populate the pages of this
text and the endnotes for the diligence and insight that has helped expose
the myth of monogamy. And we offer our encouragement to everyonecritters, scientists, and lay people-who struggle with love and betrayal.
IX
"The world is not to be narrowed till it will go into the
understanding ... but the tmderstartding is. to be expanded
till it can take irt the world."
-FRANCIS BACON (1561-1626),
CHAPTER ONE
Monogamy for Beginners
A nthropologist Margaret Mead once suggested that monogamy is the
hardest of all human marital arrangements. It is also one of the
rarest. Even long-married, faithful couples are new at monogamy,
whether they realize it or not. In attempting to maintain a social and sexual
bond consisting exclusively of one man and one woman, . aspiring
monogamists are going against some of the deepest-seated evolutionary
inclinations with which biology has endowed most creatures, Homo sapiens
included. As we shall see, there is powerful evidence that human beings are
not "naturally" monogamous, as well as proof that many animals, once
thought to be monogamous, are not. To be sure, human beings can be
monogamous (and it is another question altogether whether we should be),
but make no mistake: It is unusual-and difficult.
As G. K. Chesterton once observed about Christianity, the ideal of
monogamy hasn't so much been tried and found wanting; rather, it has been
found difficult and often left untried. Or at ,least, not tried for very long.
The fault-if fault there be-lies less in society than in ourselves and our
biology. Thus, monogamy has been prescribed for most of us by American
society and by Western tradition generally; the rules as officially stated are
pretty clear. We are supposed to conduct our romantic and sexual lives oneon-one, within the designated matrimonial playing field. But as in soccer or
football, sometimes people go out of bounds. And not uncommonly, there
is a penalty assessed if the violation is detected by a referee. For many people, monogamy and morality are syno�ymous. Marriage is
.
the ultimate
2 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
sanction and departures from marital monogamy are the. ultimate interpersonal sin. In the acerbic words of George Bernard Shaw, "Morality consists
of suspecting other people of not being legally married. "
Ironically, however, monogamy itself isn't nearly as uncomfortable as are
the consequences of straying from it, even, in many cases, if no one finds
out. Religious qualms aside, the anguish· of personal transgression can be
intense (at least in much of the Western world), and those especially imbued
with the myth of monogamy often find themselves beset with guilt, doomed
like characters from a Puritan cautionary tale to scrub eternally and without avail at their adultery-stained souls, often believing that their transgression is not only unforgivable, but unnatural. For many others-probably the
majority-there is regret and guilt aplenty in simply feeling sexual desire for
someone other than one's spouse, even if such feelings are never acted upon.
When Jesus famously observed that to lust after another is to commit adul-
. tery in one's heart, he echoed and reinforced the myth of monogamy-the
often-unspoken assertion that even desire-at-a-distance is not only wrong,
but a uniquely human sin.
Whether such inclinations are wrong is a difficult, and perhaps unanswerable, question. But as we shall see, thanks to recent developments in evolutionary biology combined with the latest in technology, there is simply no
question whether sexual desire for multiple partners is "natural. " It is. Similarly, there is simply no question of monogamy being "natural. " It isn't.
Social conservatives like to point out what they see as a growing threat
to "family values." But they don't have the slightest idea how great that
threat really is or where it comes from. The monogamous family is very definitely under siege, and not by government, not by a declining moral fiber,
and certainly not by some vast homosexual agenda ... but by the dictates
of biology itself. Infants have their infancy. And adults? Adultery.
If, as Ezra Pound once (somewhat self-servingly) observed, artists are the
"antennae of the race," these antennae have long been twitching about
extramarital affairs. If literature is any reflection of human concerns, then
infidelity has been one of humankind's most compelling, long before biologists had anything to say about it. The first great work of Western literature,
Homer's Iliad, recounts the consequences of adultery: Helen's face launched
a thousand ships and changed the course of history only after it first launched
an affair between Helen, a married woman and Greek queen, and Paris,
son of King Priam of Troy. Helen proceeded to leave her husband Menelaus,
· thereby precipitating the Trojan War. And in the Odyssey, we learn of
Ulysses' return from that war, whereupon he slays a virtual army of suitors,
each of whom was trying to seduce his faithful wife, Penelope. (By contrast,
incidentally, Ulysses himself had dallied with Circe the sorceress, but he was
not considered an adulterer as a result. The double standard is ancient and
by definition unfair; yet it, too, is rooted in biology.)
0 ur approach will be biological, because whatever else human beings
may be, we are biological creatures through and through. We eat,
. we sleep, we feel emotions, we engage in sex, and although we are
unique in some regards, so is every other living thing! Rhinos and cobras
are uniquely rhinos and cobras in their evolutionary history, their physiology, their anatomy, their behavior, just as human beings are uniquely
human. But are we--can we be-more unique than other creatures? Moreover, it should quickly become apparent that despite the oxymoronic
"shared uniqueness" of all living things, there is also a genuine commonality of pattern, especially-for our purposes-a shared susceptibility to certain basic behavioral tendencies. It is taken for granted that we can learn
about human digestion, respiration, or metabolism by studying these
processes in other animals, making due allowance, of course, for certain
unavoidable differences among different species. The same applies for much,
although assuredly not all, behavior.
In this book, we'll be concerned with a range of living things, in part
because each is worth understanding in its own right and also because of the
light they can shed on ourselves. Don't misunderstand: There will be no claim
that because hairy-nosed wombats show a particular sexual pattern, people
do, too. Arguments of this sort are absurdly naive, if only because there is
such remarkable variety in the animal world. Among so-called lekking species of birds, for example, males gather at a ceremonial plot of ground, with
each male defending a small territory; many different females then mate preferentially with one of these males, typically the one occupying the most central "lek" and whose displays are especially intense. (No pair-bond here.)
Then there are the pygmy chimps, also known as bonobos, which engage in
what seems to be a nonstop sexual free-for-all. Once again, nothing close to
monogamy is found ... and these are our closest animal relatives.
On the other hand, there are cases of lifelong social and sexual partnership that might give pause even to the most committed advocates of
MONOGAMY FOR BEGINNERS 3
It seems that every great literary tradition, at least in the Western world,
finds it especially fascinating to explore monogamy's failures: Tolstoy's
Anna Karenina, Flaubert's Madame Bovary, Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's
Lover, Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, Henry James's The Golden Bowl.
More recently, John Updike's marriage novels-not to mention scores of
soap operas and movies�escribe a succession of suburban, middle-class
affairs. The present book, by contrast, is not fiction. And it is not concerned
with affairs as such, but rather with the biological underpinnings of affairs,
in human beings and other animals as well. More precisely, it is about what
the latest research has been revealing about the surprisingly weak biological
underpinnings of monogamy.
4 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
intimate, intense, altogether faithful male-female bonding: Not many living
things partake, for example, of the extreme monogamy shown by the parasitic flatworm Diplo�oon paradoxum, a fish parasite whose partners meet
as virgin adolescent larvae, whereupon they literally fuse at their midsections and subsequently become sexually mature; they then remain
"together" (in every sense of the word) till death parts them-in some cases,
years later.
The above examples ranged from birds to mammals to invertebrates.
And yet it isn't at all clear which is most "relevant" to human beings. If by
relevant we mean which one provides a model or-worse yet-a set of rules
or some sort of evolutionary premonition as to our "deeper selves,"· the
answer must be: none. But at the same time, each is relevant in its own way.
Not only does every animal species cast its unique light on life's possibilities,
but each case also helps illuminate a facet of ourselves.
For most laypersons, there is an understandable bias toward mammals,
especially primates. But although the lives of chimpanzees, gorillas, gibbons,
and orangutans are fascinating and colorful (especially the highly sexed
bonobos, about whom more later), the truth is that when it comes to similarities between their lives and those of human beings, these great apes just
aren't that great. Birds-at least, certain species-are far more informative.
This is because we're not looking for direct historical antecedents, but
rather for similarities based on similar circumstances. Among nearly all
mammals, including most primates, monogamy just isn't in the picture. Nor
is male care of the young. By contrast, although birds aren't nearly as
monogamous as once thought, they are at least inclined in that direction.
(The same can be said about human beings.) Not only that, but social
monogamy-as opposed to genetic monogamy-is strongly correlated with
parental involvement on the part of fathers as well as mothers, a situation
that is common in birds and quite unusual among mammals, except for that .
most birdlike of primates, Homo sapiens.
In this book, we won't be especially focused on mammals (except for
ourselves). When it comes to dispelling the myth of monogamy, most of the
really useful discoveries in recent years have come from research by
ornithologists, who, interestingly enough, have directed much of their attention to those species that are "polygynous" (where the typical mating
arrangement is one male and many females) or "polyandrous" (one female
and many males). Only recently have they turned their attention to
monogamy, only to discover that it is more myth than reality.
We'll also spend some time with invertebrates, because they include so
many different species, each of which is, in a sense, a distinct zoological
experiment, whose results we are only now beginning to decipher.
Certain insects have had an important historical role in helping us appreciate the rarity of monogamy. Thus, some time ago, environmentalists had
MONOGAMY FOR BEGINNERS 5
great hope for a novel technique that promised to eradicate insect pests. The
idea was to release large numbers of sterilized males, which would mate
with females, who would therefore fail to reproduce. Eventually, no more
pests ... and no more pesticides, to .boot. But the success of this procedure
n,ever extended beyond one species, the screw-worm fly.
This is what happened. During the 1930s, E. F. Knipling, a forwardlooking entomologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, may have
sensed that "natural" (that is, noninsecticidal) means of controlling
unwanted insects would be superior to the widespread use of poisons. In any
event, he began exploring a promising technique: Introduce sterilized male .
screw-worms into nature, whereupon they would mate with wild female
screw-worms, whose offspring would fail to materialize. It worked, becoming for a time one of the great success stories of post-Rachel Carson environmentalism. By the 1960s, male screw-worms were being exposed to
radioactive cobalt by the vatful, after which insect eunuchs were airdropped
over a vast region along the Mexican-U.S. border. This technique succeeded
in eliminating the screw-worm scourge. However, such an outcome has
never been replicated. As it turns out, Knipling's choice of a target species
was fortunate (or scientifically inspired): Female screw-worms--despite
their name-are strictly monogamous. By contrast, we now know that for
nearly all insects, one screw is not enough: Females commonly mate with
more than one male, so even when they are inundated with a blizzard of
sterile males, it only takes a small number of intact ones for reproduction to
go merrily along. And so the "sterile-male technique," for all its environmental, nonpesticide appeal, has gone nowhere.
At the same time, the door was opened to a startling insight-namely,
that multiple mating is common in nature. And here is the key point: Multiple mating doesn't refer only to the well-known tendency of males to seek
numerous sexual partners, but to females, too. Probably the first modern
biologist to call attention to this phenomenon, and to recognize its significance, was British behavioral ecologist Geoffrey A. Parker. In 1970, in what
can truly be called a seminal paper, Parker wrote of "Sperm Competition
and Its Evolutionary Consequences in the Insects." In one stroke, a new idea
was born (or, at least, recognized). It is really a simple concept, a direct
result, in fact, of multiple mating: Sperm from more than one male will often
compete to fertilize a female's eggs. Sperm competition is in no way limited
to insects; examples have been found in virtually every animal group ...
including human beings.
Sperm competition is essentially another way of saying nonmonogamy.
If a female mates with only one male, then, by definition, no sperm competition occurs. (Except, of course, for the scramble among individual pollywogs within an ejaculate. Although this may be intense, it is nonetheless different from competition among sperm from different males.) Another way
fi THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY ·
of saying this: If females mate with more than one male, sperm competition
will ensue. Of course, this depends on the females in question being nonmonogamous, something we can prove by showing that their offspring were
sired by more than one male.
Sperm competition was actually first documented by none other than
Charles Darwin, although he did not identify it as such. Indeed, Darwin
seems to have carefully refrained from pursuing the matter, perhaps because
the question of females mating with more than one male was more than
Darwin's social climate could bear. Thus, in The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871), Darwin described a female domestic goose
who produced a mixed brood consisting of some goslings fathered -by a
domestic goose who was her social partner as well as others evidently
fathered by a Chinese goose ... this second male being not only not her
mate, but also not even of the same species!
Darwin's refusal to pursue the question of extra-pair copulations-those
occurring outside the ostensibly monogamous pair-bond-may have been
more than simply a quaint Victorian fastidiousness. Even today, in our supposedly liberated sexual climate, many people get a bit queasy over the
image of sperm from more than one man competing within the vagina and
uterus of a single woman. ("Single," that is, as opposed to plural; such a
woman may well be married or otherwise paired with an identified male:
That is the point.)
Here is an account of sperm competition, co-authored by the doughty
Geoffrey Parker and intended to present the basic points of a simple physical model, known as "constant random displacement with instant sperm
mixing."
Imagine a tank of sperm, representing the fertilization set,
which has an input pipe and an outlet pipe. During copulation,
sperm flow at a constant rate into. the tank through the inlet and
out (by displacement) through the outlet. First imagine that the.
sperm entering the tank do not mix with the sperm already present,
which are pushed towards and out from the outlet. The new sperm
displace only the old sperr�, so that the proportion of sperm from
the .last male ... rises linearly at a rate equal to the input rate ....
But, now suppose that there is swift random mixing of the
oncoming sperm with the previous sperm in the tank. At first the
sperm displaced from the outlet will be only the old sperm. As the
last male's sperm build up in the tank, some of the displaced sperm
will be his own ("self-displacement" ). By the time most of the sperm
in the tank is new, most of the outflow will represent selfdisplacement.
MONOGAMY FOR BEGINNERS 7
Parker's physical model (accompanied with equations, predictions, and
supportive data) is entirely sound and logical. At the same time, the very
idea of a tankful of sperm is not one likely to make the heart sing! (Why
not? We're not at all sure, but it wouldn't be surprising if most people's disinclination to think deeply and cheerfully about semen or sperm is related
to the general disinclination of biologists to think about non-monogamy
among animals and, in turn, to the discomfort most of us feel when considering non-monogamy among human beings as well. Not to mention a likely
female disinclination to be designated a "tank"!)
Geoffrey Parker's initial studies of sperm competition employed the
"irradiated-male" technique, much like Knipling's more applied research
several decades earlier. In Parker's case, the idea was that after subjecting
males to radiation, their sperm was damaged, not eriough to prevent them
from fertilizing eggs but sufficient to interfere with the normal development
of any resulting embryo. So, by mating females to irradiated and nonirradiated males, then counting how many eggs vv-ere fertilized but didn't develop
in each case, it was possible to assign paternity and thus calculate the success of the different males.
Other techniques quickly followed, notably direct genetic evidence for
multiple paternity using "allozymes. " This depends on the existence of
distinct genetic differences among individuals. In some cases, these differences are well known and readily seen, as with traits such as eye color or
hair color in people, the presence or absence of attached earlobes, or the
ability or inability to roll one's tongue. For most allozyme-based studies,
however, the genetic differences in question are more subtle, analogous to
blood types. Knowing, for example, whether a child's blood type is A, B,
AB, or 0, it is possible to determine whether a given adult could have been
the father. (For example, if a child is type 0, a man accused in a paternity
suit could not be the father if he is type AB.) But it is one thing to prove
or disprove the possibility of parentage-to say that someone could or,
alternatively, could not be the father-and quite another to say that he
definitely is.
Such certainty is now available. It required the next and most significant breakthrough to date on the way toward disproving the myth of
monogamy: the discovery of "DNA fingerprinting," not only for human
beings but also animals. Just as each person has a unique fingerprint, each
of us has a unique pattern of DNA, so-called minisatellite regions that are
"hypervariable," offering a . range of possibility that encompasses more
than a hundred million different identifying traits, far more than, for example, blood types A, B, AB, or 0. As a result, just as each citizen of the
United States can be uniquely identified by a personalized Social Security
number (so long as we allow enough digits), DNA fingerprinting provides
8 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
enough genetic specification to guarantee that only one individual will possess a particular pattern.
Given tissue samples from offspring and adults, we can now specify, with
certainty, whether a particular individual is or is not the parent, just as it is
possible to specify, with certainty, the donor of any sample of blood, hair, or
semen. After subjecting the tissue to appropriate treatments, research technicians end up with a DNA profile that looks remarkably like a supermarket bar code, and with about this level of unique identification. Armed with
this technique, field biologists-studying the behavior of free-living animals
in nature-have at long last been able to pinpoint parenthood. As a result,
the field of "biomolecular behavioral ecology" has really taken off, and with
it, our understanding of a difference that may sound trivial but is actually
profound: between "social monogamy" and "sexual monogamy. "
Two individuals are socially monogamous if they live together, nest
together, forage together, and copulate together. Seeing all this togetherness,
biologists not surprisingly used to assume that the animals they studied
were also mixing their genes together, that the offspring they reared (usually together) were theirs and theirs alone. But thanks to DNA fingerprinting, we have been learning that it ain't necessarily so. Animals-not unlike
people-sometimes fool around, and much more often than had been
thought. When it comes to actual reproduction, even bird species long considered the epitome of social monogamy, and thus previously known for
their fidelity, are now being revealed as sexual adventurers. Or at least, as
sexually non-monogamous.
Incidentally, it is not easy to obtain the so-called minisatellite DNA profiles needed to assign accurate parentage to animals-or to human beings,
for that matter. The· actual laboratory techniques are elaborate and detailed.
Here is a sample, taken from the "methodology" section of a recent scientific paper_ describing this latest wedding of genetic insight to animal sexual
behavior. We present it here not to provide a cookbook recipe for do-ityourself DNA analysts, but as a kind of penance, so that when in this or
subsequent chapters you encounter an off-hand mention of "DNA fingerprinting," you will pause-if only briefly-and give credit to the sophisticated labor that made such information possible:
We added 30 Jll of 10% SDS and 30 111 of proteinase K and
incubated the [blood] sample at 55 degrees C for 3 h. A further
10 J.1l of proteinase K were then added and the sample returned to
55 degrees C overnight. An extra Tris-buffered Phenol wash was also
performed to remove additional proteins present in the tissue. To
20 Jll of genomic DNA, we added 4 111 10 x Buffer (react 2), 2 Jll
2 mglml BSA, 1 Jll 160 nM Spoermidine, 1111 of the restriction enzyme
MONOGAMY FOR BEGINNERS 9
Haem and 11 Jll milli-Q wat�r. This mixture was incubated overnight
at 37 degrees C. Another 1 Jll of Haem was added the following day
and the sample was incubated at 37 degrees C for a further 1 h.
Digested samples were then stored at -20 degrees C. About 5 Jlg of
digested DNA were loaded in each lane of the gel. DNA fragments
were resolved on a 0.8% agarose gel (19 x 27cm) in 1 x TBE running
buffer at 55 C for 72 h. We then denatured the DNA by washing each
gel for 15 min in 0.25 M HCl and then for 45 min in 0.5 M NaOH,
1.5 M NaCI. Gels were then neutralized by two 15-min washes in
1.5 M NaCI, 0.5 M Tris-HCl pH 7.2, 1mM EDTA. Southern blot
techniques were used to transfer DNA from agarose gels to nulon
membranes in 6 X sse. Membranes were then dried for 10 min at
37 degrees C before being baked at 80 degrees C for 2 h.
Baked membranes were soaked in prehybridization mix (75 ml
0.5 disodium hydrogen orthophosphate pH 7.2. 75 ml milli-Q water,
300 J.1l 0.5 M EDTA pH 8.0, 10.5 g SDS for 2 h at 65 degrees C. First
a Jeffrys 33.15 probe was labelled with a-32 PdCtp by random priming
with Amersham radprime kit. Unincorporated label was removed
using a G50 sephadex column. Hybridization of Jeffreys 33.15 to
membranes was at 65 degrees C for a minimum of 18 h. Membranes
were then washed twice with 5 X sse, 0.1% SDS at 65 degrees c.
DNA fragments hybridized to the 33.15 probe were exposed on X-ray
film at either -80 degrees C with one intensifying screen or at room
temperature for 1-6 days. After adequate exposure, membranes were
stripped and reprobed with CA probe, which was similarly labelled to
a-32 PdCTP.
Had enough?
M onogamy generally implies mating exclusivity. In this book, we
shall use the term to mean a social system in which the reproductive arrangement appears to involve one male and one female. But
the burden of our argument is that when it comes to monogamy as mating
exclusivity, what we see is not necessarily what we get. Herein lies the myth.
When asked, men consistently claim to have had more sexual partners
than women. As we shall see, it is consistent with evolutionary theory that
when it comes to sex, males are comparatively indiscriminate whereas
females are likely to be more careful and cautious. But this is only possible
if a small number of women make themselves sexually available to a large
number of men, because, assuming that every heterosexual encounter
involves one man and one woman, the numbers must balance out. There is
10 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
also strong evidence that men tend to exaggerate their reported number of
sexual encounters, while women tend to understate theirs. This discrepancy
could result from genuine memory lapses on the part of women and/or
unconscious deception (of self and others) by members of both sexes. In
addition, social pressures prescribe that having multiple sexual partners
(over time, mind you, not necessarily simultaneously) indicates a "real man,"
whereas being a "real"-that is, virtuous-woman has long been equated
with monogamous fidelity. In any event, it is interesting that among many
animals, too, females are especially secretive about their extra-pair copulations, whereas males are comparatively brazen ... even if they are not
inclined to verbal exaggeration.
People (and not just scientists!) have long known that the human species
is prone to more than a bit of hypocrisy, saying one thing with regard to
fidelity and then-at least on occasion-doing another. But when it comes
to the scientific study of animal mating systems, biologists had traditionally
assumed that when a species "is" socially monogamous, then it really is
monogamous; that is, sexually exclusive. No more.
In the movie Heartburn, a barely fictionalized account by Nora Ephron
of her marriage to the philandering Carl Bernstein, the heroine (played by
Meryl Streep) tearfully tells her father about her husband's infidelities, only
to be advised, "You want monogamy? Marry a swan." But now, it appears
that not even swans are reliably monogamous.
Reports of extra-pair copulations in animals previously,thought to be
monogamous have come hot and heavy during the last decade or so. '
Increasingly, biology journals have featured articles with titles such as
"Behavioral, Demographic and Environmental Correlates of Extra-Pair
Fertilizations in Eastern Bluebirds," "Multiple Paternity in a Wild Population of Mallards," "Extrapair Copulations in the Mating System of the
White Ibis," "DNA Fingerprinting Reveals Multiple Paternity in Families
of Great and Blue Tits," "Extrapair Paternity in the Shag, as Determined
by DNA Fingerprinting," "Genetic Evidence for Multiple Parentage in Eastern Kingbirds," "Extra-Pair Paternity in the Black-Capped Chickadee,"
"Density-Dependent Extra-Pair Copulations in the Swallow," "Patterns of
Extra-Pair Fertilizations in Bobolinks," and "Extra-Pair Paternity in
Monogamous Tree Swallows." We have even had this oxymoronic report:
"Promiscuity in Monogamous Colonial Birds."
The situation has reached the point where failure to find extra-pair copulations in ostensibly monogamous species-that is, cases in which monogamous species really turn out to be monogamous-is itself reportable, leading to the occasional appearance of such reassuring accounts as "DNA
Fingerprinting Reveals a Low Incidence of Extra-Pair Fertilizations in the
Lesser Kestrel," or "Genetic Evidence 'for Monogamy in the Cooperatively
Breeding Red-Cockaded Woodpecker."
MONOGAMY FOR BEGINNERS 11
Until recently, for a scientific journal to publish a report demonstrating
that a "monogamous" species is in fact monogamous would be as silly as
for it to publish an account revealing that a particular species of mammal
lactates and nurses its young. "Big deal," its readers would say. But now,
with the tidal wave of evidence for genetic non-monogamy, any evidence for
true monogamy is a big deal indeed, even among those bird species such as
eagles and geese that were long seen as paragons of pair-bonding.
The plot thickens: When migrating birds were live-trapped and the cloacas of the females rinsed out and examined, at least 25 percent of them were
revealed to be already carrying sperm. And this before having reached the
breeding areas to which they were headed! Evidently, when females-even
young ones, in their first reproductive year-arrive at their breeding areas
and set up housekeeping with a territorial male, more than a few have
already lost their virginity. The likelihood is that such sexual experiences are
nonfunctional, or at least nonreproductive, although this remains to be ·
proven, since live sperm can be stored for several days within the genital
tract of most birds.
In any event, it is difficult to overstate the conceptual revolution that has
followed the discovery that copulations-and, in many cases, fertilizations-often take place outside the social unions that researchers typically
identify. After all, reproductive success is the fundamental currency of evolutionary success, and behavioral ecologists and sociobiologists studying
red-winged blackbirds, for example, have long been in the habit of evaluating the reproductive success of their male subjects by counting harem size
or, better yet, the number of young birds produced by all of a male's
"wives." But now comes word that in this polygynous species, too, females
don't restrict their mating to the harem-keeper. It turns out that there is no
necess�ry correlation between a male red-winged blackbird's apparent
reproductive success (the number of offspring reared on his territory) and
his actual reproductive success (the number of offspring he fathered). Similarly, there is no guaranteed correlation between his harem size and his
actual reproductive success: A male red-winged blackbird (like a male Turkish sultan) can "have" many wives, which in turn can have many offspring-but those children might not be his.
The pattern is painfully clear: In the animal world generally, and the
avian world in particular, there is a whole lot more screwing around than
we had thought. (As to the human world, most people have long known
that there is a whole lot more of the same than is publicly-or even privately-acknowledged.)
When it comes to mammals, monogamy has long been known as a rarity. Out of 4,000 mammal species, no more than a few dozen form reliable
pair-bonds, although in many cases it is hard to characterize them with certainty because the social and sexual lives of mammals tend to be more
12 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
furtive than those of birds. Monogamous mammals are most likely to be
bats (a few species only), certain canids (especially foxes), a few primates
(notably the tiny New World monkeys known as marmosets and tamarins),
a handful of mice and rats, several odd-sounding South American rodents
(agoutis, pacas, acouchis, maras), the giant otter of South America, the
northern beaver, a handful of species of seals, and a couple of small African
antelopes (duikers, dik-diks, and klipspringers). A pitiful list.
Even females of seemingly solitary species such as orangutans, gibbons,
and black bears have been found to copulate with more than one male;
hence, observations of social organization alone clearly can be misleading.
Until recently, lacking the appropriate genetic techniques, we had little
choice but to define monogamy by the social relationships involved; only
with the explosion in DNA fingerprinting technology have we started to
examine the genetic connections, those most important to evolution. Thus,
according to the highly respected book by David Lack, Ecological Adaptations for Breeding in Birds, fully 92 percent of bird species are monogamous. Socially, this figure is still accurate; sexually, it is way off. The highest known frequency of extra-pair copulations are found among the
fairy-wrens, lovely tropical creatures technically known as Malurus
spendens and Malurus cyaneus. More than 65 percent of all fairy-wren
chicks are fathered by males outside the supposed breeding group. Here is
another eye-opener. Warblers and tree swallows are purportedly monogamous, yet when genetic analyses were conducted on six different offspring
in each of these species, they were found to have been fathered by five different males!
Although such cases are admittedly extreme, we now know that it is not
uncommon for 10 to 40 percent of the offspring in "monogamous" birds to
be fathered by an "extra-pair" male; that is, one who isn't the identified
social mate of the female in question. (It is much less common for offspring
to be "mothered" by an extra-pair female; that is, for an outsider female to
slip one of her eggs into the nest of a mated pair. More on this later.)
Given how much we have been learning about non-monogamy and
extra-pair matings among animals, and considering the newfound availability of such testing, it is remarkable how rarely genetic paternity tests have
been run on human beings. On the other hand, considering the inflammatory potential of the results, as well as, perhaps, a hesitancy to open such a
Pandora's box, maybe Homo sapiens' reluctance to test themselves for
paternity is sapient indeed. Even prior to DNA fingerprinting, blood-group
studies in England found the purported father to be the genetic father about
94 percent of the time; this means that for six out of a hundred people,
someone other than the man who raised them is the, genetic father. In
response to surveys, between 25 percent and 50 percent of U.S. men report
having had at least one episode of extramarital sex. The numbers for women
MONOGAMY FOR BEGINNERS 13
are a bit lower-around 30 percent-but still in the same ballpark. Many
people already know quite a lot-probably more than they would choose to
know-about the painful and disruptive effects of extramarital sex. It
wouldn't be surprising if a majority would rather not know anything more
about its possible genetic consequences, extramarital fatherhood. Maybe
ignorance is bliss. (If you feel this way, better stop reading here!)
Until quite recently, multiple mating was hidden from biologists. It wasn't so
much invisible as unacknowledged, a perfect example of the phenomenon
that even in such a seemingly hard-headed pursuit as science, believing is seeing. More to the point, not believing is not seeing. Sexual infidelities among
ostensibly monogamous species, when noticed at all by biologists, were generally written off as aberrant, not worth describing, and certainly not suitable·
for analysis or serious theory. Distasteful as it may have been, Geoffrey
Parker's work changed that, along with this important recognition by evolutionary theoretician Robert Trivers. A "mixed strategy" should be favored,
as least among males: Maintain a pair-bond with a female, whom you might
well assist in rearing offspring, but be ready and available for additional copulations if the opportunity arises. The next step was to ask: What about the
female? Is she merely a passive recipient of male attentions, an empty tank to
be filled with the sperm of various competing paramours? Or does she
choose among the eager male prospects? Might she even actively solicit extrapair copulations, generating sperm competition among different males? And
is it beyond the evolutionary ingenuity of females for them to play hard-toget within their own genital tracts?
E arly wor
.
k, both empirical research and theorizing, took a decidedly
male-centered perspective on multiple mating, emphasizing how
males maximize their paternity by being sexually available to more
than one female whenever possible� by competing with each other directly
(via bluffing, displaying, and fighting) and indirectly (via guarding their
mates), and by using an array of anatomical, physiological, and behavioral
techniques-such as frequent copulations:..._to give them an advantage over
other males. In his research, David, too, was guilty of this short-sightedness.
More recently, however, biologists have begun to identify how females
partake of their own strategies: mating with more than one male, controlling (or, at least, influencing) the outcome of sperm competition, sometimes
obtaining direct, personal benefits such as food or protection in return for
these extra-pair copulations as well as indirect, genetic benefits that eventually accrue to their offspring. A penchant for non-monogamy among
males is no great surprise, but, as we shall see, the most dramatic new findings and revised science brought about by the recent demolition of the
myth of monogamy concern the role of females. Freud spoke more truth
14 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
than he knew when he observed that female psychology was essentially a
"dark continent." A well-integrated theory of female sexuality in particular still remains to be articulated; perhaps a reader of this book will be suitably inspired.
More on this, too, later. In fact, much more. It is no accident that
whereas the male perspective receives one chapter, the female viewpoint gets
two. It is something that we are only now beginning to identify and just
barely to understand. And as is often the case with new insights, it raises
more questions than it answers.
I n what follows, we shall try to keep jargon to a minimum. We've already
met that deceptively simple term monogamy, noting the crucial distinction between social monogamy and sexual monogamy. We've also
briefly considered two other mating systems: polygyny (one male mated to
many females) and polyandry (one female mated to many males). The derivations of these terms make them easier to remember: Polygyny comes from
poly ("many") and gyny ("female," the same root as "vagina"). So polygyny, the situation of a male harem-keeper, means, in effect, "many vaginas"
(or cloacas, in the case of birds). Similarly, polyandry comes from poly
("many") combined with andry ("male," the same root as "androgen,"
referring to male sex hormones). So polyandry, which means "many males,"
is the--much rarer-situation of a female harem-keeper.
Two abbreviations will also be useful, and hence repeated throughout:
EPC stands for extra-pair copulation, which simply means a copulation in
which at least one participant is already socially mated to someone else. In
human terms, it is equivalent to an extramarital affair or adultery (if the pair
is married) or "cheating" (if the pair is simply "going together" or "dating"
so seriously that the EPC violates the other's expectation, knowledge, or consent). For our purposes, animals can engage in EPCs no less than people can.
Similarly, IPC stands for intra-pair (or in-pair) copulation, which means that
two individuals who are socially mated also mate sexually.
Such abbreviations are intended to facilitate communication, mostly by
clarity and brevity. But they have another, unintended effect, one that may
be fortuitously helpful: Their aura of scientific objectivity conveys a degree
of detachment that should enable us to consider difficult, emotionally
charged material with at least a degree of detachment. This is probably a
good thing, since not only are we as a species new to the practice of
monogamy"(social as well as sexual), but we are also novices when it comes
to understanding this most fascinating as well as vexatious way of life.
CHAPTER TWO
Undermining the Myth: Males
A story is told in New Zealand about the early nineteenth-century visit
of an Episcopal bishop to an isolated Maori village. Everyone was
about to retire for the night after an evening of high-spirited feasting and dancing, when the village headman-wanting to show hospitality
to his honored guest--called out, "A woman for the bishop." Seeing a
scowl of disapproval on the prelate's face, the headman roared even louder,
"Two women for the bishop!"
This story, of course, is one of cross-cultural misunderstanding. But
underlying it is something quite different: cross-cultural, species-wide similarity, notably, the widespread male fondness for (1) sex generally and (2) sexual variety when possible. We presume that the Episcopal missionary turned
down the headman's offer, but we also smile at the latter's immediate
assumption that what troubled the bishop was not the prospect of spending
the night with a new woman, but that he had only been offered one! To be
sure, human beings can even elect celibacy (and, what is more remarkable,
some can remain true to it), but virtually everyone agrees that such denial is
denial indeed; it does not come naturally, and it requires saying "no" to
something within.
Most people, male and female, like sex. But the Maori headman revealed
an acute sensitivity to another pan-cultural human trait: the widespread
eagerness of men in particular for sexual variety. This is not to claim that men
necessarily seek a nonstop sexual carnival or a lifetime of wildly erotic, simultaneous encounters with multiple partners. But compared to women, men in
particular-:-and, as we shall see, males in general-have a lower threshold for
16 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
sexual excitation' and a greater fondness for sexual variety, or, to look at it
more ne�atively, a penchant for equating monogamy with monotony.
I
t isn't rocket science to understand how the biology of male-female dif-
. ferences leads to differences in sexual preference, nor is it terribly difficult to see why, from the male perspective, monogamy is so difficult .. In
fact, this recognition has been around for several decades now, and it has
become part of the received wisdom of evolutionary biology and one of the
major energizing principles of sociobiology, sometimes known as evolutionary psychology. (The other side of the coin-why the female perspective also
generates departures from monogamy-is a different story, one that is only
now being unraveled; we'll discuss it in the next two chapters).
Fundamentally, the "standard" sociobiological explanation for malefemale differences is a matter of sperm and eggs. Nearly all living things are
divided into male and female, and this distinction, in turn, is based on the
kind of sex cells they produce, whether tiny and generated in vast numbers
(sperm) or large and relatively scarce (eggs). This, in fact, is how we define
maleness and femaleness: not by the presence or absence of beards, breasts,
penises, or vaginas, and not even by who gives birth. After all, male seahorses carry their offspring inside their body, eventually releasing them to
the outside after a series of violent contractions that are remarkably like
those of a woman in labor. But even for seahorses, there is no question that
the individual giving birth is a "he," not a "she." This is because he is the
one who contributed sperm; she provided the eggs ..
Most birds lack external genitals altogether, and yet biologists have no
difficulty distinguishing males from females, even in those ·cases such as
sparrows or gulls in which males and females are often indistinguishable
based on physical appearance. If it lays eggs, it is female; if it makes sperm,
it is male.
This is not simply a matter of theoretical dictionary definitions. It turns
out that whether one is an egg-maker or a sperm-maker has important consequences. To understand these consequences, the next step is to look at the
energetic expenditures that eggs and sperm entail. A female bird, for example, will lay a clutch of eggs that might well tip the scales at 20 per�ent of
her total body weight; her male partner will ejaculate a fraction of a teaspoon of sperm. Sperm are cheap and readily replaced; eggs are expensive
and hard to come by. Not surprisingly, therefore, we find that males are generally profligate with their sperm, whereas fer;nales tend to be careful and
choosy about how they dispose of their eggs.
The situation for mammals is, if anything, even more asymmetric. Even
though the mammalian egg is very small-almost microscopic-each sperm
UNDERMINING THE MYTH: MALES 17
is smaller yet. A single human ejaculation, for example, contains about
250 million sperm, whereas, by contrast, it takes about a month for a single egg to be ovulated. (During that month, a healthy man will produce literally billions of sperm.) More importantly, however, each egg represents an
immensely greater investment on the part of a woman--or female mammal
generally-than does a sperm. If fertilized, that egg will develop within the
body of its mother, nourished from her bloodstream. Following birth, the ,
infant mammal (human or otherwise) will receive proportionately even
more nourishment, in the form of milk, via the mother's breasts. By contrast,
the father has only invested a few moments of his time and a squirt or two
of semen, expending the energy equivalent of eating a few potato chips!
Alternatively, think about the consequences of making a mistake: If a
female mammal makes a bad choice and is inseminated by an inferior male,
say, one whose offspring will fail to survive or (nearly the same thing, in evo�
lutionary terms) to reproduce, she pays a substantial toll in risk as well as in
lost time and energy. Such a female may spend several weeks or many
months pregnant, not to mention lactating once her offspring is born, only
to have nothing to sh9w for it on her evolutionary ledger. By contrast, a
male mammal who makes himself available for one or many sexual dalliances has invested comparatively little. If in the process he succeeds in fertilizing one or more females, he is that much ahead; if he fails, then, unlike
most females in a similar situation, he has not lost very much. As a result,
evolutionary pressures tend to favor males who are sexually available, readily stimulated, and interested in multiple sexual relationships-who are, in
the words of noted evolutionary theorist George C. Williams, "aggressive
sexual advertisers." At the same time, females have generally been endowed
by natural selection with a tendency to be more sexually discerning, or, as
Williams has put it, "coy, comparison shoppers."
An important conceptual breakthrough came when Robert L. Trivers
pointed out that the key (or, at least, one key) to male-female differences in
behavior derives from differences in what he called "parental investment."
Parental investment is simply anything costly-time, energy, risk-that a
parent spends or endures on behalf of its offspring and that increases the
chances of the offspring's being successful, at the cost of the parent's being
unable to invest in other offspring at some other time. Feeding one's offspring is parental investment. So is defending, educating, cleaning, or
scratching when and where it itches. And so, also, is producing the big, fat,
energy-rich mother lode of nutrients called an egg. A sperm, by contrast, is
a pitiful excuse for parental investment, consisting merely of some DNA
with a tail at the other end.
Trivers showed that when there is a big difference between the parental
investment offered by members of the two sexes, the sex investing more
18 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
(nearly always female) will become a valued "resource," sought after by
individuals of the sex investing less (nearly always male). Several important
consequences flow from this. For one thing, males tend to compete with
each other for access to females. This is because females have something of
great value: their eggs or, in the case of mammals, their promise of a placenta and, eventually, lactation. Not only that, but successful males may get
to inseminate numerous females, whereas unsuccessful males have nothing
to show for their efforts. As a result, natural selection will generally favor
males that succeed in their competition with other males and that therefore
are relatively big and aggressive, outfitted with dangerous weapons (fangs,
tusks, antlers, horns) and a propensity for bluff, bluster, and violence as well
as sexual adventuring.
Moreover, because females generally provide such abundant parental
investment, males are in many cases superfluous in terms of the success of
any offspring produced. As a result, they are "liberated" to pursue as many
additional reproductive opportunities as they can find. Trivers pointed out
that even in cases of supposedly strict monogamy, when the direct involvement of both father and mother are required for offspring to be reared successfully, the evolutionary optimum for males will often be to adopt a
"mixed reproductive strategy." In such cases, males mate with a chosen
female and assist her in rearing offspring, but also make themselves available for additional reproductive liaisons with other females ... whom, in
most cases, they will not help. Because of the small investment entailed in
sperm-making, males will typically be more fit, in the evolutionary sense, if
at some level they are willing-even eager-to make their gametes as widely
available as their lifestyles allow. It is important to realize, at the same time,
that such individuals are not simply cads or scoundrels. Usually, males who
seek EPCs (extra-pair copulations) are resident territorial proprietors-happily married, respectable burghers who are simply susceptible to "a little
something on the side."
Once males developed this tendency to play fast and loose, it likely
became self-perpetuating, so that departures from monogamy may actually
be responsible, in part, for the further evolution of maleness itself; namely,
for the production of especially tiny sperm. Under the pressures of sperm
competition, males would probably have been pushed by natural selection
to make sperm in ever-greater numbers, and-since the amount of energy
that can be expended in such pursuits is ultimately limited-each one would
necessarily have to be very small.
There is another way of making sense of this phenomenon of male sexual avidity, although it is not entirely distinct from looking at the low
parental investment that characterize males generally. The idea is to focus,
instead, on reproductive potential. In the long. run, males and females have
UNDERMINING TifE MYTH: MALES 19
the same reproductive potential, since whenever sexual reproduction occurs,
one male and one female are equally responsible. But the two sexes differ in
how reproductive success is distributed among their members. Because of
their high parental investment, most females are likely to be at least somewhat successful; usually there are no dramatic differences between the most
successful females and the least successful. Even "low-quality" females are
generally able to get inseminated, if only because males are typically ready
and willing to fertilize any females who might otherwise go unmated. And
because of their high parental investment, even "high-quality" females are
limited in how many children they can produce. By contrast, it is possible
among males for a small number of well-endowed individuals to be hugely
successful, while others are total failures.
Consider this: During her lengthy pregnancy, a cow elk is fully occupied
with only one calf. By contrast, a bull can inseminate additional females
every day. Admittedly, the fact that most healthy male mammals-including
mice and men-release a few hundred million sperm in just one ejaculation
does not mean that they are capable of fathering a few hundred.million children. Take the human situation, however: During the nine months that a
woman is pregnant-not even counting the added time lactating-a man
has much greater reproductive potential ... that is, if he inseminates additional women. Another way of looking at it: What limits the reproductive
success of any given male would appear to be his access to females, rather
than inherent limitations of his reproductive anatomy.
And so, once again we have the same basic pattern: Males, which make
a relatively small parental investment and have a large potential reproductive success, tend to be sexually eager. This does not in itself require departing from monogamy, but in fact such sexual eagerness is likely to be especially pronounced when it comes to new potential partners, who, once
inseminated, will produce offspring yielding the kind of evolutionary payoff
that selects for precisely such behavior. By contrast, a rigidly monogamous
male-with no eye for the ladies other than his own-has fewer opportunities for reproductive success. The result? From the male perspective, strict
monogamy is not likely to be the best of all possible worlds.
I
t is said that exceptions prove the rule. When it comes to the connection
among maleness, low parental investment, and sexual eagerness, there
are in fact some interesting apparent exceptions. These are cases of
"reversed sex roles/' in which females are comparatively aggressive, often
larger, brightly colored, and more sexually demanding if not promiscuous,
while the males are coy, drab, and sexually reticent. Among certain insects,
for example, the males produce not only sperm but also a large mass of
20 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
gelatinous, proteinaceous glop, which the female devours after mating; in
doing so, she gains substantial calories, more, in some cases, than she expends in making eggs. And sure enough, in these speCies (including some
katydids and butterflies), females court the males. This makes sense, since
here it is the males, not the females, who make a large metabolic investment.
And in such cases, males, not females, are likely to say "no." The key for
our purposes-and apparently for these animals as well-is that malefemale patterns of sexual behavior are reversed precisely when male-female
patterns of parental investment are reversed. (It is not known, incidentally,
what gave rise to such sex-role switching in the first place.)
Another lovely insect example of the exception confirming the rule
comes from several species of fruit fly, including one known as Drosophila
bifurca. The males, about 2.5 millimeters long, make sperm that are
20 times longer than the flies producing them! This would be the equivalent
of a 6-foot man making sperm that are more than 120 feet long. The function of these giant Drosophila sperm is unknown (in some cases, the tail
enters the egg at fertilization, in others it remains outside), but it is known
that males, after constructing these remarkable devices, parcel them out
"with female-like judiciousness, carefully partitioning their limited sperm
among successive females."
Sex-role reversal has even been reported for some species of birds,
notably the South American marsh-dwelling species known as jacanas.
These animals are polyandrous, with a. large, aggressive, dominant female
maintaining a territory in which several small, meek, and subordinate males
each construct a nest and incubate eggs that the dominant female bestows
upon them, after mating. Because of their time spent nest-building and incubating, the male jacanas end up providing more parental investment than do
the females ... and once again, the females act "male-like" in their sexual
appetites, while .the males behave more like females.
Of course, exceptions don't really prove rules; rather, apparent exceptions can help contribute to a rule if a more careful look shows that they
aren't really exceptions after all. (Otherwise, exceptions disprove rules!) But
when it comes to the correlation between low parental investment and high
sexual appetite, this rule is pretty close to being proven.
B
y now, it should be easy to see why monogamy is under siege, at least
from the male side. The potential reproductive benefit of having one
or more additional sexual partners is high (if any of these "girlfriends" get pregnant), while metabolic and energy cost is likely to be low.
Not surprisingly, males show numerous signs of this evolutionary pressure
to stray from monogamy. One example is the so-called Coolidge effect.
UNDERMINING THE MYTH: MALES 21
Legend has it that President Cal and his wife were separately touring a
model farm. When the president reached the chicken-yard, containing a single rooster and several dozen hens, his guide said, "Mrs. Coolidge wanted
me to point out to you that this one rooster must copulate many times per
day." "Always with the same hen?" asked Coolidge. "No, sir," replied the
guide. "Please point out that to Mrs. Coolidge!" the president responded.
The Coolidge effect is well known and has been confirmed in numerous
laboratory studies: introduce, for example, a ram and a sexually receptive
ewe and the two will likely copulate, typically more than once. The frequency then declines, usually quite rapidly. But replace the female with a
new one, and the seemingly "spent" ram is-to some extent-sexually reinvigorated. A new ewe makes for a new him.
Actually, this phenomenon was known long before the modern science
of animal behavior. "I have put to stud an old horse who could not be controlled at the scent of mares," wrote the sixteenth-century essayist Montaigne. "Facility presently sated him toward his own mares: But toward
strange ones, and the first one that passes by his pasture, he returns to his
importunate neighings and his furious heats, as before."
As to human beings, listen to this account by a man from the African
Kgatla tribe, describing · his feelings about sexual intercourse with his two
wives:
I find them both equally desirable, but when I have slept with one
for three days, by the fourth day she has wearied me, and when I go to
the other I find that I have greater passion; she seems more attractive
than the first. But it is not really so, for when I return to the latter
again there is the same renewed passion.
There. is no reason to think that men inhabiting modern technological
societies are any different. Indeed, the famous team of sex researchers led by
Dr. Alfred Kinsey pointed out that
most males can iinmediately understand why most males want
extramarital coitus. Although many of them refrain from engaging in
such activity because they consider it morally unacceptable or socially
undesirable, even such abstinent individuals can usually understand
that sexual variety, new situations, and new partners might provide
satisfactions which are no longer found in coitus which has been
confined for some period of years to a single sexual partner .... On the
other hand, many females find it difficult to understand why any male
who is happily married should want to have coitus with any female
other than his wife.
22 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
About 80 percent of all mammal species are capable of multiple ejaculations, an ability that makes particular sense if these multiple ejaculations
involve multiple sexual partners. In addition, although the Coolidge effect is
very widespread, non-monogamous species (primates as well as rodents)
show a stronger Coolidge effect than do monogamous species; this also was
predicted, since males of non-monogamous species have more opportunity
to act upon any sexual excitation they experience when they encounter a
nc;w female.
Most observers of animal behavior, not to mention observers of Homo
sapiens, would agree that males generally have greater sexual urgency and
lesser discrimination: Ask yourself, for example, is it men or women, who
are accused of date rape, who engage in various sexual paraphilias ( "perversions"), who visit prostitutes, and who have made pornography one of
the largest industries worldwide? Once again, it makes biological sense for
the sex that produces cheap, easily replaceable gametes to be readily
"turned on" sexually and to be comparatively undiscriminating as to the
target. (Thinking about it objectively, and without an evolutionary perspective, it is rather bizarre that huge numbers of men find it highly arousing to look at visual images of naked women! After all, these are merely
dots of color on a page or, increasingly, a computer screen. Such people are
not morons; intellectually, they know that these arousing images are just
that-images-but the male tendency is to have an especially low threshold for sexual stimulation.)
What does an individual "get" from an EPC? For males, at least, it is
obvious: sexual satisfaction. But this is what biologists call a "proximate"
explanation. It may explain the immediate causation, but it leaves unanswered the deeper question: Why should sex-especially, perhaps, sex with
someone new-be gratifying? The answer, for evolutionary biologists, is
also obvious: Something is gratifying if it serves the biological interests of
the individuals concerned. Such proximate satisfactions as "gratification"
are evolution's way of getting creatures to do certain things. Or, more accurately, those who find such activities rewarding, and who therefore engage
in them, leave more descendants who thus have similar inclinations. Hence,
we find animals who seek food when hungry, rest when tired, warmth when
cold ... and sex when horny.
Looking now at the evolutionary payoff of EPCs, it seems that males are
unlikely to gain anything other than an increase in their reproductive success. After all, they have to expend time and energy seeking EPCs, and they
may also be attacked by an outraged "husband." Moreover, since they are
the eager ones and are providing only sperm-which, after all, are cheapit is unlikely that their female EPC partner will lavish "gifts" upon them, in
the form of extra food, donated territory, assistance in defending their own
UNDERMINING THE MYTH: MALES 23
offspring, and so forth. Whereas a mistress may gain material rewards from
her lover (whether animal or human) in return for her sexual favors, a male
out-of-pair se.xllal partner rarely is "paid" by his inamorata. For the male
Lothario, the rewards are more likely to be immediate (the gratification of
sexual dalliance itself) and long term (enhanced reproductive success),
rather than material. For females, as we shall see in Chapters 3 and 4, the
situation is quite different.
In any event, it requires no great conceptual leap to see how the low cost
of sperm (and the resulting potential for a high reproductive rate) leads to a
low threshold for sexual stimulation as well as a predisposition for multiple
sexual partners; nor is it difficult to see how these, in turn, lead to a penchant for polygyny or, in cases of monogamy, to a susceptibility to EPCs.
Either way, male biology bodes ill for monogamy. Interestingly, the biology
of mammals is even more stacked against monogamy. This is because
among birds, nestlings often have very high metabolic needs and therefore
require the efforts of two committed parents. As a result, although male
birds can often be expected to seek EPCs, they are somewhat less likely to
maintain a harem of females. Not that male birds wouldn't happily attempt
to accommodate such an arrangement; rather, their needy offspring are generally so demanding that most males are constrained to pitch in and, therefore, to have only a limited number of mates. But female mammals are
uniquely equipped to nourish their offspring; indeed, mammary glands
are what sets mammals apart from other animals. As a result, we can expect mammals to be even more predisposed than birds to form harems;
that is, to be polygynous. And in fact they are. We already mentioned that
monogamy is very rare among mammals. But we also mentioned the recent,
dramatic discovery that even birds-including those that are socially
monogamous-are much more prone to EPCs tha,n anyone had imagined.
From an evolutionary perspective, copulations themselves don't really
count; fertilizations do. And EPCs can be highly effective for males, whether
bird, mammal, or any other species. Among red-winged blackbirds, more
than 20 percent of a male's reproductive success comes from EPCs. Also,
males having a high reproductive success with their own mates are likely to
have high reproductive success via EPCs; in the world of reproduction, the
rich get richer.
In fact, males who succeed in obtaining EPCs are in most cases already
mated. This makes sense if the same underlying desirability of certain males
that renders them more likely to obtain mates in the first place also contributes to their success when they go outside their mateships, seeking EPCs.
But even here, there are exceptions. DNA profiling has recently allowed
researchers to identify all the individuals, as well as all the offspring, of a
small population of "stitchbirds," which are seemingly unremarkable little
24 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
songsters except for this peculiarity: They copulate face-to-face, a position
that may well be unique among birds. These animals were studied on an
island off the coast of New Zealand, more precisely, Tiritiri Matangi. (For
those readers who are geographically challenged, this will doubtless help:
Tiritiri Matangi Island is about 3 kilometers off the Whangaparaoa Peninsula. Enough said.)
During the two breeding seasons in which the stitchbirds were studied,
there was a heavy bias toward males in the population, a ratio of 3 to 1 in
one year and 2 to 1 in the next. Nonetheless, social monogamy is the apparent goal of all self-respect�g stitchbirds. But as a result of the unbalanced
sex ratio, there were a large number of seemingly unsuccessful, bachelor
males, so-called floaters. Thanks to a penchant for EPCs, however, these
floaters were in no way reproductive losers: More than one-third of all
nestlings were fathered by floaters (for another way of looking at it, 80 percent of all nests contained at least one extra-pair nestling). In fact, two of
the unpaired floaters achieved more fertilizations than at least one paired
male who played by the rules; this male had succeeded in pairing with a
female in both years of the study, yet because of EPCs, his reproductive payoff was less than that of the two excluded floaters.
With findings like these, the importance of EPCs has become undeniable.
It is also tempting to go further and conclude that males engaging in EPCs
somehow experience a reproductive advantage over their IPC (in-pair copulation) counterparts. Accordingly, British biologist Tim Birkhead and his
colleagues conducted an experiment to determine the effectiveness of EPCs
in achieving fertilization. The subjects were zebra finches: small, brightly
colored, socially monogamous birds native to Australia and commonly kept
as pets throughout the world. In the wild, males guard their females before
and during egg-laying, copulating about twelve times for each clutch. After
allowing mated females to copulate on average nine times with their mated
male, the experimental subjects were exposed to another male and allowed
to copulate once. Both the mated female and the extra-pair male obliged.
When the researchers then used genetic plumage markers to determine
paternity, they found, on average, that just one EPC yielded 54 percent of
the offspring, compared to 46 percent paternity resulting from nine IPCs!
Much of this success-perhaps all of it-is due to a very strong "last
male advantage," especially pronounced in many birds: The last male to
copulate with a given female before she lays her eggs enjoys disproportionate success in fertilizing those eggs. Regardless of the mechanism, however,
the key point for our purposes is that a small amount of breeding effort on
the part of males can yield dramatic returns. ("Last male advantage" also
has important consequences for the behavior of females, as we'll see in the
next chapter.)
UNDERMINING THE MYTH: MALES 25
Many animal breeding systems are such that a small number of successful males are able to monopolize-at least socially-a larger number of
females. In such cases, EPCs could, in theory, level the reproductive playing field if otherwise excluded bachelor males gain some "sneak fertilizations" while the legitimate husbands aren't watching. But, instead, EPCs
usually increase the differences among males. To be sure, it is now a commonplace that some of the offspring previously attributed to a given male
(the "husband," if socially monogamous, or the harem-keeper, if polygynous) are likely to have been fathered by someone else. But at the same
time, success in achieving EPCs is not randomly spread among males; just
as certain males are more successful than others in obtaining social mates,
certain males are also more successful than others in obtaining extra-pair
copulations and, thus, genuine paternity. Nearly always, it is an already
successful hu�band or harem-keeper who also gets the EPCs. For example,
among European red deer (called elk in the United States), it has long been
known that harem-masters are remarkably successful, whereas excluded
bachelors are, comparatively speaking, evolutionary losers. Now, DNA fingerprinting shows that the actual difference between genetic "haves" and
"have-nots" is even greater than what had earlier been estimated based on
behavioral evidence alone.
. .
Part of the reason for the success of EPC-ing males may lie in this
observed fact: Compared with a female's regular sexual partner, they actually produce more sperm at a given copulation, especially if they have not
mated recently. In one study involving birds, this was measured by the
ingenious if indelicate procedure of persuading males who had been abstemious for different time periods to copulate with a freeze-dried female
who had been fitted with a false cloaca.
We don't know whether sperm numbers tend to be generally higher during EPCs than IPCs for mammals as well, nor whether this holds for human
beings. We do know, however, that men generally report a higher level of
sexual excitement with a new partner (remember the Coolidge effect). Since
IPCs, by definition, cannot be with a new partner--except once-it is at
least possible that EPCs involve, on average, the production of more sperm
per ejaculation among human beings, too. If so, it would make human EPCs
more likely to result in offspring than chance alone would predict. Needless
to say, this speculation will be difficult to test ... but not impossible.
I
t is a well-established principle that among polygynous, harem-keeping
animals, males are larger than females. Compare, for example, gorillas
with gibbons. Gorillas establish harems, in which a dominant "silverback" male mates with perhaps three to six females; male gorill!ls are two
26 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
to three times larger than their mates, apparently because competition
among males to be successful harem-keepers has conveyed an evolutionary
advantage to those that are larger, stronger, and generally more effective in
keeping their rivals at bay. By contrast, gibbons live in male-female pairs, so
most healthy gibbons get to reproduce, even most males. As a result, there
are very few big winners or big losers and, accordingly, virtually no size difference between the sexes.
Among monogamous species generally, males and females ostensibly
have the same reproductive options. After all, when the female reproduces,
so does the male, and vice versa. Such animals therefore shouldn't be sexually dimorphic (from the Greek for "two bodies"), because natural selection
ought not to reward either sex for being overgrown, remarkably colored, or
otherwise extravagant. But many animals long known to be socially monogamous are in fact sexually dimorphic, with males typically being more
brightly colored than females-especially . among birds. Consider mallard
ducks, for example, in which the drakes have a dramatic, iridescent green
head, whereas females are comparatively drab, or the many species of warblers in which, once again, males are extraordinary in their ,bright coloration, whereas the females are notoriously difficult to tell apart.
Darwin thought .that perhaps dramatic male-female differences were
maintained in such cases because more elaborately ornamented males got
to breed earlier; .as a rule, the early bird not only gets the worm, but heor she-also gets to have more successful offspring. So, one possible explanation for fancy secondary sexual traits among males in monogamous
species is that for one reason or another, sexier males get to mate with more
fecund females. A second possibility, raised only recently as the myth of
monogamy bites the dust, is that sexier males are able to gain additional
reproductive success through EPCs, at the expense of mated males that
aren't as attractively adorned. Over time, this would increase the proportion of fancy-looking males or, at least, of males that are quite different
from females of the same species. (This leads to an interesting, if troubling,
possibility: As we shall see in Chapter 5, a powerful piece of evidence for
the fact that human beings are biologically polygynous is the fact that men
are generally larger than women. Although the evidence is still convincing
in that direction, it is also possible that our own biological history was
largely monogamous, with at least some male-female differences in Homo
sapiens due to the fact that adultery figured importantly in that history.)
Back to the birds, where an important recent study focused on a small
species known as the collared flycatcher, on the Swedish island of Gotland.
It provides strong evidence that extra-pair copulations in this supposedly
monogamous animal give certain males a distinct reproductive advantage.
Collared flycatcher males have a white forehead patch; females don't. This
UNDERMINING THE MYTH: MALES 27
patch is a secondary sexual characteristic. It also appears to be a status signal, whose size varies depending on its bearer's nutritional status as well as
social success. Knowing the size of this patch, we can predict which collared
flycatcher will win a territorial dispute between males. Moreover, if experimenters artificially increase the size of this patch, the fortunate males are
more likely to establish a territory in the first place. Female collared flycatchers mated to males with large white forehead patches even produce a
larger proportion of sons. This seemingly odd finding makes sense if males
with prominent patches are likely to father sons with prominent patches.
There would then be a reproductive payoff if such males father a comparatively large number of sons, which, in turn, will be relatively more successful than daughters ... who lack such distinguishing marks and, as females
generally, are less likely to distinguish themselves reproductively.
The researchers found extra-pair paternity among collared flycatchers in
26 of 79 broods, accounting for 71 of 459 nestlings. After carefully analyzing their results, they concluded that "selection via variation in paternity"­
that is, some males having offspring via EPCs with females mated to other
males-can be more important than "selection resulting from mate fecundity" (that is, more important than having greater numbers of offspring
with their socially defined mates). Among collared flycatchers, in short, the
major route to male reproductive distinction is not having more offspring
with their "wives" but rather fathering offspring by various "lovers" who
are already "married."
There have been many other studies along these lines, looking at species
that are socially monogamous, most of them showing not only that males
with highly developed secondary sexual traits have higher reproductive success but also that such success comes via EPCs. A typical one, in the prestigious journal Nature, was titled "Extra-Pair Paternity Results from Female
Preference for High-Quality Males in the Blue Tit." Other studies have
shown that male paternity�the proportion of offspring in his nest that are
genetically his, as well as the number of offspring he will father in the nests
of other males-is connected not only to the presence or absence of certain
secondary sexual traits but also to the degree to which his secondary sexual
characteristics are expressed.
Here are some notable examples: "DNA Fingerprinting Reveals Relation Between Tail Ornaments and Cuckoldry in Barn Swallows" showed
that male barn swallows sporting more deeply forked tails are more likely
to win the hearts of neighboring females. Another article, "Correlation
Between Male Song Repertoire, Extra-Pair Paternity and Offspring Survival
in the Great Reed Warbler," reported that in this European species-like
barn swallows, ostensibly monogamous-males with a large variety of
songs are also likely to have a variety of sexual partners. And don't overlook
28 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
this gem, potentially encouraging to any readers getting a bit long in the
tooth: "Old, Colorful Male Yellowhammers, Emberiza citrinella, Benefit
from Extra-Pair Copulations." Among these birds, males grow more colorful as they age. It appears that older, more colorful males therefore give
promise of having a desirable set of longevity genes, which in turn are
attractive to females. (Human beings, too, grow more colorful as they get
older, and it is at least possible-if unlikely-that white hair has been
selected as a similar symbol of status or, at least, of the ability to survive.)
It seems that the key dimension in these cases is female choice; since
males of most species are unlikely to refuse a quick and easy EPC, the deciding ·vote as to who succeeds and who fails is generally cast by the females,
based on whom they find most attractive. But the secondary sexual characteristics of males not only dictate their attractiveness to females, they also
influence-and are influenced by-dominance relationships among males.
And so, the two factors-dominance relationships and degree of secondary
sexual traits-are confounded when it comes to determining which males
obtain EPCs. Among cattle egrets, for example, the dominance standing
among males has implications for who gets to have EPCs with whose mate.
Dominant males have EPCs with the wives of subordinates but not vice
versa. (This pattern is of course not unknown among Homo sapiens, too.)
On the other hand, one thing about biology-as compared· with, say,
chemistry or physics-is that there are lots of exceptions. This applies to the
general correlation between male secondary sexual traits and reproductive
success no less than to other generalizations (such as "animals eat plants but
not vice versa," "only mammals are warm blooded," or "females are
smaller than males"). There are, after all, insectivorous plants; it appears
that dinosaurs were warm blooded, and among some species-such as
jacanas, described earlier-females are larger than males. Similarly, male
secondary sexual traits don't always correlate with reproductive success; ·
that is, sexy males don't always get more EPCs, or-more important-they
don't always get more EPFs (extra-pair fertilizations). Are these, like the
examples of sex-role reversal described earlier, cases of exceptions "proving" the rule? It's too early to say.
I t is clear that even in ostensibly monogamous species, males seek-and
often obtain-EPCs. It is also clear that they do so at the expense of
other males, namely, the ones "married" to those females who succumb
to their charms. For an EPC-seeking male, the best arrangement is to father
children with females who are already mated. In such cases (assuming the
female is able to deceive her in-pair mate as to her infidelity and, thus, his
nonpaternity), the female will gain paternal assistance from the cuckolded
male, making it more likely that any offspring thereby conceived will be sue-
UNDERMINING THE MYTH: MALES 29
cessful. At the same time, the extra-pair male receives this additional payoff:
Since any resulting offspring will be reared by someone else, there is no additional parental effort required. Not only that but-at least in the case of
birds-by having multiple sexual partners, extra-pair males literally succeed
in placing their eggs in more than one basket. On the other hand, an EPC
with an already-mated female is almost always riskier than one with an
unmated female, since the outraged husband may find out and drive off an
interloping male, possibly injuring him.
For the potential cuckold, therefore, an important option is to guard
"his" female from gallivanting males, thereby possibly preventing them
from achieving their aims.
(All this assumes, by the way, that the result of a successful EPC is that
a mated female ends up bearing offspring sired by one or more extra-pair
males and that, therefore, the in-pair male is the one who is victimized. But
occasionally the in-pair female can be the loser: In one recorded instance, a
mated male zebra finch succeeded in inseminating an unmated female, who
then laid an egg in that male's nest. The result was one of the few documented cases in which, as a result of an EPC, the cuckolded party was a
female-in whose nest the egg was laid-rather than a male. Most of the
time, however, cuckolds are male, and for good reason: Among all species with internal fertilization-including birds, mammals, and reptiles-a
female "knows" that any offspring emerging from her body is genetically
hers, whereas a male has to take his mate's word for it, unless he is an especially · assiduous mate-guarder.)
Let's take a brief excursion to a cattle pasture, almost anywhere in the
world. One common occupant-far more numerous than the cows-is a
tiny insect, the yellow dungfly. Male dungflies gather around cowpatties,
especially the fresh ones, where they search for females who are about to lay
their eggs in the warm, gooey interiors. Interestingly, these arriving females
· have nearly always copulated before arriving at the egg-deposition sites.
Therefore, they already contain enough sperm in their genital storage organs
to fertilize all their eggs. Yet before ovipositing,· they copulate once again
with at least one waiting male. Why?
The answer seems to be that among dungflies, the last male to mate
· guards "his" female until she is finished laying her eggs. Having such a protector greatly reduces the harassment that a female would otherwise receive
from other males. This isn't a bad deal for males, either, since they experience a "last male advantage": The last male to mate fertilizes more than
80 percent of a female's eggs. Guarding takes about a quarter of an hour,
which is probably a good trade-off.
Guarding doesn't always work, though. If another male dungfly, much
larger than the guarder, attacks the pair, he may succeed in copulating yet
again with the female, after which he proceeds to stand guard himself.
30 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
Mate-guarding is very widespread. It is even possible that the wellknown tendencies for animals of many different species to establish and
defend territories is really a consequence of males guarding the sexual rights
to their mates by defending a region surrounding them. In a sense, mateguarding is one of the clearest animal (or human) manifestations of sexual
jealousy, and it is sometimes quite overt, with the male shadowing every
movement of his mate. Such "togetherness" is almost certainly not a simple---Or even complex!-matter of love or loneliness, since it is nearly
always limited to precise times when the female in question is fertile. Male
bank swallows, for example, closely follow their mates, flying along nearby
whenever they venture from their nests; such devoted attention quickly terminates, however, when the females are no longer fertile.
Mate-guarding is also a common male strategy among mammals, especially when the female is in estrus. The goal, once again, is evidently to
thwart EPCs. Mate-guarding is also widespread, almost universal, among
that mammalian species known as Homo sapiens: A now-classic anthropological review recorded that only 4 out of 849 human societies did not show
some signs of mate-guarding, whereby men keep close tabs on their mates.
In some societies, husbands even time their wives' absences while they are in
the bushes urinating or defecating. Such concern may not be ill founded; one
piece of British research found that the less time a woman spent with her
primary mate (husband or identified main sexual partner), the more likely
she was to have copulated with someone else.
We used to think that the close association of male and female, especially
in a monogamous species, was simply a manifestation of their close pairbond, as well as perhaps a way of further enhancing their relationship. Here
is a description of courtship among European· blackbirds, from a classic
1933 account by ornithologist E. Selous:
The male bird follows her all about, hopping where she hops,
prying where she pries, and seeming to make a point of doing all she
does except actually collect material for the nest .... Then, the one
laden, the other empty-billed, they both fly back in just the same way,
and the cock will sit again ... for the cock is as busy in escorting and
observing the hen as she is in collecting material for building the nest.
Today: same observation, different interpretation. The male's observing
and escorting seem motivated less by love or. chivalry than by sexual jealousy and the specter of EPCs. The relationship of mate-guarding to EPCs is
complex, and expected to be. On the one hand, we might anticipate a negative relationship: the more mate-guarding, the fewer EPCs. This seems the
most obvious connection. But on the other hand, if EPCs are rare occur-
UNDERMINING THE MYlH: MALES 31
rences in a particular species, then we wouldn't expect males to waste a lot
of their time defending against such a nonexistent threat. There is in fact
quite a range out there in the natural world, from essentially no correlation
between mate-guarding and EPCs, to a positive association, to a negative
one. (The determining factor may well be where each population is being
sampled in its evolutionary history: If there is a continuing arms race
between males seeking EPCs and those seeking to prevent them, then it
might see-saw back and forth, with one side or the other ahead in different
species at different times.)
As we now understand it, mate-guarding can take many forms, withnot surprisingly-some of the more bizarre patterns revealed by insects.
Among numerous species of bees, for example, the lower abdomen of the
male almost literally explodes after mating, part of it then adhering to the
female and thereby providing a kind of posthumous mate-guarding. Among
a group of insects known as phasmids, genital contact during mating can
last as long as 79 days; this tantric excess can be seen as an extreme example of mate guarding.
The widespread male preoccupation with mate-guarding fits our expectations of something motivated by the threat of EPCs. Thus, it is typically
more intense with increased risk of the female's engaging in an EPC. Among
barn swallows, which nest both solitarily and in colonies, females are
guarded more closely in the latter case (when the proximity of numerous
males makes EPCs more likely) than in the former (when there are no sexual competitors nearby).
On the other hand, for all its logic, mate-guarding presents us-and the
mate-guarders-with an interesting irony. It wouldn't be needed if males
themselves were not gallivanting about, seeking EPCs. If no one gallivanted,
no one would have to mate-guard. Moreover, mate-guarders themselves,
when not on guard, are likely to be out gallivanting! In fact, it may well be
that the major constraint against doing yet more gallivanting is that while
off seeking EPCs, a gallivanting male may find himself cuckolded ... by
another gallivanting male!
Recall those male bank swallows who so attentively fly after their
females. Male bank swallows are socially monogamous and assist their
mates in building the nest and incubating and feeding the young. In
addition, they regularly seek EPCs with other females, before and after pairbonding. Accordingly, they gallivant about in search of EPCs and also guard
their mates against other gallivanting males, but, of course, they can't do
both simultaneously. For seven to nine days after pair-formation, the male
pursues the female whenever she flies from her nest burrow-up to 100 times
per day. Other males seek to make contact. with the female during these
flights; in fact, the labored, heavy flight of a female carrying unlaid eggs may
32 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
serve as a cue to the other gallivanters. For his part, the guarding male
actively seeks to drive the female back to the home burrow, especially when
she flies into heavy traffic and may be pursued by three or four bank swallow males, starry-eyed with visions of a quick EPC.
For about four days immediately prior to egg-laying, when copulations
lead to fertilizations, the male bank swallow is very busy, attentively guarding his female. Before this time, as well as after-that is, when her eggs are
not ripe, and again after his genes are safely tucked away inside the shellshe goes seeking EPCs with the mates of other males ... who, of course, are
busy with defensive mate-guarding of their own.
It is unlikely that these chases are "sexual displays," intended to enhance the pair-bond, as earlier literature in animal behavior had suggested.
This is because (1) males always chase females, not vice versa; (2) males
typically fight with other males as an immediate result of such chases; and
(3) when their own female is no longer fertile, mated males typically join in
chases of other females, even though bank swallows are strictly monogamous, at least at the social level. Thus, such males could not be solidifying
an additional pair-bond, if only because no such "double-bonded" males
have ever been found.
David has traced a comparable pattern of mate-guarding and gallivanting among hoary marmots, social-living, mountain-dwelling relatives of the
eastern woodchuck. The male makes periodic forays beyond his colony
area, apparently in search of EPCs with fertilizable females. These episodes
are significantly more frequent early in the season, when females are in
estrus. Alternatively, a male marmot sometimes remains close to his female,
guarding her from other sexually motivated males. It is clear that this passion for togetherness is initiated by the male, not the female, since during
times of guarding, physical proximity is maintained by his movements, not
hers. Furthermore, males are more likely to gallivant when their female is
within her burrow, rather than out in the mountain meadows, and also
when their neighbors are predominantly adult females rather th�m adult
males. When the opposite condition holds-lots of other males nearbymated males, not surprisingly, concentrate on guarding. Females of this
species breed in alternate years; as expected, males that are associated with
nonbreeding females go gallivanting, whereas during the season that his
female is reproductive, the male stays at home, mate-guarding.
The evolutionary benefit of mate-guarding depends on how many other
males are doing the same thing: If everyone else is staying home and mateguarding, a would-be gallivanter wouldn't have to worry that while he was
out seeking EPCs, he might be cuckolded by other EPC-seeking males. But
at the same time, the more mate-guarding he does, the less likely our male
is to ·achieve his sought-for EPC. Lots of other gallivanters means a greater
chance of being cuckolded, but also a greater chance of gaining access to
UNDERMINING THE MYTH: MALES 33
someone else's unguarded females. No one said that these things were
going to be easy ! The best way to understand such complex trade-offs is
through the mathematics of game theory, which is concerned with examining interactions for which the payoff depends on what other "players" are
doing. Although this is not the place to develop such an analysis, it is a
good place to point out that, in a very real sense, the dilemma of EPCs versus mate-guarding is one of the males' own making (with a little help from
the females).
When males are mate-guarding, they rarely gallivant. This suggests that
the former has priority over the latter, which makes sense since the prospects
are usually better of preventing an outsider from copulating with your own
mate than of obtaining an EPC with someone else's. But when that mate is
no longer fertile, all bets are off; at this point, males typically switch to gallivanting. For example, consider rock ptarmigans, partridge-like birds of the
arctic-alpine regions. When the females are fertile, males average one intrusion onto a neighbor's territory every 14 hours. As soon as their mates are
infertile, however, male intrusion rate jumps to one intrusion about every
1.4 hours, a 10-fold increase. And you can bet that those intrusions are not
simply intended to exchange pleasantries or talk about the weather.
A new cottage industry has sprouted among field biologists. In addition to using DNA fingerprinting to find out whether the "husband" of a seemingly monogamous pair is also the father, interest
in EPCs and mate-guarding has given rise to a slew of research studies in
which males are live-trapped and kept away from their mates for various
periods of time. The intent is to see whether extra-pair males take the opportunity to "make a move" on the temporarily abandoned females. If so, this
suggests that mate-guarding is normally important in the species. Just about
always, it is.
For example, when male wheatears (small, monogamous birds) were
removed for 24 hours during the female's fertile period, the frequency of
intrusions by neighboring males and the number of EPCs shot up. By contrast, when males were removed during incubation (a time when females
are no longer capable of being fertilized), there was no such increase. Extrapair males are evidently able to determine whether a temporarily single
female is likely to be sexually receptive. Not surprisingly, extra-pair paternity was higher (by about 25 percent) when the paired male was experimentally removed.
What characterized successful intruding males? In addition to the secondary sexual traits already mentioned, the �ey seemed to be the body condition (weight, overall health) of the intruders relative to the mated males
that had been removed. Extra-pair males that were in poorer condition than
34 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
the removed males were resisted by the females, who, it should be noted,
continued to remain with their nest despite being made (albeit temporarily)
into single parents. Similarly, extra-pair males that succeeded in copulating
with the "visited" female were always in better body condition than the
removed male. Not surprisingly, therefore, experimentally removed males
that had been in poor body condition were more likely to wind up with
"offspring" not their own. This suggests that the female has a lot to say
about whether EPCs take place and, if they do, whether they are successful
in actually fertilizing her eggs. (As we shall see, it also suggests what females
are looking for when they engage in EPCs.)
It may well be that it is largely the females, not the males, who ultimately control the paternity of their offspring, although it seems that mateguarding is an important factor. (If it weren't, then presumably males
wouldn't bother doing it!) Among wheatears, at least, females were never
seen behaving territorially toward intruding males; they allowed themselves
to be visited and often courted, but they did not necessarily copulate with
their extra-pair suitors.
Males can be extraordinarily crafty in setting up EPC opportunities for
themselves, taking advantage of the preferences of females and, one way or
another, getting around any efforts at mate-guarding on the part of in-pair
males. Think about this series of events, observed among a species of gibbons living freely in the rain forests of Southeast Asia. Subadult males are
tolerated within the family group, and perhaps not just because of paternal
benevolence: In one case, while the male of a gibbon group was involved in
an encounter with a subadult from another group, the adult male from the
subadult's group rushed into the adjoining territory and achieved a copulation with the female! The possibility arises that adult males tolerate sub-
. adults in their group because the subadults occasionally get adjacent males
socially entangled, giving the adult males an EPC opportunity.
More manipulating: In a series of observations of purple martins (birds
related to swallows), it was found that older males monopolized several
nestboxes and mated monogamously, one female to each male. Later, after
that female was incubating-and thus was no longer fertile-the older males
vocalized and thereby seemed to attract a following: Younger males set ilp
housekeeping in the adjacent boxes. The older males then proceeded to
obtain EPCs with the nubile mates <;>f these less experienced, and presumably less attractive, young adults. As a result, the younger males fathered a
mere 29 percent of the eggs in their own nests, whereas the older Casanovas
produced, on average, 4.1 offspring via their female partner plus an additional 3.6 offspring via the mates of neighboring males.
(There may be a human parallel here, notably those charismatic men
who establish cults or other forms of communal living arrangements and
UNDERMINING THE. MYTH: MALES 35
then proceed to monopolize the sexual attentions of the women, including
those ostensibly associated with other, more junior cult members. · Indeed,
one of the main reasons for the failure of various utopian communes has
been eventual resistance to the sexual privileges typically demanded-and
received-by the founding fathers.)
Males that are cuckolded are in double jeopardy: Not only are they more
at risk of losing out genetically to gallivanters, but they are also less likely
to be successful themselves in seeking their own EPCs. Why? Probably
because those males especially likely to be cuckolded suffer this indignity
because of some shortcoming in themselves. So whatever inclines their
mates to seek matings elsewhere is also apt to make those same males unappealing to other females. They are losers two times over.
As a general rule, since the females of high-quality males are less likely
to engage in EPCs, high-quality males have less need to guard. Older, more
attractive males thus have a double advantage over their younger counterparts: Not only are they evidently appealing as sexual partners to
already-mated females, but because they are so desirable, their own
females are less likely to engage in EPCs. So these males have little need to
spend time and effort mate-guarding and are therefore freed up to seek
EPCs. The general pattern is concisely described in the title of one research
article: "Unattractive Males Guard Their Mates More Closely. " Several
· studies have confirmed that poor-quality males are generally more concerned with mate-guarding than are their high-quality counterparts, and
for good reason, since females whose mates are less desirable are more
inclined to seek EPCs. Males in poor condition are the Avis of Aves: They
try harder.
And not only birds: It must be noted that among human beings, less
attractive men invest more time and money in their mates than do men who
are more attractive.
A side from mate-guarding, how else can mated males diminish the
threat posed by EPCs? In some cases, males have other anti-EPC
tactics up their sleeves. For example, male swallows returning to
their nests and finding their female absent typically give a loud alarm call,
which causes all the birds in the colony to fly up in excitement. Several times
this was seen to disrupt an EPC that the alarm caller's mate was engaged in.
Maybe the husband was truly alarmed that his wife wasn't home. In any
event, mated male swallows who experience this special kind of empty-nest
syndrome are particularly likely to gi�e alarm calls if they inhabit a crowded
colony; faced with the same circumstances, solitary. householders usually
keep quiet.
36 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
Males can also fit their mates with the equivalent of a chastity belt, a
"copulatory ·plug. " Among many species-including most mammals-part
of the seminal fluid coagulates and forms a rubbery mass that is often
visible, protruding slightly from the vagina. It used to be thought that these
copulatory plugs served to prevent sperm from leaking out. And well they
might. But it is increasingly clear that they also work the other way: to keep
other males from getting in. It warrants repeating: Such devices would not
be 'necessary if females weren't inclined to mate with more than one male.
In the world of spiders, males are often attracted by female pheromones,
which waft downwind from their web. Not uncommonly, however, males
will destroy a female's web after mating with her. Although not a chastity
belt, such actions represents something similar: the male's effort to inhibit
his mate's sexual activity. By ruining her web, the male drastically reduces
the chances that another male will find and mate with the same female.
Please don't get the impression, incidentally, that females are merely passive bystanders or victims of all this sexual skulduggery. After all, in this
chapter we are intentionally focusing on male strategies; in the next two,
we concentrate on females. Biologist William Eberhard has been especially
influential in pointing out the likely importance of what he calls "cryptic '
female choice," whereby females select which sperm will receive favored
treatment and be admitted to their precious eggs. But insofar as females are
exercising such choice, it is likely that males will try to horn into the act,
each attempting to bias the outcome in his favor. Eberhard reviewed the
sweaty details of what male insects actually do during courtship and cc,pulation in 131 different species; he found that 8 1 percent showed behavior
during copulation that he considered to be "copulatory courtship," activities that go beyond the simple necessities of transferring sperm and that
appear to be directed toward persuading females to transfer and retain their
sperm, in preference to the sexual products of other males.
Another possible male response to the EPC threat is frequent copulation.
In mate-guarding, a male uses his body to keep other males at bay; by relying on frequent copulation, he uses his sperm ... lots of them, delivered
often. The idea is simply to overwhelm the opposition, to swamp their '
sperm with one's own.
Of the two tactics, it seems likely that mate-guarding is more efficient;
after all, successful mate-guarding means there is essentially no chance of
being cuckolded, whereas frequent copulation simply invokes probability,
attempting to tip the genetic scales in one's favor. Also, even though sperm
are cheap compared to eggs, they are not free. Just as males who defend
their genetic patrimony by mate-guarding are unable to simultaneously seek
their own EPCs, those who employ frequent copulation may limit the
UNDERMINING THE MYTH: MALES 37
amount of sperm they have available for gallivanting.' Even the most superstud males, after all, cannot produce unlimited amounts of sperm or semen.
Because of their basic biology, they can be more profligate than females, but
only within limits; to a degree, they, too, must be prudent. Hence, by giving
themselves an advantage in sperm competition with their mates, such males
might be placing themselves at a disadvantage when it comes to sperm competition for someone else's mate. Sure enough, when male rats, for example,
are given the opportunity of mate-guarding, they deliver fewer sperm per
ejaculation. So it may be that mate-guarding is doubly preferred, both to
seeking EPCs and also to sperm competition.
Sometimes, however, males have little choice: Females mate with more
than one male and cannot be prevented from doing so. What is such a male
to do? In one particular species of zebra-known as Grevy's zebra, for its
discoverer-individuals live in groups whose membership is constantly shifting. Females associated with a given male are likely to mate with a different
male not long afterward. In fact, during a single day they may mate with an
average of four different males. (Call these females polyandrous.) On the
other hand, there are some Grevy's females-generally, those who have just
given birth-who remain with one male for a prolonged period, during
which they are essentially monogamous. They do this, by the way, because
they need reliable sources of water, which are found only on a male's territory. So Grevy's stallions have two different kinds of females to deal with,
those that are sexually faithful and those that aren't (bearing in mind that
the same female will occupy different roles at different times in her life).
Grevy stallions adjust their tactics accordingly, depending on whether
their female consort is polyandrous or monogamous. When mating with
polyandrous females, males invest more time and energy in mating itself:
Stallions call to and copulate seven times more frequently than when inc
volved (temporarily) with monogamous females. They even ejaculate larger
quantities of semen. It is also worth noting that in another zebra species, the
plains zebra, females live in traditi�nal harems, each led by single male, and
as far as is known, they only mate with the harem-keeper. Plains zebra stallions copulate less, produce less semen, and also have smaller testes than
their Grevy's counterparts, which have to be prepared to deal with females
having an occasional penchant for a high-frequency of EPCs.
Grevy's zebras do not mate-guard; instead, the stallions are prepared to
engage in sperm competition when need be. This raises new questions. Why
rely on one strategy rather than another? Specifically, why don't all animals
mate-guard, since that seems more efficient? (And also, what about human
beings, who are not shrinking violets when it comes to mate-guarding but
who also copulate far more frequently than is needed for reproduction
38 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
alone?) The answer seems to be that in most cases mate-guarding is the primary strategy, with frequent copulation being the next-best alternative,
resorted to when males and females must spend substantial time apart. This
occurs, for example, among predatory birds; one individual often remains
by the nest while the other goes on lengthy hunting excursions. Not surprisingly, predatory birds copulate a lot.
Take ospreys. These "fish-hawks" are large predators, the males of
which provide virtually all the food while their mates are occupied with
nest-site duties. Hence, male ospreys are unable to guard their females; they
are too busy fishing. Female ospreys remain invisibly chained to the nest
from the time they arrive in the spring until their young are independent, at
about three months of age. Observations at several osprey nests reveal that
pairs copulate frequently, on average 59 times per clutch, beginning when
the female arrives on the territory. Males are absent about 30 to 50 percent
of daylight hours, which provides opportunity for female EPCs as well as
the motivation for paired males to insist on frequent copulations when they
are back at home after a long day's fishing.
In the case of purple martins, . we saw older males using EPCs to take
reproductive advantage of younger, inexperienced males. In other species,
males are likely to obtain EPCs from females who are poorly provisioned by
their mates. This has been especially well established among our friends the
ospreys. So, not only does a hardworking male osprey run the risk that his
mate will "take a lover" while he is away looking for food, but that risk is
intensified if he is no great shakes at bringing home the salmon. It is not
known whether rnale ospreys that are particularly inept as providers try to
make up for this by copulating even more often than is the osprey norm.
It is well known, however, that among many different species, a resident
pair is especially likely to copulate just after an intrusion into the pair's territory. It appears-although it is not yet proven-that this response to
intruders is initiated by the in-pair male. This would make biological sense,
since intruding males in such cases are unlikely to have simply dropped by
to borrow a cup of sugar or to sell Girl Scout cookies. Why should the
female go along with this, agreeing to copulate with her mate just because
some other male has recently been hanging around? Perhaps it is simply less
costly for her to acquiesce than to resist her mate's importunities. Or it may
pay her to permit copulations-especially when her fidelity is in question-.
so as to persuade her mate of his paternity, in order to assure his assistance
in rearing the young. (As we shall see, the loss of paternal assistance is a
major potential cost to females of EPCs, if discovered by the in-pair male.)
In any event, there are few things as sexually stimulating to socially
monogamous animals as the possibility that the mated female might have
had an EPC. Among orioles, males will copulate with their mates immedi-
UNDERMINING THE MYTH: MALES 39
ately after hearing a recorded song from another oriole. One might say that
in the oriole world, the song of a male is sexually arousing to other males;
the evolutionary significance of this would be that the nearby song of
another male suggests that someone might have recently copulated with the
in-pair female. If so, paired males who are "turned on" by this telltale signal and who introduce their sperm as quickly as possible to compete with
the extra-pair male would be favored by natural selection over those paired
males who were indifferent to such cues.
David's research on mallard ducks has shown that males (especially
unmated bachelors) will often "rape"-that is, force a copulation uponalready-mated females. When this occurs, the mated male will typically
respond by attempting to dislodge the attacker. Very quickly afterward, he
forces a copulation with his own mate. Such behavior is not gentlemanly,
but in the cold calculus of natural selection, it may be the best he can do to
attempt to counteract the recent extra-pair mating.
The Galapagos hawk is unusual in that it is socially polyandrous: Up to
five males will bond, socially and sexually, with one female. As soon as one
male copulates with the female, the others quickly line up to do the same. It
is not enough to say that sex, like laughing or yawning, is a "contagious"
behavior. The best explanation for why it is contagious is that it signals the
prospect of an extra-pair copulation and thus arouses an adaptive response,
especially among males.
Mammals are not immune. Among rats, males mate with a female as
quickly as possible after she has finished copulating with a prior male.
Among nonhuman primates, males quickly mount and copulate with a
female partner who has recently copulated with a different male. This
implies that males are sexually aroused by indications that a female has
recently copulated. And this, in turn, should not be very strange: Human
beings, especially males, are also highly aroused by such indications. Hence,
the attractions of hard-core pornography and voyeurism, which have been
attributed to males generally having a low threshold for stimulation (since
their investment in sperm is minimal).
This explanation is valid, as far as it goes, but it may not be complete.
Thus, the adaptive significance of sperm competition may also be involved,
since it would be adaptive for human males-no less than males of the other ·
species we have mentioned-to be especially aroused by the prospect of sexual intercourse itself. This is even true if the sexual action is on the part of
other individuals, if it indicates the nearby presence of a receptive female.
Sperm competition would make it worthwhile for males to be prepared to
join in, if possible, and to do so promptly, so as to compete with the preceding males. Moreover, the existence of sperm competition also helps explain a seemingly peculiar yet widespread aspect of human sexuality: Many
40 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
men are sexually aroused by thinking of their female partner having sexual
relations with another male. Some even go out of their way to arrange such
encounters (although this appears to be rare).
In at least one rat species, when a male has receritJy copulated with a
female, the time interval before his next copulation with that same female is
significantly reduced if, in the interim, he observes her copulating with
another male. Most likely, by copulating promptly with a female who has
recently copulated with a�other male, the "responding" male increases the
chances that he, instead of his rival, will fertilize the eggs. Alternatively, he
may simply diminish the chances of his rival(s) being successful, if there is
direct interference among sperm produced by different males.
A nd so, we come to an indelicate but revealing subject: testicle siz�.
Species in which mate-guarding predominates generally have small
. testes; when frequent copulation is the preferred strategy, then, not
surprisingly, the resulting male gonads are far more impressive.
For notable cases of frequent copulation, take those species that are
polyandrous, in which one female regularly mates with more than one male
(such as the jacanas, mentioned earlier). These animals typically have a high
copulation frequency, probably initiated by males, each attempting to
swamp the sperm of his rivals and thereby increase the chances that the eggs
to be deposited in his nest-and which he will then incubate and care forare genetically his. The males of such species· have oversized testes, producing more sperm than monogamous males whose responsibility is to inseminate their mate but not to compete with the sperm of other males. This
pattern is not limited to birds. It has been found for mammals generally,
confirmed by comparing, for example, rodent species that do and do not ·
have many EPCs, as well as members of the horse family (including zebras)
and even balleen whales. Ditto for primates.
As already mentioned, some bird species, including prairie chickens and
sage grouse in North America, breed on what is called a "lek," a communal
displaying ground. Males gather here and show their wares, calling and posturing and typically arranging themselves in a dominance pattern, with the
alpha males in the middle. Females mate almost exclusively with these
favored individuals, who may copulate with numerous females in one day;
these females, in turn, generally give the subordinate males a cold shoulder.
Systems of this sort provide the opportunity to answer this question: When
males have especially large testes, is it because of sperm competition (that is,
because other males are likely to be copulating with the same females) or
simply because of the demands of producing enough sperm to fertilize the
eggs of many different females?
UNDERMINING 1HE MYTH: MALES 41
The answer i� pretty clear: Whereas polyandrous species have large
testes, the males of lekking species have testes that, corrected for overall
body size, are if anything exceptionally small. Evidently, it is rather easy to
make enough sperm to fertilize one female or even many, as dominant lekking males do. What really makes for big balls is when males must compete
with the sperm produced by other males.
The most impressive case--or, at least, the one closest to home for readers of this book--comes from observations of the great apes. Remember
those impressive silverback male gorillas, large in body and relatively ·aggressive in temperament, who · succeed in dominating other males and gaining reproductive rights to a small harem of females? Although their bodies
are large, their testicles are remarkably small, indeed downright tiny once
corrected for body weight. By contrast, chimpanzee males-which do not
achieve anything like the reproductive despotism enjoyed by their gorilla
counterparts-have immense testicles. This is entirely reasonable, since a
female chimp in heat will copulate with many different males; in one case,
Jane Goodall observed a female chimpanzee copulate 84 times in eight days, ·
with seven different males. As a result, a male chimp cannot simply assume
that sexual access to an estrous female will result in paternity. He must produce enough sperm to give them-and thus, himself-a fighting chance.
(When it comes to testicle size, human beings fall somewhere between the
polygynous gorilla and the promiscuous chimp, suggesting that we are mildly
polygynous. More-much mor�n this later.)
Since testis size is largely influenced by sperm competition, not the simple need to inseminate a faithful partner, it is possible to use testis size as a
rough measure of the sperm competition experienced by a species. In
socially monogflmous animals, there is much variability: Some species have
relatively small testicles, suggesting very few EPCs. Others-especially those
living in colonies-have large testicles: These include herons, sparrows,
most seabirds, bank swallows and cliff swallows. In these cases, paired
females have the opportunity to mate with other males. Of course, the same
is true for males: They have the opportunity to mate with other females. But
as we have just seen, it is unlikely that testis size is driven as much by the
need to make lots of sperm in order to inseminate other females as by the
need to compete with the sperm of other males. From this perspective, the
female reproductive tract is an arena within which some pretty fierce sperm
competition takes place. The tactics can be downright weird.
For example, it isn't even necessary to make large amounts of normal
sperm, and in some cases males are better off if they don't, especially if
sperm manufacture is relatively costly. Like an innkeeper trying to stretch his
budget by watering down the drinks, males of some insects can induce a
female to be sexually unreceptive to other males, at low cost to themselves,
42 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
by introducing "cheap filler" into the females' seminal receptacles. Among
certain species of Drosophila-fruit flies-males produce at least two different structural types of sperm, short ones and long ones. (The technical
term is sperm heteromorphism, literally "different structures. ") The assumption is that short sperm are cheaper to produce than long ones; this
seems likely, since males producing short sperm mature earlier, suggesting
that they have been using less metabolic resources. Although the shorties
often constitute more than one-half the ejaculate, it appears that they do not
directly fertilize eggs; their exact function is unknown, although the favored
hypothesis is that the short sperm act as cheap filler within the female genital tract, making it less likely that a mated female will attempt to copulate
again in the near future.
Among many insects, females are equipped with various organs that are
specialized to receive sperm during copulation. Females will often remate
when their sperm supply begins to wane. In some cases, it is simply the
stretching effect, not some fancy pheromone, that does the trick, not unlike
the hunger pangs that people feel when their stomach shrinks and the feeling of fullness and satiation that comes after eating, when the stomach is
stretched. One researcher tried injecting silicone oil into the bursa copulatrix of a species of butterfly; in response, the females became not only distended, but sexually unreceptive. It is interesting to note that among butterflies, so-called apyrene sperm (those lacking genetic material altogether) are
especially common, sometimes exceeding 90 .percent of all sperm produced.
It seems likely-although as yet unproven-that it is metabolically cheaper
for males to produce these "blanks" than to outfit all their sperm with the
full complement of DNA.
In the annals of sperm competition, an important consideration is
whether there is an advantage in being the· first to mate with a given female,
or the last to mate, or whether all the sperm accumulate within a multiplemating female, resulting in a "random lottery" with likely victory going to
the male who contributes the most. Among insects and birds, the predominant pattern is "last male advantage," or "last in, first out. " When sperm
are accumulated inside the female in a specialized sperm storage organ (as
in Drosophila or butterflies), it makes sense that the last sperm to have been
added are likely to be the first squeezed out when her eggs finally pass by in
reproductive procession. Like airline passengers waiting at a baggage carousel, whose luggage comes out sooner if it went in later, the last are likely to
be first. When it comes to the reproductive trafficking of some males, this
has important implications for behavior.
Imagine that you are a male in one of these "last in, first out" species.
Add to this the fact that ecological circumstances may dictate that you and
your mate must spend considerable time apart. Not knowing for certain
UNDERMINING THE MYTH: MALES 43
whether she has copulated with anyone else in the interim, your best strategy is to copulate often. That way, you increase the chances that yours will
be the most recently deposited sperm-hence, the ones most likely to fertilize your. mate's next egg.
All this assumes, of cotirse, that the male and female have already made
a reproductive commitment to each other-through courtship, building a
nest, perhaps jointly defending a territory, and so on. In other cases, when
EPCs loom large in evolution's strategic planning but the prospective pair
have not yet decided to settle down together, there are alternatives to mateguarding or copulating often. One of these is to refrain from making a commitment. For example, male ring doves behave aggressively toward females
that reveal by their behavior that they have recently copulated with other
males. The result is to delay the pairing, which is probably adaptive, since it
means that by the time a male ring dove commits himself to a female with
a colorful past, she will have already revealed that past by laying fertilized
eggs. It is interesting that ring doves have an unusually short duration of
sperm storage, so the suspicious male does not have long to wait.
W
. hat is a penis for? Ask a young boy and you get an unequivocal
answer: peeing. (Girls, who manage quite well without one, have
good reason to disagree.) So, what is a penis really for? Ask an
adult and you'll probably be told that it is for introducing male reproductive products into the female. Once upon a time, long, long ago-when the
myth of monogamy still reigned-nearly all biologists would have agreed.
But no longer.
Don't misunderstand: The penis i$ for introducing male reproductive
products into the fema:Ie, but that isn't all that it does. Since we now understand that females of many, probably most, species are likely to mate with
more than one male, the corresponding likelihood is that these males are not
simply adapted to transferring sperm ... even lots of sperm. If you are the
second, third, or fourth male to mate with a female, your long-term reproductive interest would be served not only by being able to introduce sperm
efficiently and in adequate amounts, but also by being able to remove any
rival's previous deposit. In many animals (especially insects), the penis is not
merely a pipeline for delivering sperm; it is also variously a scraper, gouger,
reamer, corkscrew-a. veritable Swiss Army Knife of gadgets and gizmos
adapted to removing the sperm of any preceding male.
In the black-winged damselfly, a common streamside insect of the east- ·
ern United States, females commonly mate with more than one male. Each
male black-winged damselfly sports a specialized penis outfitted with lateral
horns and spines, not unlike a scrub brush. Copulating males use their penis
44 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
to clean out from 90 to 100 percent of their predecessors' sperm before depositing their own. Some male sharks give their sexual partners a kind of
precoital douche, courtesy of a remarkable double-barreled penis. One barrel contains a specialized tube that can act as a high-pressure saltwater hose,
sluicing away any sperm deposited by a sexual rival; the other barrel transports sperm into the female. Male pygmy octopuses apparently can detect
whether a female with whom they are mating has already. copulated, because they spend more time coupling with already-mated lady octopuses:
They spend the extra time using a specialized tentacle to scoop out sperm
deposited by their predecessors.
We have already described how in most insects, females store transferred
sperm in a special organ, a spermatic receptacle, bursa copulatrix, or spermatheca. Then, as an egg passes along its own conduit, the female contracts
special spermathecal musculature, forcing out sperm that fertilize it. Not
surprisingly, males of some insect species take advantage of this arrangement: Rather than removing a rival's sperm directly, they induce the female
to do it. Prior to mating, they employ specialized genital structures to stimulate the female's sperm-ejection system, so that their spermathecae contract, ejecting previously stored sperm but in the absence of any eggs.
Don't miss the forest for the trees: This is not simply a recitation of
Barash's "Believe It or Not" compendium of sexual oddities. These examples all reflect the powerful action of evolution, conveying an advantage to
males who are capable of overcoming their rivals' sperm. Males have stumbled onto other techniques for giving their sperm an advantage in the
reproductive fray. For example, a small European bird called the dunnock
mates occasionally in pairs, and sometimes in threesomes, of both sorts:
two males and one female, and two females and one male. (For a drablooking bird, the unprepossessing dunnock is a bit of a swinger.) When it's
two dunnock males and one female, the males typically peck the female's
cloaca before copulating with her; in response, she squeezes out a few
drops of her other husband's sperm. The more time a female dunnock has
spent with one male, the greater the number of precopulatory cloacal pecks
delivered by the other one.
Finally, there is traumatic insemination. The best-known examples are
found among bedbugs; the males simply pierce the body · of their mate/
victim, injecting sperm that then travel through the blood, collecting in the
gonads and achieving fertilization. But this is "merely" a way o£ inseminating females, not sperm competition per se (unless the sperm of two of more
males battle it out within a female's bloodstream, something that has notyet-been demonstrated). There is, however, at least one bizarre example of
males using traumatic insemination against each other; it involves a male
UNDERMINING THE MYTH: MALES 45
hijacking another's reproductive effo,-ts, achieving sperm competition with
a vengeance. There exist bugs that live on bats that inhabit caves. Among
these aptly named cave bat .bugs, males attack other males, injecting sperm
as well as seminal fluid directly into the victim's body cavity, which is
pierced by the attacker's sharp penis. The male recipients metabolize the
seminal fluid, thereby gaining some calories from the transaction. But some
surviving sperm also migrate to the recipient's testes. If and when the victim
copulates with a female cave bat bug, he will therefore transfer some of the
sperm of his attacker, who gets paternity by proxy.
B
y this point, it should be clear that males work awfully hard to obtain
EPCs and, similarly, to prevent rival rriales from getting any at their
expense. For animals, at least, the underlying reason for all this mateguarding, gallivanting, and sperm competition is the proverbial bottom line:
not financial profit, but an evolutionary bonus in the form of reproductive
success. A male's reproductive success is gravely threatened if his mate has
an EPC or-worse yet-an EPF (extra-pair fertilization). To put it bluntly,
there is no payoff to rearing someone else's offspring.
What options are open to a male who has been cuckolded? Not very
many, and all carry substantial liabilities. They include:
1. Physical aggression: Punish your mate and/or the interloping male. This
makes a certain intuitive sense but is unlikely to convey much evolutionary
benefit, except possibly. if it makes either party less likely to transgress
again in the future. It also risks physical injury as well as disrupting the
current mateship.
2. Force a prompt copulation with your mate, in the interest of sperm
competition. This, too, might weaken the pair-bond.
3. Provide less paternal care, possibly even neglecting or abusing any
succeeding offspring. This might backfire as well, especially if some of
those disadvantaged youngsters include your own.
4. Desert your mate altogether. This only makes sense if alternative mates
are available. Not surprisingly, adultery is frequently cited among human
beings as the reason for a divorce. It may surprise some readers-although
at this point, perhaps not very many!-that divorce also occurs among
animals and that here, too, it is closely associated with EPCs, especially on
the part of the female.
46 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
Among the above options, number 3 seems especially prevalent: When
males have indications that their mates have been unfaithful, they seem
particularly unlikely to act as devoted fathers. We expect that males who
follow a "hit-and-run" strategy, contributing sperm but little else to their
offspring, would be considerably less troubled if their mates engage in
EPCs. Or, at least, since they are not otherwise inclined to be devoted
fath�rs, deparq1res from monogamy on the part of their sexual partners
are unlikely to have much effect on the males' behavior. But ostensible
monogamy is a different matter. In these cases, males typically give a lotparental care, plus typically forgoing large numbers of their own EPCs-:­
and, not surprisingly, they expect to get a lot, or, at minimum, to "get" to
rear their own progeny.
True to expectation, male barn swallows are less attentive in feeding
chicks if their mates had previously engaged in EPCs. Among indigo buntings, yearling males are approximately twice as likely as older males to be
cuckolded by their mates; significantly, only rarely do these younger males
help out in rearing chicks. These findings make perfect biological sense.
After all, it is unheard of, and indeed almost unimaginable, for adults to dispense parental care randomly with regard to genetic relationship. Try to
imagine a society-animal or human-in which perfect strangers care for
the young, essentially at random. Such an arrangement has never been
found for any living things. To be sure, there are many species in which
males contribute little or no paternal care, but when they do act paternally,
then they, no less than females, direct their attention to particular mates,
particular nests, and particular offspring: their own. The next step is to
withhold some or all of that attention when there is a good chance that the
offspring in question are someone else's. (This doesn't require any special
intellectual insight on their part; any genetically mediated tendency to provide care indiscriminately would quickly be replaced by alternative tendencies to direct care to one's own offspring ... which, because they are one's
offspring, are likely to possess the genes· for such tendencies, which would
therefore be given a boost.)
As already noted, monogamy-even social monogamy-is rare among
mammals. It is noteworthy, however, that it is essentially only in cases of
monogamy that male mammals provide any paternal care; after all, even.
with the danger of EPCs, a monogamous male mammal has much more
confidence of his paternity than one whose sexual partner is likely to have
been inseminated by one or more other males. And so we find comparatively devoted fathers among foxes, coyotes, beavers, gibbons, and marmosets, species in which the females are by and large sexually faithful to just
one male. And we find very little paternal behavior in woodchucks, porcu-
UNDERMINING THE MYTH: MALES 47
pines, squirrels, deer, wildebeests, cougars, or bears; In proportion as fatherhood is in doubt, paternal behavior is likely to be lacking.
At other times, the prospect of parenthood seems capable of generating
parent-like behavior, masquerading for a time as disinterested altruism. The
emergence of EPCs as a major fact of life has even diluted the impact of
another revolution in modern biological theory, known as "kin selection. "
Numerous perplexing cases have been recorded in which young adults serve
as "helpers at the nest," assisting others to reproduce rather than rearing
their own offspring. With our recent appreciation of EPCs, a new wrinkle has emerged in interpreting such · seemingly altruistic behavior. Even
"helper" males may actually be helping themselves ... to occasional sex
with the breeding female. So-called cooperative breeding may therefore
involve less altruism than had recently been thought, since, in at least some
cases, what looks like altruistic baby-sitting is actually full-fledged parental
investment, provided to offspring of the helpers themselves, some of whom
were conceived via circumspect EPCs.
· And yet, confidence of relatedness doesn't explain all aspects of parenting. For example, an experiment looked at the paternal behavior of male
common gobies; these are small marine fish, the males of which guard eggs
left them by a female. The goal of the experiment was to assess whether
male common gobies treat their offspring differently depending on whether
they had spawned alone (with a female but no other male) or with a second
male present, in which case there was at least a chance that some of the eggs
and fry were fathered by the intedoper. It turned out that it didn't matter
whether a second male had been present.
The gobies are not alone. It is not invariant that paternal care varies with
confidence of paternity; there are some notable exceptions, not only among
fish but among birds as well. What are we to make of these exceptions?
(Make no mistake: Exceptions they are.) If they were the rule, then we'd
have to reassess some basic evolutionary and genetic principles. As exceptions, they provide us with the opportunity to fine-tune our predictions.
In the case of occasional paternal care by non paternal animals, other factors appear to be at work. For example, if EPCs don't usually occur in a
given species, then, lacking the context, there would be little or no evolutionary pressure selecting for a male's ability to detect his likely nonpaternity and to react accordingly. Natural selection can only generate a response
if, in the past, situations have arisen that cause individuals responding in one
way to be more successful than individuals responding in other ways. By the
same token, we lack the ability to hear ultra-high-frequency sounds because
such sounds have not been part of the relevant landscape in which our
ancestors evolved; the same is not true of certain moths, however, which
48 TilE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
have evolved the ability to hear and respond to the ultra-high-frequency
sounds emitted by a highly relevant part of their environment: hunting bats.
It is also possible that, in some species, males simply lack the ability to
detect eggs or offspring not their own, even though it might be to their
benefit if they could: Or maybe in certain cases the payoff that comes with
discriminating "my genes" from "someone else's" is substantially reduced
by certain disadvantages, such as the costs of occasionally erring and discriminating against one's own offspring after all. Nonetheless, there is little doubt that incursions-especially by a male into the territory of a
monogamous breeding couple-are not appreciated ... especially by the
resident male.
In the mid-1970s, David conducted this experiment in Mount Rainier
National Park: He attached a model of a male mountain bluebird near a
female and her nest, so that when the female's actual mate returned, he discovered his female in close association with this apparent stranger. The male
behaved aggressively toward the model and also toward his own mate, in
one case driving her away; she was eventually replaced with another female,
with whom he successfully reared a brood. This little study became somewhat controversial, with researchers debating, among other things, the propriety of biologists acting as Iago and inducing violent sexual jealousy on
the part of their subjects! In any event, there have since been numerous studies in which males of different species were · removed while their Desdemonas were sexually receptive, in which these males had visual access to
their unguarded females, in which the females were removed, in which
males witnessed their females in cages with decoy males, and so forth, all
looking for possible impact on the males' subsequent behavior, especially his
· paternal inclinations.
The pattern persists: Genetic paternity correlates with acting paternally.
But not always. Especially among some socially monogamous species,
males do not consistently reduce their paternal solicitude following beha�­
ioral evidence of their mates' infidelity. Maybe they just don't "understand" what has happened, or perhaps their paternal inclinations are so
hard wired that they simply don't have enough flexibility to adjust. In any
event, it is interesting that the strongest evidence for precise adjustments by
males to the EPCs of females comes from cooperatively breeding species
such as the dunnock, where several males might be associated with one
female. Here, males care for offspring in proportion to their likelihood of
being the father; if several males have copulated with one female, each male
will provide food,. for example, proportional to his degree of sexual access.
(More copulating, more food-bringing.) In another cooperatively breeding
bird species, the acorn woodpecker, when dominant males are experimen-
UNDERMINING THE MYTH: MALES 49
tally removed from the group, they respond by infanticide, destroying eggs
laid while they were out of the reproductive picture. The likelihood is that
in such species, males are often exposed to variations in the probability of
being fathers; hence, they have the behavioral repertoi�e to detect such
probabilities and to behave accordingly. Perhaps in cases of ostensible
monogamy, females are normally so adroit at hiding their EPCs that males
have not evolved a response.
There are other interesting avenues connecting EPCs and parental
behavior. We have already looked at the peculiar trade-off between mateguarding and gallivanting, with one precluding the other. Males also appear
to be influenced by another balance point: between gallivanting (going in
search of EPCs) and staying home to help take care of the kids. As with gallivanting versus mate-guarding, males can't have it both ways; if they are off
trying to spread their seed, they cannot very well also be home tending the
fruits of that seed.
In many coloniaJly nesting bird species (e.g., terns, herons, social gulls),
there is comparatively little EPC activity, perhaps because the females breed
synchronously; that is, they are all likely to breed at about the same time. As
a result, a male who gallivants runs the risk that his own female will cuckold him. By contrast, most songbirds appear to engage in EPCs if they can.
. Although they breed seasonally, they are not truly synchronous, so a male
can inseminate "his" female, guard her against other males while she is fertile, and then proceed to seek other females who may be just entering their
fertile period. Also, many males seem to use a "switching" strategy: After
their eggs have hatched, they abandon gallivanting and become doting
fathers ... because at this point the genetic payoff exceeds that from seeking EPCs.
For example, male indigo . buntings seek EPCs while their mates are
incubating-at a time when there is relatively little that the males can do to
aid their offspring. Paternal behavior competes with trying to get EPCs: In
most species of birds, males provide quite a bit of parental care during
chick-rearing, much less during nest-building or incubation. It may be no
coincidence that in these early stages of the breeding cycle, males have the
prospect of achieving one or more EPCs; hence, they are more likely to gallivant. By the chick-rearing stage, most fertile females have already been
inseminated, so the best thing a male can do is help rear the offspring he
has (presumably) fathered.
On the other hand, more effort is probably required to rear hungry, fastgrowing chicks than to build a nest or sit on the eggs. So male birds may put
more effort into chick-rearing simply because, at this point, females are less
able to succeed as single parents.
50 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
The decision for many males comes down to this: Seek EPCs or be a
stay-at-home parent. It is a trade-off between two kinds of striving: mating
effort (trying to obtain as many copulations as possible) versus parental
effort (trying to enhance the success of those copulations already- achieved).
Males typically do whichever offers a better return. For example, if there are
fertile females nearby, EPCs-mating effort-may be favored; if there are
lots of predators, parental effort; if there are lots of other gallivanters, mateguarding combined perhaps with parental effort; if your offspring have
especially high metabolic needs, parental effort; if your mate has likely copulated with other males, less parental effort and more mating effort (with
that same female or others); and so forth.
Earlier, we encountered hoary marmots, c;aught in the dilemma of
whether to mate-guard or gallivant in search of EPCs. Sometimes these animals live rather isolated lives, the basic unit consisting of one adult male,
one or two adult females, and their offspring, with no one else nearby. In
other situations, hoary marmots occupy bustling colonies, such that although a male is likely to mate with one or two nearby females, there are
also many additional females-and males-in the immediate vicinity. It
turns out that isolated males are rather good fathers, highly attentive to their
young, whereas those occupying busy colonies spend their time wandering
about in search of EPCs or mate-guarding, defending their females from
other males in search of EPCs. Their offspring get short shrift.
We have long known that there is considerable variation in the extent of
male parental care; generally, those species more inclined to monogamy are
more likely to be good fathers. Recently, it has become clear that there is
also quite a range of paternal behavior within most species as well. Attractive males usually provide less parental care, so that females end up doing
relatively more mothering when they are paired with "hunks." This tendency is captured in the seemingly dry title of this scientific article: "Paternal Contribution to Offspring Condition Is Predicted by Size of Male
Secondary Sexual Characteristic." The greater the male's secondary sex
characteristics, the less his contribution. It is as though desirable males
know they are desirable, and so they are likely to shop that desirability
around; by the same token, those "lucky" females who get to mate with
such studs find themselves less lucky when they are stuck with most of the
household c;hores.
Imagine, for example, a type of bird in which males with bright red spots
are especially successful in seducing females. Now imagine a male whose
spots are partiCularly bright and red: Because he is so sexy, his efforts at
EPCs are likely to bear fruit, and so ,he spends most of his time gallivanting
about, leaving his mate to pitch in with the kids to make up for the deficit.
UNDERMINING THE MYTH: MALES 51
Don't expend too much pity on Mrs. Stud, however: First of all, it was her
choice to mate with the lazy, conceited jerk, and second, in all likelihood she
will profit genetically from the transaction, since her sons will probably
inherit their father's dashing good looks-as well as his lousy paternal
habits-and also, therefore, his attractiveness to a new generation of eager
females. As a result, the hardworking female will likely have more grandchildren via her male offspring.
Incidentally, long-tailed male barn swallows fly less efficiently than
their short-tailed counterparts, so the fact that such males are more inclined
to be dead-beat dads may be due at least in part to the fact that it is more
difficult for them to perform the normal activities of barn swallow parenting-specifically, catching insects on the wing and bringing them back to
their brood.
By contrast, comparatively unattractive males are more inclined to be
good fathers. It appears that they make the best of their bad situation by
behaving as paternally as they can, even though some of the offspring thus
aided are not their own. Among purple martins, for example, young
males-especially prone to being cuckolded by their mates and also unable
to recoup much by way of obtaining their own EPCs-:-behave as paternally
as do older males, despite the fact that their payoff is lower (since many of
their nestlings will have been fathered by those older males). They simply
have nothing better to do.
F
emales don't always share the male enthusiasm for EPCs. And so,
we come to rape. Some biologists prefer the more genteel phrase
"forced copulation." But anyone who sees the phenomenon among
animals is unlikely to have much doubt what is going on. Normally, sex
among animals involves an extensive sequence of courtship interactions
that are clearly consensual, in which the two participants bow, nod, sing,
burble, prance, twist their bodies, arch their backs, curve their necks,
exchange ritual food items, do a nifty little dance, clatter their beaks, bills,
or muzzles together, wave their arms or wings, flap their ears or flare their
nostrils, prance and strut, preen and groom each other, bill and coo in
romantic synchrony, and, all in all, make music together, which, even
when not beautiful, is at least mutual. In short, they go through a rather
elaborately choreographed and predictable pattern that eventually results
in their becoming sexual partners. If one would-be lover misses a cue, or
otherwise behaves inappropriately, the courtship may be broken off. Assuming all goes well, however, the mated pair eventually copulates, and although their coupling may not always meet the human definition of
52 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
"romantic, " it is at least likely to be well synchronized, smoothly accomplished, mutually arrived at and agreed to-a pattern of consent that is
further underlined if the partners remain together in some kind of social
bond (such as we identify with monogamy).
By contrast, it is very different thing when one or more males descend
upon a female, whether mated or not, and immediately force a copulation,
which generally includes ejaculation, without a "by your leave." The female
typically struggles vigorously and may sometimes escape; her mate, if present, generally tries to drive away the attackers. No subsequent social relationship is established between the violators and the victim, who is not
uncommonly injured in the sexual attack. Sometimesfertilization results. If
this isn't rape, what is?
David and others have documented a violent and brutal pattern of
forced copulation among mallard ducks, for example. The act occurs most
commonly when the drake is some distance away, and it unfolds much like
a gang rape among human beings. A small flock of males swoops down
upon a hapless female; the victim struggles vigorously, trying to escape.
Neither she nor her attackers engage in any of the shared niceties that characterize typical courtship between a pair of mated mallards. And no subsequent social relationship is established. Although females thus attacked are
sometimes drowned in the process, raped mallards often survive and bear
their victimizers' offspring.
Behavior of this sort has been described extensively among animals as
diverse as fruit flies, mole crabs, scorpionflies, crickets, desert pupfish,
guppies, blueheaded wrasse, bank swallows, snow geese, lesser scaup and
green-winged teal (duck species), African bee-eaters, laughing gulls, tree
shrews, elephant seals, right whales, bighorn sheep, and feral dogs. This
list will undoubtedly grow as the number of long-term behavioral studies
on animals increases. To some extent, it is also a matter of taking a cleareyed look at phenomena that have already been well "known" (that is,
described) but not correctly interpreted. For example, it has long been
known that up to a dozen or so male house sparrows will often congregate
around a female. These agitated gatherings of males used to be called
"communal displays" before their true nature was recognized. They are
multi-male EPC attempts. Since in nearly all cases the female resists, they
could also be called "gang rapes. "
In any event, there is simply no question that Susan Brownmiller, author
of the best-selling book Against Our Will, was flat-out wrong when she
asserted that rape is unique to hum�n beings. It is not.
Rape also appears to be common among primates, having been reported
in rhesus monkeys, talapoin monkeys, vervet monkeys, stumptail macaque
UNDERMINING TIIE MYfH: MALES 53
monkeys, Japanese macaques, spider monkeys, gray langurs, gorillas, chimpanzees, and orangutans.
In a sense, such cases are fair game for this book, since they represent
departures from monogamy. When femal"e ducks are raped, this might seem
yet another type of EPC; after all, they are indeed extra-pair copulations
and can result in mixed paternity. The threat of rape may even motivate
a substantial proportion of animal mate-guarding, just as its reproductive consequences may well include a reduction in the mated males' inclination to behave paternally toward any offspring conceived as a result. But
for our purposes, it is more interesting to focus on those situations in which
those individuals going outside of monogamy are doing so "of their own
free will."
This is a difficult and slippery slope, however, for several reasons. First,
free will among animals (not to mention people!) is a much-contested topic.
Scientists generally steer clear of it, preferring to deal with what animals
actually do, instead of whether or not they have any choice in the matter. ·
Second, although being a rape victim seems an extreme case of being
deprived of one's autonomy, an argument can be made that all the decisions
an animal-or a person, for that matter-makes are done under duress: If a
male songbird goes in search of EPCs "because" he carries a genetic tendency to behave this way (because his father did, which earlier contributed
to his being conceived), is he really acting of his own free will? And if a
· female blackbird copulates with a neighboring male in order to gain access
to his food supply, or a female barn swallow does the same in order to gain
access to a particular male's genes, isn't she also the victim of a kind of coercion? Nonetheless, there is a common-sense distinction to be made between
coercion orchestrated by the conflicting will of another individual (rape,
social subordination, etc. ) and coercion that results from the pressure of circumstance (e.g., shortage of suitable food or genes).
Just as there are sometimes.disputes about whether sex was consensual
or forced among human beings, there are gray areas in certain animal cases,
too. Males are sometimes aggressive in seeking EPCs, verging on rape, as in
the case of indigo buntings. In others-such as black-capped chickadees and
blue tits-females actively solicit copulations, while in yet others, males are
unquestionably not only initiators, but brutal assailants.
In any event, unattractive and otherwise unsuccessful males are in an
especially difficult situation. We have noted that compared to females, the
parental investment of males is relatively skimpy, so they are expected to
compete with other males and/or to be attractive to females. But what if they
are uncompetitive and unattractive? Even if they succeed in pairing with a
female, as we shall see in the next chapter, their mates will often take the
54 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
opportunity of improving their reproductive situation by mating on the sly
with more desirable males, whereas these unappealing males may have no
comparable recourse, except for rape, since they are likely to be rejected by
females if they attempt EPCs, for the same reason that they are liable to be
cuckolded by their own mates. There is in fact a growing body of evidence
that human rape, too, tends to be a reproductive tactic of likely "losers. "
We have already seen that when rape occurs among mallards, paired
males often attempt to defend their mates, and when unsuccessful, they
frequently respond by raping the victim themselves. This has subsequently
been found for many other species as well. Why such an ungentlemanly
response? Probably because, given "last male advantage" as well as the possible payoff of simply diluting any sperm introduced by the rapists, the
mated male is attempting (albeit unconsciously) to increase the chance that
he will father any chicks produced.
It is probably no coincidence that mountain bluebird males attacked
their mates after they had been deceived as to their fidelity; among this
species, there is typically a reservoir of available, unmate_d females. By contrast, mallard drakes whose females had been raped nearly always remain
mated to them; in their case, there is generally a shortage of unmated females, so a drake is better off remaining with a sexually compromised mate
than abandoning her and likeiy ending up with no mate at all.
Actually, the highest recorded frequencies of rape are found in a closely
related pair of geese, Ross's goose and the lesser snow goose. Research conducted at the largest known goose colony in the world-consisting of
291,000 Ross's and 297,000 lesser snow geese, on Karrak Lake, Nunavut
(formerly part of the Northwest Territories, Canada)-has found that
among these attractive, innocent-looking birds, about 50 percent of
attempted copulations occur outside the pair-bond, nearly all of them the
consequence of rape. About one-third of these rape attempts are successful,
in that the attacking male achieves cloacal contact with his victim. But "success" in a biological sense is more elusive: Extra-pair paternity in the two
species is consistently less than 5 percent, mostly because rapes occur too
late in the breeding cycle, when the victimized females are no longer fertile.
Evidently, rape is not an efficient reproductive tactic for male geese,
although it pays off in some cases. Even though only 1 attack in 20 produces
offspring, it can still be a winning strategy for the rapist if the costs to him
are sufficiently low.
Incidentally, not all waterfowl experience high levels of rape. It appears
that species that defend a relatively large territory around their nests are
less likely to have to deal with sexually motivated intruders. Maybe this is
one reason for defending a large territory in the first place. Good fences-
UNDERMINING THE MYTH: MALES 55
or, rather, widely separated territories-may make sexually well-behaved
neighbors.
The upshot of all this: Even though monogamy is the primary mating
system in mallards, geese, and many of the so-called puddle ducks, the male
inclination for additional sexual opportunities has-to coin a phrase-muddied the waters. Just as it has for pretty much all other living things.
S
oon, we'll look at our own species. But let's end this chapter by noting
that human beings show the entire repertoire of EPC-related male
behavior: a penchant for extra-pair copulations, a tendency for mateguarding, frequent copulation, reduced paternal care in cases of reduced
confidence of genetic fatherhood, maybe even anatomic adaptations of the
penis and EPC-sensitive adjustments in sperm production. People are also
prone to respond to real or suspected adultery by their mates with desertion
and even violence. Indeed, adultery-or the suspicion of adultery-is a
major cause of divorce, and of spousal violence as well. About one-third of
spousal killings in the United States are due to female infidelity, whether correctly attributed or suspected. The frequency of infidelity-generated violence
is, if anything, even higher in other societies for which data have been collected, such as Africa.
And yet, in spite of the high risks, female infidelity-along with male
philandering-seems to be virtually universal. And not simply as a result of
male compulsion.
The usual assumption among evolutionary biologists is that male sexual
behavior is geared toward quantity of offspring, whereas its female counterpart is geared toward quality. This, in turn, is achieved by men being oriented toward quantity of sexual partners, and women, toward their quality.
Monogamy, when adhered to, enforces a similar strategy on both men and
women. It is in the realm of EPCs, on the other hand, that such male-female
differences between quantity and quality are most likely to be revealed.
No one is claiming that males are always or single-mindedly in pursuit
of extra-pair sexual opportunities-only that they are predisposed to do so
under certain conditions. Furthermore, as we shall see, this seems to apply
to Homo sapiens no less than to other species. On the other hand, traditional wisdom in evolutionary biology has claimed that females are comparatively coy, choosy, and faithful. They are. But increasingly, we are also
learning that females in general-and this includes women in particularare not so easily pigeonholed.
The myth of monogamy is seriously threatened, although monogamy as
a human institution seems likely to carry on indefinitely, an ancient yet
56 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
sturdy Potemkin Village behind its long-standing facade of polite fiction.
There is little doubt that the majority of males, whether "married" or not,
are favorably inclined toward out-of-pair sex. (This does not necessarily
mean, however, that they will always act upon it; see Chapter 7.) For a
"married" male to engage in out-of-pair heterosexual sex, his EPC partner
must in turn be (1) seduced, (2) coerced, (3) a willing co-participant, or
( 4) an active initiator. And so, we turn to the role of the female. We'll find
that all four patterns occur, in animals as well as human beings.
CHAPTER THREE
Undermining the Myth: Females
(Choosing Male Genes l
S
everal decades ago, a research team was looking into the prospect of
using surgical birth control to reduce populations of unwanted birds.
They experimentally vasectomized a number of territorial male blackbirds and were more than a little surprised by the results: A large percentage of the females mated to these sterilized males nonetheless produced offspring! Clearly, there was some hanky-panky going on in the blackbird
world: These females must have been copulating with other males, not just
with their social mates.
Long before DNA analysis and the formal identification of EPCs, tantalizing findings such as this suggested that the traditional teaching among
evolutionary biologists needed some revision. It had long been thought that
females of most species were the "flip-side" of males: Their yearning for
cozy monogamous domesticity was supposed to be about as strong as the
male tendency to mate with as many different partners as possible. Whereas
males were known to gallivant and try to sow their wild oats, their "wives,"
it was assumed, stayed home-at the nest or den-minding the hearth, dutifully bearing y oung fertilized by their "husbands." The males had a fondness for philandering; females supposedly did not.
This expectation of a double standard in the animal world may have
been soothing to the ego and also perhaps to the unspoken anxieties of
many biologists ... the majority of whom have long been male. But DNA
fingerprinting and associated technologies have changed all that forever,
58 11-IE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
confirming that, at least in some cases, females practice less than perfect sexual fidelit)r.
In The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871), Charles
Darwin wrote that "the males are almost always the wooers" and that "the
female, though comparatively passive, generally exerts some choice and
accepts one male in preference to the others." As we now understand it,
Darwin was correct ... as usual. But he must be taken more literally than
one might think. Thus, it is not true that females accept one male and only
one male, period. Rather, as Darwin pointed out, females accept one male
in preference to the others ... while often trying out the others, too! Female
"preference," in this context, may mean giving an edge to the genetic contribution of one male rather than another, but this assuredly does not
require monastic sexual fidelity on the part of the female. Coyness may have
its value as public policy-the stance most females assume in front of
strangers and, notably, their acknowledged social and sexual partner--,.but
it does not necessarily reflect what they do in private.
Of course, the mere fact of extra-pair copulations does not in itself indicate female choice: In some cases, female animals no less than human beings
are raped. But in many others, they actively solicit sexual relations with
males who are not their acknowledged social partner. Female primates, for
example, may temporarily leave their troop or-if ostensibly monogamous-their male "significant other" to hang out with one or more neighboring males; similarly, birds may fly onto the territories of other, already
mated males, typically early in the morning. In such cases-and especially
when genetic testing subsequently reveals that one or more of her offspring
have been fathered by a male other than her presumed mate-there can be
no mistaking either her behavior or her motivation ... not unlike a woman
who "just happens" to visit a man's hotel room late at night.
It remains true that the sexual tactics of males differ from those of
females, being more showy, pushy, outwardly competitive, and sometimes
even violent. In addition, just as not all males are philanderers, there are
some cases in which females vigorously rebuff the extracurricular mating
efforts of other males, suggesting that EPCs are not always in a female's
interest. Nonetheless, the evidence has been accumulating, fast and furious,
that females are not nearly as reliably monogamous as had been thoughtand that often they are active sexual adventurers in their own right.
Why?
One possibility is that extra-pair copulations by females are nonadaptive, an unavoidable by-product of strong selection for multiple mating by
males. Thus, perhaps any female penchant for EPCs is merely the equivalent
of nipples in male mammals, a tag-along trait that has no value in itself but

UNDERMINING THE MYTH: FEMALES (CHOOSING MAI:E GENES) 59
is maintained simply because it is advantageous in the opposite "Sex and
somehow cannot avoid being expressed in both sexes, even though it is only
meaningful in one.
An interesting idea, this, but one that is not supported by the evidence,
especially since male and female mating tendencies are not genetically correlated; in other words, selection for high mating frequency in one sex does
not necessarily produce high mating frequency in the other.
We are stuck with the question: Why aren't females more monogamous?
It is relatively easy to understand the evolutionary payoff that males
derive from playing fast and loose. All other things being equal, mpre copulations mean more opportunities for them to project their genes into the
future, and-usually-at relatively little cost. But what do females get out of
EPCs? A tempting answer is simply that "they like it," or maybe "they find
it exciting" or "interesting, " or perhaps "it feels good. " In evolutionary
terms, however, these are all inadequate explanations, just as it is insufficient
to explain sleep, for example, by saying that it is a response to being tired.
For sleep researchers, a crucial question is: Why does prolonged wakefulness make people tired? Tiredness is simply an internal state that leads
people, under certain circumstances, to seek sleep; it is not an explanation
in itself. Tiredness says nothing about the adaptive significance of sleep or
about the mechanisms of sleep and, hence, why tiredness is a prelude to it.
Similarly, for evolutionary biologists, it is not sufficient to say that females
seek extra-pair copulations because they "like" it or because they sometimes
find other males attractive. The crucial question is: Why do females of many
species that are socially monogamous engage, at least on occasion, in extrapair copulations? Another way of saying this: Why do they "like" it?
The one-size-fits-all adaptive explanation is that EPCs must somehow
contribute to the ultiffiate reproductive success of the females that do it. The
challenge, then, is to identify how this increased success comes about. What
is the payoff to such females?
Broadly speaking, there are two kinds of benefits females can gain by
mating with someone other than their identified partner. They can profit
indirectly, via superior offspring fathered because of the EPC, or they can .
profit directly, gaining material benefits for themselves as well as their
descendants. In this chapter, we'll examine the genetic or indirect benefits;
in the next, we turn elsewhere.
ne possibility-the simplest-is fertility insurance. To be sure, males
produce millions, often hundreds of millions, of sperm in a single
ejaculation, whereas, in most species, females release no more than
tiD THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
a handful of eggs at a time. Just as the Marines used to advertise that they
were looking for "a few good men," it seems likely that females, looking for
a few good sperm, should have very little difficulty, since sperm are available to fertilize eggs in a ratio of millions to one.
Granted, it only takes one "good" sperm to penetrate an egg. Yet for reasons that are not clearly understood, it appears that there must be millions
of willing and able pollywogs nearby in order for fertilization to be reliable.
Among human beings, for example, if a man produces "only" 50 million
sperm per ejaculation, he is generally considered sterile: In addition to sheer
numbers, sperm must also be "viable," which means able to swim upstream-and quickly. Moreover, when they arrive at the Holy Grail of their
journey-a ripe and willing egg--'-sperm have to be sporting the right kind
of protein coat surrounding compatible genes. The upshot is that females
who copulate with several different partners are more likely to get all their
eggs fertilized; this has been found to be true for fruit flies as well as birds.
Female cormorants are more likely to engage in EPCs when they have
produced relatively small broods. It is possible, of course, that EPC-prone
females have fewer offspring because they have indulged in EPCs, but more
likely that they have EPCs because they would otherwise have fewer offspring. This is suggested by the fact that females who failed to fledge chicks
were those that subsequently engaged in most of the EPCs. Further evidence
comes from a study of house sparrow nests, which found that nests containing infertile eggs are significantly more likely to contain an EPC-fathered
chick than are those lacking infertile eggs. Females consistently have more
EPCs when their breeding success is otherwise low, suggesting that it is not
simply a matter of some females being particularly inclined to mate outside
their social union.
Among those birds whose females are genetically rewarded for multiple
matings are, interestingly, red-winged blackbirds, the same species that had
so startled the ornithological world more than 25 years ago when females
mated to sterilized males were found to have reproduced. Although the
effect is not dramatic, it is nonetheless real: Female red-wings who "play
around" lay more eggs and enjoy a higher hatching rate than those who
remain sexually faithful to one mate. Moreover, their peak of EPCs occurs
one day closer to egg-laying-when their fertility is higher-than the peak
of IPCs (intra-pair copulations). Since there is no evidence that such females
are being raped or coerced in other ways, the conclusion seems unavoidable:
Female red-wings are timing their EPCs to maximize fertilizations (we'll see
later that there is some evidence that human beings-probably unknown to
themselves-do the same thing).
Although, under natural conditions, very few red-wing males are permanently sterile, many are evidently subpar at least temporarily when it
UNDERMINING THE MYTH: FEMALES (CHOOSING MALE GENES) 61
comes to producing successful sperm (more than 10 percent of eggs do not
hatch). Interestingly, the number of eggs failing to hatch is positively correlated with the number of females socially mated to a given male; a likely
possibility is that with many females to fertilize, the sperm production of
some males is unable to keep up with demand. As a result, females may
"demand'' to copulate with other males. (The problem of sperm depletion
is not altogether unknown to human beings: Couples complaining of infertility are typically counseled to reduce their frequency of intercourse, since
an overactive sex life can diminish a man's sperm count to the degree that it
interferes with fertility.)
Strangely, female red-wings do not seem to prefer better-quality males;
at least, they do not solicit EPCs from males that had the highest reproductive success the previous year. There is still much for us to learn about
this business!
The red-winged blackbird population described above was studied in
central Washington State. Although their situation does not seem unique, it
may be misleading to generalize too readily to other populations, not to
mention extrapolating to other species. Thus, although Washington State
female red-wings initiate EPCs, in another closely monitored population, in
New York State, female red-wings only accept or resist the advances of
males. They do not initiate.
Although it seems likely that natural selection :would provide males with
the ability to make enough sperm, it is nonetheless possible that EPCs provide females with a kind of "sperm security," just in case their mate's supply is running low. Extra-pair copulations are frequent among house sparrows, and especially so among those that produce infertile eggs, suggesting
that when females are mated to infertile males, they are more likely to seek
EPCs. At this point, it isn't at all clear how a female can ascertain the sperm
supply of her male partner.
It is possible that they can't, in which case it may pay them to mate with
�ore than one male, just for insurance. Among Gunnison's prairie dogs,
female do just that. It turns out that the rare Gunnison's female who copulates with only �me male has a 92 percent probability of becoming pregnant
and giving birth, while the probability is 100 percent for females that copulate with three or more different males. In addition, litter size is larger when
the number of sexual partners is higher. Not all mammals show this pattern,
however, including even some other ground squirrels, which are· closely
related to prairie dogs. In fact, even in another prairie dog species, the blacktailed prairie dog, there is no such tendency. In some mammals, there is actually a reduction in female reproductive success associated with mating with
a second male, at least under laboratory conditions. But maybe this last
finding isn't so contradictory after all: It makes sense that a female might fail
62 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
to conceive in the presence of more than one male, whereas she might do
just fine if she had the chance to consort with one male at a time, privately,
and on her own terms.
T
hroughout most of the animal world, females have something that
males want: their eggs. And nearly always, males are quite willingeven eager-to provide sperm. As a result, females are unlikely to be
so desperate for sperm donors that they cannot exercise a degree of choice.
This is in fact a useful way to look at the phenomenon of EPCs: They provide females with additional opportunities for choice, selecting a genetic
partner independent-if need be-of their social partner.
Not surprisingly, females are less likely to face the question of "to fertilize or not to fertilize" than "to fertilize well, or not." According to legend,
Cleopatra-not known for sexual abstention-was killed by an adder, a
species of snake, which, it now appears, is no more monogamous than the
famous queen herself. Thus, in a paper titled "Why Do Female Adders Copulate So Frequently?", a group of researchers reported that in at least one
kind of adder, females that mate with several different males have fewer
stillborn offspring than do their unlucky counterparts who are forced to
mate with one or just a few partners. In such cases, the key contribution distinguishing one male from another seems to be whether his genes lead to
healthy development after fertilization. There is a lot that can go wrong in
the journey from fertilized egg to fully formed little snakelet. The more
males a female adder mates with, the more likely she is to encounter a partner whose sperm will complement her own, leading to increased success in
successfully negotiating the pitfalls of snake embryology.
This is as good a place as any to confront a possible misunderstanding,
one that might otherwise bedevil many readers, here and elsewhere. Thus,
some of you may balk at the notion of animals choosing their sexual partners with such exquisite care. You may feel tempted to throw this book
across the room, exclaiming in frustration: "What are you talking about?
How could female adders possibly know so much-indeed, anything at
all!-about the precise pitfalls of their own embryology?" As a matter of
fact, even well-trained biologists don't know a whole lot about snake
embryology. The point is that living things have evolved the ability to engage
in all sorts of activities without necessarily having any detailed understanding whatever about what they are doing or why. Flowers bloom in the spring
without "knowing" that their seeds will be most successful as a result,
because they will germinate in the summer. Animals-including human
beings-engage in an extraordinary array of fancy biochemical, molecular,
UNDERMINING THE MYTH: FEMALES (CHOOSING MALE GENES) 63
and electrical events (think of digestion, respiration, DNA transcription and
translation, the immune response, indeed, even thinking itself) without consciously understanding either the general processes or the details.
So please don't get "hung up" on such details yourself, at least as they
pertain to the ability of living things to behave adaptively, just as they grow
and metabolize adaptively even if they have never read a textbook, attended.
a lecture, or conducted a single laboratory experiment!
We hope you can grant, then, that a female's motivation in obtaining one
or more EPCs might well go beyond fertility insurance to include an unconscious, evolutionarily based search for "complementary" genes. But what,
specifically, might such a female be seeking? Based on theory alone, it would
seem that copulating with more than one male would not convey a benefit
in terms of added genetic diversity, since part of the charm of gamete production is the generation of astronomical genetic diversity; the genetic variety per se within just one male's ejaculation is immense, offering nearly as
much range as can be obtained by mating with several different males.
On the other hand, there are often substantial costs associated with
inbreeding, the mating of close relatives. Physical deformities are common,
for example, among the offspring of closely related European sand lizards.
DNA fingerprinting has shown that when a female sand lizard mates with a
closely related male, he is likely to sire a small proportion of the offspring
produced; more distantly related ( "outbred") males father a larger proportion of the young. By multiple mating, a questi�g female seems likely to
increase the chance that she will find a partner who is genetically different
from herself.
This is not just a reptile thing. In a bird species wonderfully called the
splendid fairy-wren, a high frequency of EPCs is apparently due at least in
part to the benefits of avoiding inbreeding. And mammals are not immune
to such considerations. A group of genes known as the major histocompatability complex (MHC) serves as a key marker by which the immune system distinguishes "self" from "other." It also serves to indicate genetic closeness and is important in producing viable offspring. Among mice, offspring
with incompatible MHC genes are spontaneously aborted. Interestingly,
when female mice find themselves occupying the territories of males whose
MHC genes are incompatible with their own, these females engage in EPCs
with males from adjoining territories, whose MHC genes are a better match.
(It appears that different MHC genes produce different odors, to which the
females are sensitive.)
Female primates, for their part, often show a particular interest in mating with a male who is the new guy on the block. Paradoxically, although
these new arrivals are nearly always low in social rank, they are often
64 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
sexually appealing to females. For example, in one troop of Japanese
macaques, a newly,arrived male occupied the lowest social rank but mated
with more different females than any other male. In one remarkable case, a
female red howler monkey consistently turned down the local boys but was
receptive any tim� she encountered a male from a neighboring troop.
The human equivalent-if any-isn't clear, but one hint may come fr�m
the interest and even fascination often generated by the "drifter," the mysterious newcomer. Even the cliche "You will meet a tall, dark stranger"
might also capture some of the (literal) romance of novelty. On an evolutionary level, it is at least possible that this "strange-male preference" derives from inbree'ding avoidance. In which case, it isn't so strange after all.
A key summary point is that in a wide range of species, females exercise
direct choice as to their sexual partners, often choosing more than one.
Although such behavior may prove risky for females if they are punished by
their cuckolded male consort, when successful they could be repaid by .bestowing the benefits of outbreeding upon their offspring.
Don't be too quick, however, to conclude that EPCs always pay for
themselves via outbreeding. There are, it appears, different strokes for different species: Just as there is a downside to too much inbreeding, excessive
outbreeding, too, can carry costs. In at least one case, EPCs seem, paradoxically, to be a mechanism for keeping genes in the family instead of introducing new ones. In one bird species, the pied flycatcher, breeding pairs that
are genetically quite different are more likely to have extra-pair young in
their nests than are those who are genetically more similar. In this species,
therefore, it appears that females are prone to mitigate the effects of extreme
outbreeding, seeking EPCs with males who are somewhat more genetically
similar to themselves. The problem with excessive outbreeding is that it
might break up locally adapted gene combinations, which simply means
that by combining individuals who are too different, the resulting offspring
might fall between two stools, landing on neither. Females may well choose
as mates those likely to meet the Goldlilocks criterion: a partner who is not
too similar, and not too different, but Just Right. (It is also possible, incidentally, that when a male and female pied flycatcher are just "too different" genetically, they are somewhat behaviorally incompatible as well,
which would lead directly to more EPCs.)
S
o far, in examining the female search for sexual variety, we have looked
at simple genetic success versus failure: producing offspring or failing
to do so. This barely scratches the surface when it comes to reasons
why females may elect to mate with more than one male. There are many
aspects to mating "well."
UNDERMINING THE MY1H: FEMALES (CHOOSING MALE GENES) fi5
If females copulate with many different males, then in theory they can
choose among the sperm of these various males and decide which one to
favor with an egg or two, or, like an expert financial planner, they might
even choose to diversify their genetic portfolio, allowing a preferred mix of
different males to fertilize different numbers of their eggs-maybe even
allotting certain eggs to certain sperm.
This may seem far-fetched, but it is not impossible. More plausible yet
are a variety of EPC-related tactics by which females enhance the likelihood
that their eggs will be combined with the best possible male genes. Imagine,
for example, a female mated to a male via a long-term pair-bond. Imagine,
further, that the male in question is something less than a sterling specimen:
adequate, but nothing to write home about. Given the opportunity, in fact,
the female would have chosen someone else. But since the species is generally "monogamous," she never had much opportunity to choose. After all,
for every female there is, on average, one male, and vice versa. In a polygynous species, one male might be mated to a dozen or so females, in which
case each of those 12 females might have been able to avail herself of the
1 in 12 males who is especially desirable, resulting in 12 happy females
while also leaving on average, 11 bachelor males. In such a case, their loss
is the females' gain, since each harem-member has gotten an unusually
high-quality mate-albeit the same one-who will presumably provide
high-quality genes.
But in the case of our hypothetical monogamous situation, females have
much less opportunity to choose a really classy male, since all the best ones
have been taken, presumably by the best-most desirable-females. Furthermore, let's imagine that our monogamous female isn't such a prizewinner herself, so she wasn't exactly free to choose the male of her dreams.
She had to "settle." Imagine, further, that her mate's sperm is good enough
to fertilize all her eggs and to produce viable offspring. Still, it is one thing
to be viable, another to be a raging success.
In order to reproduce at all, our female needed a social mate; otherwise,
she wouldn't have a nest, for example, or a feeding territory, or the assistance of an adult male, necessary perhaps to defend her and her young or
maybe to help provision the offspring. But recall that in obtaining these prerequisites-the material necessities of reproduction-she had to accept a
male whose genetic traits are less than prepossessing. In evolutionary terms,
it is not important that such a female may be "disappointed" or "dissatisfied" with her mate, except insofar as "disappointment" or "dissatisfaction"
may be a human way of saying that she might be tempted to improve the
genetic characteristics of her offspring by matirig with one or more other
males ... likely one of those desirable hunks with whom she was unable to
establish a pair-bond.
66 THE MY1H OF MONOGAMY
It is noteworthy that female animals only rarely have affairs with bachelors (who, after all, are likely to be rejects). Instead, they choose someone
else's mate, probably because he offers better genes, plus-as we shall see in
a bit-maybe other resources. Even harem-living females can sometimes
exercise some control over their genetic partners. In species ranging from
elephants to elephant seals, females seem to go out of their way to associate
with a dominant male. They also vocalize loudly when a subordinate male
attempts to mount them; this alerts other males to the copulatory attempt,
whereupon the most dominant male is likely to drive away the subordinate
interloper and mount the female himself. We cannot say whether the female
"knows what she -is doing, " but it seems clear that, as a result, the lady
elephant seal is more likely to be inseminated by a dominant male than by
a subordinate.
Rather than directly granting sexual favors to one male in preference to
others, female mate choice can thus be indirect. This might help explain
why, in many species, females are inclined to aggregate at a mating site, from
which a single dominant male can exclude other males. Or females can
advertise, for example, that they are sexually receptive, thus generating conditions that provoke males to compete among themselves. The conspicuous
estrous swellings of female primates may similarly have evolved in the service of indirect mate choice, with the Technicolor posteriors and yummy
odors of estrous females inciting male-male competition, · to the ultimate
genetic benefit of the females.
Female garter snakes engage in a kind of coitus interruptus that apparently enables them to control who fertilizes their precious eggs. In eight of
twelve observed copulations with unsuitable partners, females were seen to
rotate their bodies wildly, interrupting the mating and preventing the formati()n of a copulatory plug. Dominant mafe red jungle fowl roosters (the
wild forerunners of today's barnyard chickens) do not have to force females
to copulate with them; only subordinate roosters must stoop to such behavior. Interestingly, of ten such forced copulations that were observed in one
study, four were followed by vigorous feather shaking on the part of the
female, which resulted in sperm being ejected from the cloaca.
Here is an anecdotal account of something equally thought-provoking in
a common bird, the yellow warbler. It seems that on one occasion a particular male remained unmated throughout an entire breeding season, adopting instead the habit of forcing EPCs on "married" females. Once, after he
forced such a copulation, his victim immediately flew to her mate and successfully solicited a copulation with him! In this case, a parsimonious interpretation is that the victimized female yellow warbler "preferred" to have
her eggs fertilized by her social mate.
UNDERMINING THE MYTH: FEMALES (CHOOSING MALE GENES) 67
Even without pushy males, females are often confronted with another
sexual difficulty: a sampling problem. After all, they generally encounter
males sequentially; that is, one at a time, perhaps with a fairly long pause in
between. With each male they meet, they must "decide" (either consciously
or not) whether to mate or wait, all the while not "knowing" whether they
will encounter any others. Moreover, our female must somehow evaluate
the breeding quality of each male, presumably either comparing him with
some internal standard or against her memory of other males already encountered. One option-although not the only one-is to mate with the first
male to come along, then mate again only if any subsequent swain shows
himself to be better than the previous one.
It may be costly or even impossible for females to sample many different
males before settling on a mate. For example, a female pied flycatcher visits
on average only 3.8 males before choosing one. When females compete
vigorously among themselves for a limited number of especially desirable
males, their options may be even more restricted. As a result, females can
hardly be expected to make a very informed choice; or, at least, their
"choice" of a mate may be largely a matter of settling for whatever they can
get. However we look at it, depending on how many additional males they
encounter after �hey are paired up, some females may be likely to discover
a male who is more desirable than the one with whom they find themselves.
Under these conditions, "till death do us part" does not make a whole lot
of sense. More likely is a strategy of "having your cake and eating it, too."
Think of it as a kind of one-way ratchet, whereby females, after accepting an initial mating, will mate again, but only if, by doing so, they are
"ratcheting up," improving the genetic situation of their offspring. The tactic would be to mate with a seemingly good male-one who meets the minimum criteria of being of the right species, the right sex, and basically adequate-then remain available to mate with a better one, if he shows up. In
a species of salamander, the European smooth newts, females pick up the
sperm packets of males with particularly large head crests. In one experiment, females were exposed to males varying in the size of their crests, separated by 20 days. The females mated the first time, then had the choice of
remating a second tirrie or continuing to lay eggs fertilized by the sperm of
their first mate. In this situation, most females only remated if the male to
whom they were exposed the second time had a larger crest than the one
whose sperm they had initially accepted. (Crestfallen, in such cases, is a
severe condition indeed.)
In at least one species of spider, females that have already mated are willing to remate if they encounter a male with body size and fighting ability
superior to that of their previous mate. Not only that, but the offspring of
68 Tiffi MYTH OF MONOGAMY
such multiple-mating females have a higher growth rate than those produced by single-mating females.
For any of several reasons, · females can find themselves paired with
males who are not genetically the best: As already mentioned, if the species
is socially monogamous, only one female gets the best male. Everyone else
is "settling." In territorial species, a female generally chooses a male based
on the quality of his territory, although she may also use other criteria:
whether he provides good parental care, or is especially adept at foraging,
or is skilled at defending their y oung from predators. Alternatively, a female
may simply settle on familiar real estate, taking the male who is there. Biologists have tended to think that life is a package deal: By getting, say, a
resource-rich male, a female also gets the best genes. But this need not always
be true. If a male who is genetically subpar ends up with a high-quality
piece of real estate, he may also end up with a female who looks elsewhere
when it comes to a sexual partner.
In nonterritorial species, where mates are chosen not for their resources
but more often for their personal qualities, including their genetic attributes,
EPCs may be less important. For example, among waterfowl such as ducks,
pairing is based on individual traits, not on possession of real estate, and,
significantly, female ducks are notable for how vigorously they resist attempted EPCs. It seems likely that in the duck world, most females are satisfied with the genetic makeup of their mates; hence, they are less inclined
to copulate with anyone else.
In most vertebrates at least, females can control the timing of copulation,
which in turn means that they can control fertilizations. The most common
pattern in birds, for example, is for females to call the sexual shots: They initiate copulations and determine when to refrain. Surprisingly, perhaps, they
stop copulating while the female is still fertile! At this time, they have
obtained enough sperm to insure fertilization of their eggs but appear to be
hedging their genetic bets, giving themselves the opportunity of "ratcheting
up": If a better-quality male comes along, such a female has the option of
copulating with him, too. Because of the "last male advantage" (last in, first
o�t), this male is likely to fertilize more than his share. On the other hand,
if no such desirable stud shows up, these females have lost nothing; their
eggs will still be fertilized, this time by their social partner.
Another option�and probably a simpler one-is for the female to retain
a memory of her last mate and choose a different one each time. This is the
tactic followed by a strange little invertebrate known as a pseudoscorpion.
In a well-designed research study, once-mated female pseudoscorpions were
given the opportunity to mate with their earlier partner or a new male. After
an interval of 11h hours, females invariably preferred new males, rejecting
UNDERMINING THE MYTH: FEMALES (CHOOSING MALE GENES) 69
their previous mates; after 48 hours, on the other hand, they were equally
likely to mate with their old lovers or with new ones. (The males were
equally willing-indeed, eager-regardless of the interval.) This seems to be
a way for females to increase their chance of acquiring a diverse array of
sperm, while also making sure that they get enough to fertilize their eggs. It
had already been demonstrated that pseudoscorpion females-like female
European adders-that mated with more than one male have more reproductive success than do females artificially restricted to mating with just one
(that is;enforced monogamy). The key seems to be genetic incompatibility
between some males and females rather than the intrinsic merit of a given
male's sperm. It is less a matter of higher-versus lower-quality males than the
"genetic fit" between any two would-be parents: The same male pseudoscorpion may have highly successful offspring with one female but many
"stillborn" offspring with a different female.
But in these animals, males don't appear to differ outwardly, even
though each is genetically distinct. So females apparently cannot determine
whether a given male is the one for them. Neither are pseudoscorpion
females blessed with an especially good memory. Under these conditions, it
may be that the best strategy for lady pseudoscorpions is to cast their reproductive nets widely, mating with new males rather than old partners and
thus making it likely that at least one of their sexual consorts will provide
the right, matching sperm. (Pseudoscorpions are wonderful little creatures,
by the way. They reside under the bark of decaying tropical trees, and in
order to leave one such tree and make their way to another they must hitch
a ride underneath the wing covers of another small invertebrate, the harlequin beetle. Male pseudoscorpions compete with each other to monopolize
the limited travel space; no carry-on luggage permitted.)
fu one type of beetle, the female remates more readily with a new male
than with her previous partner, which suggests that she, too, is looking for
genetic benefits associated, in all likelihood, with enhanced variety. In some
insects, the female deposits an identifying odor on the male, allowing her to
discriminate against him when it comes to remating!
Most commonly, however, it appears that females choose males with
"good genes," as shown by the fact that males with larger sexual ornaments
produce more viable offspring (e.g., peacocks). But how to reconcile this
with multiple mating by females? If females are choosing the best male, why
mate with more than one? Recall that a female may simply not be able to
settle down and raise a family with the male of her dream,s; he may already
be taken. In this case, EPCs provide the opportunity for females to bond
with one male-and indeed to rear children with him-but to copulate with
another, and thereby obtain his genes.
70 TI-IE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
Another possibility is to mate with your social partner, but do so againand yet again, perhaps-with a more preferred male, if he shows up. Such
"ratcheting" is not female promiscuity, by the way, because these females
are not being sexually indiscriminate. Far from it. They are carefully evaluating the merits of their potential sexual partners, seeking to trade up when
possible. Other cases, like that of the pseudoscorpions, where females cannot evaluate the quality of males and simply go for novelty, are closer to
promiscuity. But even here, there is method to their sexual meandering. Virgin pseudoscorpions, for example, invariably pick up the first sperm packet
deposited by a male; after this, 88 percent reject his next sperm offering. It
isn't that such females have suddenly become uninterested in mating, however: Exposed to a new male shortly afterward, they again pick up his first
sperm packet ... and then refuse his subsequent ones. They're just uninterested in mating with the same male twice!
T he most frequent pattern reveals not so much a preference for diversity as a predilection for quality. Male house sparrows, for example, possess dark throat badges, indicators of their macho qualities-and female house sparrows are more likely to have EPCs with
males sporting large throat badges than with those whose throat badges
are less impressive.
Most of the time, moreover, females choose their EPC partners from
among the ranks of married males-who are likely to be of higher quality�
rather than mating on the side with bachelors, who are generally bachelors
for good reasons (that is, they were unsuccessful in obtaining a mate in the
first place because of being lower quality).
Not only that, but females tend to select as EPC partners those males
who are in some way superior to their current mates. Among zebra finches,
females evaluate the sexual desirability of a male by the brightness of his bill
color; they solicit EPCs only from males whose bills are not only bright, but
brighter than those of their curren� mates.
Many female birds get to choose their mates in order as they-the
females-arrive on the breeding territories; earlier-arriving females should
therefore get the most desirable males, and later-arriving ones should be
more likely to seek out EPCs. This appears to be the case.
If genetic diversity were the reason for EPCs, then females of species that
produce only one egg per year should attempt EPCs only in some years, not
each year. (One offspring with a given male cannot be more diverse than one
offspring with another male!) On the other hand, if females are seeking
genetic quality, they should be motivated to obtain such quality each year.
UNDERMINING THE MYTH: FEMALES (CHOOSING MALE GENES) 71
A study of razorbills, an ocean-going bird that produces only one egg per
year, found that the females' inclination for EPCs remained consistent year
to year. This supports the hypothesis that they are seeking quality rather
. than diversity.
The prevalence of EPCs is highly variable, from zero in some species to
nearly 100 percent in others. Even within any one species, there are typically
differences between male and female participation in EPCs, the general pattern being a higher proportion of female than of male involvement. It is not
uncommon, for example, for about 15 percent of females, but only 7 percent of males, to engage in EPCs. This harkens back to the earlier generalization by sociobiologists that males are more variable in their reproductive success than are females, since a small proportion of males "enjoy"
reproductive ' success that goes beyond their own pair-bond. Presumably,
those that do so are especially desirable to the females in question. The
chances are that any female willing to take the risks of an EPC would be
able to obtain it, whereas males generally yearn to be called, but only few
are chosen.
An important consideration-for both males and females-is the breeding system itself, for example, whether there are other "helpers" available to
assist with child care. Fairy-wrens of Australia often breed cooperatively,
with all males contributing to the feeding and defense of the young. DNA
fingerprinting shows that more than 75 percent of the offspring are actually
fathered by males outside the group, who provide no parental care, and that
95 percent of all broods contain young sired by extra-group fathers. This is
the highest incidence of animal cuckoldry of which we are aware. Female
fairy-wrens are very much in charge of whom they mate with: They successfully avoid all EPC attempts initiated by outside males, only mating
when they initiate and solicit. And they are highly selective. Of 68 out-ofgroup potential fathers identified in one study, just 3 fathered nearly 50 percent of all the extra-pair offspring. As a result of such choice (and, in all likelihood, the reason for it as well), sons produced via EPCs are highly
successful in obtaining EPCs.
.
Fairy-wrens do not always form large breeding groups. In some cases,
they mate in pairs; in these situations, the paired male has a much higher
chance of being the biological father than does the dominant male in a communally breeding group. Paired males also contribute much more to rearing
their offspring, as predicted by the fact that they are likely to be the fathers.
In communal breeding groups, females get less help from any given male,
but, in return, they gain freedom of reproductive choice, via EPCs. When
female fairy-wrens have helper males available-the group situation-they
are liberated. to choose good genes from outside the group. (Incidentally,
72 THE MYfH OF MONOGAMY
these helpers are generally sons of the female; hence they gain an indirect
genetic payoff from their mother's breeding success-no matter who the
father is-while the adult female likely gains by being sexually liberated to
choose the best possible EPC partner.).
Not surprisingly, females of any species that are sitting pretty, mated to
an especially well-endowed male, are less inclined to stray sexually, whereas
those whose mates are less desirable are more likely to try one or more EPCs
... _ and when they do so, to insist on "moving up," reserving their extracurricular mating for those males who offer a better genetic package than their
current mate.
L
et's assume that, at least in some cases, females are in fact choosing
good genes. What, precisely, does this mean? How can one set of
genes be better than another? In lots of ways. -
For one, · good genes could simply be those that lead to healthier offspring. Probably the best exampk of this comes from research conducted by
Allison Welch, then a graduate student at the University of Missouri,
Columbia, and her colleagues. They studied gray tree frogs, a species in
which females prefer to mate with males whose songs are comparatively
lengthy (about two seconds long) rather than very brief (about one second
long). By acting on this preference, females get good genes, leading to offspring who are more fit. Welch and associates fertilized female eggs with
sperm from long- and short-calling frogs, then compared the resulting offspring both as tadpoles and after they had metamorphosed into frogs. The
key result: The offspring of long-callers fared better. The key interpretation:
Long-calling male gray tree frogs produce offspring thatare more likely to
survive and, eventually, reproduce. Accordingly, females are well advised to
mate with long-callers rather than short callers . . . which they do.
Many animals are brightly colored, and often the males are especially
adorned. It has been suggested that bright coloration has evolved among
males as a cue allowing females to choose as extra-pair partners those males
that are especially healthy-parasite-free or parasite-resistant. The saga continues: Among yellowhammers-a species of European finch in which males
are bright yellow and females are comparatively drab, and in which old,
colorful males are especially successful in obtaining EPCs-the more
brightly colored the male, the less likely he is to be infected by parasites. At
the same time, the dullest, least-yellow males are most likely to be cuckolded. Among yellowhammers, the brightest, yellowest males are also the
oldest, so degree of yellowness and brightness is a reliable indicator that one
is carrying genes conducive to longevity.
UNDERMINING
'
THE MYTH: FEMALES (CHOOSING MALE GENES) 73
Adding to the emerging picture of females engaging in EPCs so as to
accrue "good genes" is the fact that species with a high frequency of EPCs
are especially likely to be sexually dichromatic (substantial male-female differences in coloration) and to have large spleens for their body size: This
suggests a proportionately more well-developed immune system. Such a correlation does not strictly prove anything, but it is consistent with the notion
that females in such species seek EPCs in order to obtain greater disease and
parasite resistance for their offspring.
An underlying assumption connecting these examples is that males that
are especially healthy, and whose health is to some extent heritable, will be
preferentially chosen by females as EPC partners. We might define an
"attractive" male as one who is visited by many neighboring females, in
search of EPCs, and an "unattractive" male as one who is not comparably
visited and, thus, who is not in comparable demand. It is then also revealing that females associated with attractive males do not leave their male
prospecting for EPCs, whereas females associated with "unattractive" males
(that is, those who are not visited by other females) frequently visit their
male neighbors.
How, one might ask, do females judge the quality of their mate? And,
similarly, how do they judge the quality of their neighbors and possible EPC
partners in comparison? A group of Dutch researchers recount one suggestive event: "A male [blue tit] injured one wing just before egg-laying. His
female visited both neighbors and both shared paternity with the territorial
male. After the young hatched, the territorial male died." All told, of the five
· males that died between 1 and 3 weeks after their female started incubation,
four had a high proportion of extra-pair young in their nest (5/6, 2/10, 3/
3
, 4h).
It is entirely possible that females use the condition of a male during the
breeding season as a clue to indicate his quality and, in turn, use their male's
quality as a key determiner of whether or not to seek EPCs.
In at least two other bird species-tree swallows and blue tits-females
mated to males that are of comparatively poor quality are more actively
involved in seeking EPCs than are females mated to good-quality males.
What constitutes "good quality" in such cases is somewhat problematic. But
we are beginning to get some hints. Among blue tits, for example, males differ in their probability of surviving the winter, and males that are less likely
to make it during the coming winter are more likely to be cuckolded; similarly, males that do the cuckolding are more likely to overwinter successfully. How do female blue tits distinguish the winter-hardy from the winterwimps? No one knows. (Yet.)
Even when females do not bestow EPCs on physically distinguished
males, they may nonetheless be showing a preference for those likely to be
7 4 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
of higher quality, perhaps because they are behaviorally distinguished . . . ·
and, more often than not, genetically distinguished as well. Nothing succeeds, we are told, like success. And indeed, social success-measured by
one's position in a dominance hierarchy-succeeds mightily when it comes
to securing extra-pair copulations. (Maybe this is what Henry Kissinger
meant when he noted that "power is the best aphrodisiac.")
There is a widespread tendency for females to prefer dominant males
when it comes to bestowing their EPC favors. Dominant male cattle egrets
and white ibis-who are successful in male-male fights-are particUlarly
likely to obtain EPCs. Similarly, among black-capped chickadees (a close
North American relative of the European blue tit and a common winter
participant at bird-feeders), females reserve their EPCs for males whose
dominance status is higher than that of their own mates. Over the course of
a 14-year study of black-capped chickadees, ornithologist Susan M. Smith
observed 13 apparently successful EPCs done by individuals who were
color-banded and, thus, whose identities and social ranks were known. In
all 13 cases, the female's EPC partner was higher-ranking than her social
mate. No females mated to alpha males ever engaged in an EPC. Not only
that, but EPCs are mostly solicited by females-individuals who presumably
had to settle for less dominant mates and were trying to make up for this
deficit. (There's that ratchet again.)
Chickadees, it should be noted, generally mate for life. Smith observed
seven cases of divorce; in five of these, a lower-ranked female deserted her
mate and established a new social and sexual alliance with a recently widowed alpha male. Social dominance often increases with age; in addition,
older males-if only because they have survived so long-are obviously
capable of longevity and may well carry genes that promote longer life .
. Accordingly, older male red-winged blackbirds are more . successful in obtaining EPCs. A similar age-related pattern occurs in the European rook (a
relative of the North American crow): Older paired males engage in EPCs
with younger females. Could this be because younger females were likely to
be paired with younger males ... while preferring older ones?
Let us grant that in many different species, females often seek EPCs
with males that are especially attractive and dominant (as well as suitably
mature). Although this is probably due to a preference on the part of
females for males with good genes, the natural world is tricky. Thus, it is
possible that dominant and older males are simply more likely to be available for EPCs because they have more sperm to spare or because, as a
result of their dominance, they are less likely to be excluded from ·the territories of other monogamous males. Although females may well seekand get-good genes from such liaisons, this is not the same as guaran-
UNDERMINING THE MYTH: FEMALES (CHOOSING MALE GENES) 75
teeing that they engage in EPCs with high-quality males in order to obtain
such genes.
Nonetheless, the evidence is accumulating and is increasingly persuasive.
In songbirds, a male's quality may itself be reflected in his singing. In the
previous chapter, we encountered the European great reed warbler, among
which females choose EPCs with males who have large song repertoires: As
it happens, the survival of young reed warblers is positively correlated with
the size of the genetic father's song repertoire. So there is a practical, immediate significance to more songs: better genes. And as one might expect,
females of several species give especially intense copulation displays .in
response to hearing an elaborate song repertoire. (So perhaps there is something to the old tradition of serenading one's lady love.)
If females engage in EPCs with males who offer especially good genes,
then an interesting-and controversial-possibility arises, suggested by the
observation that in some species females resist EPCs, sometimes quite vigorously. The possibility is this: Females could gain an advantage for their
offspring (good genes) if they make sure that their EPC partner really is of
high quality by resisting males' EPC attempts, only submitting to one who
shows himself to be unusually determined, competent, and-almost literally-irresistible. As a result, her male offspring might also likely be determined, competent, and comparably irresistible when it comes to obtaining
EPCs themselves. A chip off the old block.
On the other hand, female resistance to EPCs, when it occurs, may be
genuine: Sometimes no really does mean NO! On balance, in fact, female
EPC resistance is probably more frequent than acquiescence or solicitation.·
(Given the obvious payoff to them, it is notsurprising that males seek EPCs
and that they typically do so more actively than females. The reason for
examining female solicitation of and acquiescence in EPCs is that the phenomenon is so counterintuitive-and yet so frequent.)
I
s there a simple, one-size-fits-all, ea
.
sily discernible characteristic that
might provide convenient information about whether an individual is
carrying "good genes"? Maybe· there is. The characteristic is symmetry,
specifically the degree of left-right correspondence between the two sides of
an individual's body, whether arms, legs, eyes, ears, wings, flippers, and so
forth. All vertebrates are bilaterally symmetrical (jellyfish, sea urchins, and
starfish, by contrast, are radially symmetrical). In the case of bilaterally symmetrical creatures, left and right are not controlled by different genes, so
asymmetry-difference between left and right-is widely assumed to reflect
76 THE MY1H OF MONOGAMY
some sort of developmental perturbations, whether caused by poor nutritional status, toxins, mutations, or pathogens.
It turns out that males with low asymmetry have high mating success
and vice versa; males who are symmetrical are widely seen as attractive, and
vice versa for those who are l�psided. This has been found for a variety of
animals, from insects to primates. Two research papers dealing with barn
swallows and published in the same year by noted Danish researcher Anders
M0ller tell an impressively logical tale. One was titled "Female Swallow
Preference for Symmetrical Male Sexual Ornaments." In plain English:
Female swallows prefer males whose forked tails are equal in length. The
second study was titled "Parasites Differentially Increase the Degree of Fluctuating Asymmetry in Secondary Sexual Characters." In plain English:
Males infested with parasites tend to be lopsided rather than symmetrical.
Put the two together: Female swallows prefer males who are symmetrical, in
all likelihood because such males are not parasite-laden.
As it happens, some of the most persuasive evidence for the role of asymmetry comes from studies of human beings. The procedure is surprisingly
simple: Measure a number of body parts that are bilateral (such as feet,
hands, ankles, wrists, elbows, ear length, and ear width), obtain a composite index of degree of symmetry (or asymmetry), and see if the resulting
measure correlates with perceptions of physical attractiveness. It does: More
symmetry equals better looking. Not only that, but symmetrical men generally have a relatively high number of sexual partners, so . the judgment by
women isn't merely theoretical! Women even report more orgasms when
having sex with symmetrical men.
This leads to the prediction-especially relevant for our purposes-that
symmetrical men will have a comparatively large number of EPC partners
and vice versa. The prediction holds. A study of more than 200 college
students asked them a number of questions, guaranteeing-for obvious
reasons-to keep their responses anonymous. Specifically, they were asked
about any sexual liaisons they had had (1) with someone who was already
involved in a romantic relationship with someone else and (2) while they
were themselves involved in a romantic relationship with someone else. In
addition to being measured for physical symmetry, respondents were queried
as to their age, socioeconomic status, likely future salary, and emotional
attachment style. They were also photographed for independent assessment
of their physical attractiveness.
Among the interesting findings: Symmetrical men reported more EPC
partners-both when they were paired with someone else and when they
were the "third person"-than did asymmetrical men, a result that persisted
when any effects of social status, likely salary, age, and even physical attrac-
UNDERMINING THE MYTH: FEMALES (CHOOSING MALE GENES) 77
. tiveness were eliminated. So, when it comes to already-paired females engaging in some sex on the side, barn swallows are not alone: Women, too,
prefer to dally with members of the opposite sex who are symmetrical.
Such a preference may well work the other way, too, although to date it
has received less research attention: It is a good bet that men also prefer
symmetrical women. The suggestion has even been made that part of the
widespread male fascination with female breasts is· that such protuberant,
bilateral organs provide a good opportunity to assess symmetry! (By contrast, a penis would seem to offer much less opportunity for a connoisseur's assessment, since-whether dangling limply or standing proudly
erect-it is nonetheless a lowly singleton, a mere midline member. Tough
luck. But whose ?)
You might have noticed at least two logical problems with all this. First,
the information on numbers of EPCs was obtained by so-called self-reports,
that is, what people say they did, as distinct from what they actually have
done. This may be a serious, if unavoidable, problem. On the other hand,
difficulty arises only if symmetrical (or asymmetrical) people are consistendy prone to exaggerate (or, alternatively, understate) their frequency of
sexual dalliances ... situations that seem unlikely. A second potential problem is one of interpretation: Even if his physical symmetry genuinely correlates with a man's extra-pair copulations, it isn't clear, for example, whether
women are attuned to the actual physical symmetry of potential sexual partners or whether symmetry correlates with something else (self-confidence,
unknown pheromones·, cosmic emanations, whatever).
In any event, it is also interesting to .note that in the study just described,
the number of a woman's out-of-pair partners correlated with her "emotional attachment style." Each subject (male and female) was given an
"attachment index," based on two different styles: "avoidant attachment"
or "anxious attachment. " Avoidant attachment included agreement or disagreement with such statements as "I am nervous whenever anyone gets too
close to me,, while a typical sample item for the anxious-attachment scale
would be "I often worry that my partner doesn't really love me." The
results? Women with a higher level of anxious attachment had more out-ofpair lovers, whereas those with a higher level of avoidant attachment had
fewer. A woman's degree of physical symmetry did not predict her number
of out-of-pair partners.
These combined findings are consistent with the basic biology of
male-female differences: Men's out-of-pair sex correlated with a physical
trait that presumably says something about their desirability, whereas
women's out-of-pair sex correlated with a mental trait that presumably
says something about their willingness to have such a relationship. The
78 1HE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
implication is that men are generally willing, that women are generally
able, and that women are most sexual with men who are symmetrical.
T
his much is clear: Females are inclined to have EPCs with males who
have good genes. And as we have seen, "good genes" can include
many things: being sufficiently different from the female in question
(but not too different), being genetically complementary in other ways, or
carrying health-related genes. But this isn't all. If certain characteristics
(symmetry, bright plumage) indicate good genes .and if, as a result, females
are at an evolutionary advantage if they prefer these characteristics, then the
stage is set for yet another wrinkle in the EPC saga: Females can benefit by
preferring those males whose only virtue is that they are preferred by other
females! Such a preference might well begin with traits that are "genuine,"
such as symmetry or bright plumage, but as the pioneering evolutionary
geneticist R. A. Fisher pointed out decades ago, it could quickly develop a
life of its own.
.
Indeed, there have been studies showing that in some cases female choice
is driven by nothing other than feinale choice itself; that is, females sometimes choose mates not because they produce healthier or longer-lived offspring, but simply because those offspring-especially the sons-are themselves likely to be chosen by the next generation of females. This idea, now
known as the "sexy son hypothesis," • suggests that females may choose
males simply because other females (a generation later) are likely to have the
same preference. As a result, a female is well advised to be seduced by sexy
males, even if these males are not exceptionally healthy or even likely to produce exceptionally healthy offspring, so long as the female's sons will be
"sexy" ... that is, attractive to the next generation of females. A kind of
bandwagon effect.
For example, in a species of sandfly, females evince clear preference as to
mates. In one experiment, females were denied the opportunity to exercise
choice and were forced to mate with either preferred males or males who
would otherwise be shunned. There was no impact of paternity on the overall health or viability of their offspring. But the offspring of preferred males
were themselves preferred, just as shunned males produced sons who were
shunned in turn.
When it comes to EPCs, females of many species are especially likely to
mate with males who are more attractive than their partner. You can almost
hear the females-whether already mated or not-spotting the animal
equivalent of a movie star and sighing to themselves: "I want to have his
kids." If so, the reason appears to be that, at an unconscious level, they can
UNDERMINING THE MYTH: FEMALES (CHOOSING MALE GENES) 79
hear the echoes of other females saying the same thing about their future offspring, thereby promising a larger number of grandchildren for the besotted, starstruck, would-be mother ... who is now a candidate for one or
more extra-pair copulations with the lucky hunk.
The converse also holds: Make a male less attractive, and his mate is
more likely to look elsewhere for male genes. There is, for example, a small,
strikingly colored socially monogamous Euroasian bird known as a
bluethroat. Males have-not surprisingly-bright-blue throats; female
throats are white. When researchers from the University of Oslo, in Norway,
used dye to diminish the blueness of their mates' throats, female bluethroats
were more likely to engage in EPCs. (It is also interesting that the de-blued
males apparently perceived somehow that they were less attractive than
before, perhaps because of changes in their mates' behavior, since they increased their mate-guarding activities, although to no avail.)
Female choice can also be influenced by what is popular or stylish at the
moment. The phenomenon has been called "mate copying." Here's how it
works: A female guppy is given a choice between two different males. This
female then observes · the male she had rejected being chosen by another
female (actually, an artificial model of a female, manipulated by the experimenters). Then the choice test is repeated, whereupon the female is likely
to change her mind and prefer the male she had initially rejected but whom
she had subsequently observed to be "popular." Not only that, but younger
females are likely to copy the preferences shown by older females.
There is abundant evidence that sexy males get more EPCs, independent,
perhaps, of whether they are really healthier or carrying genes that are "better" in any other sense. Male swallows whose forked tails are artificially
lengthened obtain a mate 10 days earlier than normal males; they are eight
times more likely to mate again and produce a second brood; and they are
twice as likely to have one or more EPCs with an already-mated female. In
one especially impressive study, three different kinds of male barn swallows
were created: those whose tail forks were shortened, those whose tail forks
were lengthened, and a control group whose tails were cut but then glued
back together with no change. The results: Extra-pair offspring made up
about 60 percent of the nestlings associated with tail-shortened males, as
compared to 40 percent of controls and about 12 percent of males whose
tails had been artificially elongated. At the same time, the number of biological young reared in their nests increased directly with tail length.
Among house sparrows, long forked tails don't make a male sexy; large
black throat patches do. Males engaging in EPCs are particularly likely to
have impressive throat patches, and females are more likely to be involved
in an EPC with a male whose black throat patch is larger than that of their
80 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
"husband." A co�parable finding applies to another type of bird, the zebra
finch, among whom male attractiveness depends on the color of the beak
(in the world of zebra finches, a red beak is "hot"). Researchers have even
found that, in the case of zebra finches, the color of leg bands, installed by
the experimenters, influences male attractiveness and, thus, females' penchant for EPCs. Again, red is desirable: Females mated to males sporting red
bands are unlikely to mate outside the pair, while those mated to greenbanded males are more likely to have "affairs," with the resulting young
fathered by more appealing males.
In the preceding examples, if the females' goal was to increase the genetic
diversity of their offspring, then all females should be equally inclined to
EPCs. On the other hand, if increasing genetic quality or attractiveness is the
goal, then females mated with particularly low-quality males should be especially EPC-prone (which they are). If there are only a few good males-and
especially if these are very good-then EPCs should be particularly frequent.
By contrast, if all males are pretty much so-so, EPCs would offer less genetic
payoff. We can also predict that EPCs should be less frequent on islandswhere genetic diversity is low-than on mainlands, where it is high. Similarly for populations that have recently gone through a genetic "bottleneck," resulting in less genetic diversity: Free-living cheetahs, for example,
are notoriously inbred and lacking in genetic diversity; it seems likely that
female cheetahs are not especially inclined to multiple mating or susq:ptible
to EPCs.
E volution often works in strange and unexpected ways. This is certainly true when it comes to female preference for particular male
traits. Thus, in addition to · possibly preferring males who make
enough sperm and who carry genes that are suitably varied, complementary,
health-related, and sexy, there is good reason to think that females may even
favor certain males based on characteristics of their sperm alone.
After all, not all sperm are created equal. Those from different males differ in the likelihood that they will succeed in fertilizing an egg. Studies have
been conducted in which a wide range of animals-insects, chickens, mice,
rabbits, pigs, cattle-were inseminated with similar amounts of sperm from
two or three males. The findings are that, in nearly every case, sperm from
a particular male are far more effective than those of other males. There are
many reasons for this: Sperm come in different shapes and sizes and with
different metabolisms, swimming abilities, and chemical characteristics-all
of which can influence sperm motility, longevity, ability to penetrate the egg,
ability to survive within the female genital tract, and so forth.
UNDERMINING THE MYTH: FEMALES (CHOOSING MALE GENES) 81
Since males differ in their capacity to fertilize eggs, it is quite reasonable
that females would set up situations that exaggerate these differences. Why?
Because it would benefit females to be fertilized by high-fertilizing males,
since their own male offspring would then be likely to be high-fertilizers
themselves. (We have already encountered the "sexy son hypothesis." Now,
meet its close relative, the "sexy sperm hypothesis.")
The simplest way for females to ensure that they are fertilized by sperm
that are sexy-or, at least, successful in sperm-sperm competition-is for
the females-to set up competitions; that is, to mate with more than one
male. And this is precisely what many females do. Columbian ground
squirrel females, for example, are in estrus for only about four hours per
year, yet during this brief window of sexual opportunity, female ground
squirrels are very busy, copulating with an average of 4.4 males. In another
species of ground squirrel, females are in estrus for less than seven hours
per year, and yet during this period, they copulate with an average of 6 to
7 males. And there is no reason to think that ground squirrel females are
especially sexually profligate: Even when monogamy is not at issue, multiple mating by females is widespread, and sperm competition may well be
the major reason.
But the story is far from over. If females profit by staging sperm competition, it stands to reason that they would profit even more if they could
make the competition especially intense by creating a genital environment
that is challenging and difficult, not only consisting of many different participants but also outfitted with obstacles both mechanical and physiological. For example, by extending the length of one's genital tract, the
swimming capacity of sperm is highlighted. Insects and spiders are especially notorious for having tortuous reproductive systems, a series of
lengthy gauntlets through which sperm must swim. May the best manrather, the best sperm-win. (The resulting pattern has been called "cryptic female choice, " something likely to be especially important in cases
when females have relatively little opportunity for choosing a mating partner more overtly. )
Incidentally, there is nothing unique about females setting high standards
for would-be suitors: defend a territory, engage in suitable (and often difficult) courtship rituals, provide lots of food during and after courtship, win
a jousting tournament, slay a dragon, swim the Hellespont, and so forth.
Consider, for example, that chimpanzee females commonly mate with many
different males. It is probably no coincidence that male chimpanzees, in
addition to sporting exceptionally large testicles (enabling them to produce
large quantities of sperm), also have long penises. A longer penis almost certainly gives its possessor's sperm an advantage, since they could be deposited
82 THE MY1H OF MONOGAMY
closer to the cervix. This, in turn, would be especially significant if sperm
from more than one male are competing within a female, which of course is
precisely what happens if the female mates with multiple males while she is
ovulating. (And this is exactly what female chimps do.) ·
In one study, detailed measurements of 11 males and 19 females showed
that in 10 of the 11 males, penis length actually exceeded the vaginal depth
of 14 of the 19 females! This is not as strange as it might appear, since the
length of a chimpanzee's vagina varies with her menstrual cycle, becoming
maximum when the pink sexual skin is maximally swollen, which is also at
the time of ovulation. Among some females, vaginal length increases during
ovulation by as much as 50 percent. As a result, 7 of the 11 males described
above would have been unable to reach the cervix of any of the 19 females,
while the remaining 4 would only be capable of reaching some of them. By
increasing the length of their vaginas when they ovulate, female chimpanzees make it more difficult for males to fertilize them, giving an advantage to sexual partners who produce sperm that are especially abundant,
mobile, capable of withstanding the rigors of the vaginal environment, and
delivered by a long penis. (Is this why the vaginas of ovulating chimps grow
longer? Good question.)
Strangely enough, among all species practicing internal fertilization, it is
virtually unknown for the male to introduce his sperm directly upon the
female's eggs, which would result in immediate fertilization. Always the eggs
are kept back, deeper inside, while the sperm are deposited in some sort of
antechamber, from which they must proceed along various twisty canals, ·
sluiceways, and storage containers, often lined with cilia (which not uncommonly beat in the opposite direction), traversing what-for a tiny spermmust seem like hundreds of miles, generally through rather inhospitable terrain, chemically debilitating if not outright lethal, and, as if th<lt were not
enough, frequently patrolled by comparatively huge and aggressive spermeating phagocytes.
In an article titled "Why Do Females Make It So Difficult for Males to
Fertilize Their Eggs?", biologists Tim Birkhead, Anders M0ller, and W. J.
Sutherland emphasized that "in terms of its structure, chemical composition
and immune response, the female reproductive tract of mammals and birds
is particularly hostile to sperm" and that, as a result, females are likely to be
fertilized by the fittest sperm or, at least, to minimize the risk that they will
be fertilized by the "worst." Imagine that males differ in their ability to overcome such female hostility. A female who indiscriminately allows any male
to fertilize her eggs is likely to produce sons who themselves will only be
able to fertilize a small subset of the females in their generation. By contrast,
by setting up' a difficult and demanding obstacle course, a female makes it
likely that her sons will be able to fertilize most females.
UNDERMINING THE MYTH: FEMALES (CHOOSING MALE GENES) 83
If it were in the interests of females to make fertilization easy, it would
not require much of a .stretch in evolutionary potential to imagine a very different situation, in which sperm were ejaculated ontq--or, at worst, very
near-the eggs they were "intended" to fertilize. But although it is assuredly
in the interests of females for fertilization to occur (just as it is in the interest of males), there is very little reason for females to make it easy. Indeed,
there are good reasons to make it difficult. Or rather, one good reason:
sperm competition.
"The phrase sperm competition," according to entomologist and evolutionary theorist William Eberhard, "evokes the image of armies of tiny, onetailed soldiers racing up female ducts, or struggling in hand-to-hand combat
to gain access to large, passive treasures. It emphasizes, as has been traditional in biology, the active male role in male-female interactions."
But in fact, as Eberhard points out, females may well hold the key to victory in sperm competition:
Simple, relatively insignificant movements of the female, such as a
few "downstream" peristaltic twitches of her reproductive tract, or
beating in the wrong direction of the cilia lining the reproductive tract,
can result in the army of little "warriors" being unceremonio.usly
dumped from her body, or being diverted to other internal sites where
they will be digested.
Responding, in all likelihood, to female maneuvering, male insects, for
example, engage in a wide array of peculiar antics during copulation.
William Eberhard, one last time: "Males of different insect species lick,
tap, rub, push, kick, stroke, shake, squeeze, feed, sing to, and vibrate the
female during copulation." All this, it seems, in an effort to overcome the
female's resistance.
Females set up numerous barriers to fertilization; for example, the vaginas of most mammals have a very low pH, which is detrimental to the survival of sperm. The traditional explanation for an acidic vagina is that it
reduces the danger of microbia1 infection. Supposedly, therefore, females do
what they have to do-that is, acidify their reproductive tracts�to protect
themselves, leaving sperm to cope however they can. Once females have
opted to lower their vaginal pH, males must attempt to deliver sperm that
will make the best of their difficult situation. With lots of sperm being produced, at least some have a good chance of making it. (And after all, any
males that elected to opt out of the competition would be truly left out, supplanted by those that took the plunge, however acidic.)
At the same time-and here is the new twist-females are free to 1ower
their pH even more, giving rise to additional male-male competition,
84 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
resulting perhaps in acid-resistant, armored gladiatorial sperm whose voyaging capacity might rival that of Marco Polo, seminal secretions that temporarily increase pH, and so forth. Either way, females could in this manner
end up using their low vaginal pH as a kind of sperm-screening device.
The female reproductive tract is notoriously unfriendly to sperm in
other respects. Not uncommonly, the cervix is home to millions of leukocytes (white Qlood cells) that in other contexts devour bacterial invaders
but that have quite an appetite for invading sperm as well; after all, sperm,
too, are foreign to the female's body. Among human beings in particular,
there are also high concentrations of antisperm antibodies in the cervical
mucus. And to make things harder yet, female reproductive anatomy is typically el::tborate, with eggs reachable only after sperm have completed a
lengthy, twisty, and difficult upstream migration. Even then, sperm do not
typically receive a warm hero's welcome: Eggs themselves are often stubbornly difficult to penetrate.
The effectiveness of these various antisperm defenses is attested by the
fact that only a minute proportion of the vast numbers of sperm introduced
into a female even get near her eggs. Until recently, this has widely been seen
as due to the vagaries of chance, but the point is that it may not be a matter of chance at all; rather, antifertilization barriers may be specifically
erected by females. It would be especially interesting to see if species characterized by a high level of EPCs turn out to be those in which female reproductive tracts are especially tortuous or possess a high level of antisperm
antibodies, a particularly low vaginal pH, eggs that are unusually difficult
to penetrate, and so forth.
At the same time, researchers must beware a tendency to overinterpret
the mating advantages enjoyed by certain males over others, seeing any such
imbalance as evidence that females are necessarily promoting sperm competition when they might not be doing anything of the sort. For example, it
was found that when female dungflies copulate with large and small males,
the former fertilize the lion's share of the eggs. Tempting as it is to attribute
this to active selection by females of the sperm of large males, it turns out
that this large-male advantage is simply due to the fact that large .males
transfer sperm at a higher rate. Nonetheless, it seems increasingly clear that
in many cases-perhaps most-females are active participants in their own
fertilization, not just in the choice of whom they mate with but also regarding what happens afterward.
If a female has only one sexual partner, there is no payoff for her in
making things difficult for him. But if she mates with several males, it
would probably be in a female's interest for her eggs to be "hard to get"­
guarded, like Sleeping Beauty, by dragons, impenetrable thornbushes, and
UNDERMINING THE MYTH: FEMALES (CHOOSING MALE GENES) 85
other daunting barriers. The successful Prince Charming should be not
only charming, but also persevering and capable of producing sperm that
are equally so.
But at the same time, females would be ill advised to carry this too far.
Fussy is fine, but those who set the bar so high that no male could succeed
in fertilizing their eggs would be strongly selected against, outcompeted by
those whose expectations are more modest and realistic. Therefore, even the
most well-defended egg-bearers are likely to be penetrated eventually-and
when they are, it is likely to be by the most well-endowed males, possibly
with a little help from the females themselves.
We might call it the Atalanta solution, after the Greek story of Atalanta
and Hippomenes. According to master myth-recounter Thomas Bulfinch,
Atalanta was as fleet-footed as she was lovely, and quite a catch in more
ways than one:
To all suitors (for she had many) she imposed a condition which
was generally effectual in relieving her of their persecutions-"! will
be the prize of him who shall conquer me in a race; but death must
be the penalty of all who try and fail." In spite of this hard condition
some would try. Hippomenes was to be judge of the race. " Can it be
possible that any will be so rash as to risk so much for a wife?" said
he. But when he saw her lay aside her robe for the race, he changed
his mind, and said, "Pardon me, youths, I knew not the prize you
were competing for. " As he surveyed them he wished them all to be
beaten and swelled with envy of any one that seemed at all likely to
win. While such were his thoughts, the virgin darted forward. As she
ran she looked more beautiful than ever. The breezes seemed to give
wings to her feet; her hair flew over her shoulders. . . . All her
competitors were distanced, and were put to death without mercy.
Hippomenes, not daunted by this result, fixing his eyes on the virgin,
said, "Why boast of beating those laggards? I offer myself for the
contest."
Atalanta looked at him with a pitying countenance, and hardly
knew whether she would rather conquer him or not. "What god can
tempt one so young and handsome to throw himself away? I pity
him, not for his beauty (yet he is beautiful), but for his youth. I wish
he would give up the race, or if he will be so mad, I hope he may
outrun me."
Hippomenes could not outrun Atalanta, but he got some help from
Venus. The goddess of love obligingly provided Hippomenes with three
86 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
golden apples, which, at strategic points during the race, he threw down.
And Atalanta, equally obliging, stopped to pick them up. As a result,. Hippomenes won the race-and Atalanta.
I
n this chapter, we have sampled part of the female perspective on extrapair copulations, concentrating on the EPC partner's genes. Next, we
continue our female focus, turning to some other considerations.
CHAPTER FOUR
Undermining the Myth: Females
(Other Considerations )
"
S
eek simplicity," advised Alfred North Whitehead, "and then distrust
it. " In the previous chapter, we sought to understand why females
engage in EPCs by looking simply at female choice of male genes. (In
the process, we found that even this "one" explanation is a far cry from ,
simplicity, connected as it is to matters of fertilization, health, diversity,
dominance, desirability, "sexy sons," and sperm competition-the latter
perhaps engineered by females.) Now we turn to other factors, each of
which appears to offer the seductive Siren call of simplicity, although in
reality each is complex and subtly entwined with many others. Such
understanding is a consummation devoutly to be sought ... and then,
perhaps, distrusted.
When done by males, EPCs are indeed interesting but, in a sense, unremarkable, since they are a logical, "simple" extension of the expected male
sexual strategy: Given what it means to be male (i.e., a producer of comparatively cheap, easily replaced sperm), we can expect males, even · if
already mated, to be "fast and loose," and undeterred even if their extrapair partner is also already mated. If males are successful in garnering additional copulations, and if these copulations are with fertile females, they
generate their own evolutionary reward, because any gene-influenced tendency to engage in EPCs will be promoted into the next generation. In
short, an EPC is likely to be a male success or, more precisely, a success for
the EPC-inclined genes residing within such males.
88 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
At the · same time, from the perspective of the female involved-and
assuming said female gains in the process-a departure from monogamy is
just as validly a female strategy. Females, no less than males, have much to
gain from EPCs. Biologists, too, have much to gain by acknowledging this,
and recently they have begun to do so. There has been, in fact, a substantial
change in focus on the part of many biologists, and the result has been a
. more nuanced and accurate sense of how living things go about their lives.
Instead of limiting themselves to the male's perspective ana identifying animal social systems as polygyny, monogamy, or monogamy plus adultery
( "mixed male strategies"), researchers are talking more these days about
polyandry: one female mating with many males, regardless of the apparent
social system.
In the past, the word polyandry was restricted to those exceedingly rare
cases in which a single female is simultaneously bonded to more than one
male. But, increasingly, we see that a domestic system that is ostensibly
monogamous (one male/one female) or even polygynous (one male/many
females) may be genetically polyandrous, with the female mating with more
than one male, regardless of what the social system appears to be.
At the risk of overdosing on terminology, it is time to employ a new
term, increasingly used by biologists: monandrous (literally "one male"), to
be distinguished from polyandrous ( "many males"). It has the virtue of
introducing-finally-a female-centered perspective into the study of
mating systems. Using the word polygynous, for example, to describe the
sexual life of a harem-forming species may be useful in presenting the perspective of the male: Polygynous means many females, and a successful
polygynous male gets to mate with many females. But what about the
females' viewpoint? Calling them polygynous implies that they are limited
to mating with one male, the harem-keeper. In fact, we used to think that
polygyny meant multiple mating for the male, single mating for the females.
But not any longer. Polygynously mated females can be faithful to the one
harem-keeper, in which case they are also monandrous ("one male"). But
now we know that even in harem-dwelling species, females sometimes have
additional EPCs with outside males, in which case they are polyandrous as
well as polygynously mated.
So, it is useful to employ some new words, reflecting our new understanding. Monandrous ("one male") means that a female mates with just
one male. Thus, a socially monogamous female may also be monandrous,
in which case her sexual life matches her social life-she mates only . with
one male. Or she might combine social monogamy with genetic polyandry,
having EPCs with more than one male. Similarly, a polygynous (haremdwelling) fe.D).ale may be monandrous-mating only with one male, presumably the harem-keeper-or she might be both polygynous and polyan-
UNDERMINING THE MYTH: FEMALES (OTHER CONSIDERATIONS) 89
drous-socially part of one male's harem but likely to be involved sexually
with one or more additional males, via EPCs.
Note to Lord Whitehead: It is one thing to seek simplicity, quite another
to find it. (Distrusting the results is yet another matter!)
W
hy do females copulate so frequently? After all, it seems clear that
females don't have to be inseminated very often just to get their
eggs fertilized. Since eggs are much larger than sperm, they are
necessarily produced in much smaller numbers. Just a handful of matings
should therefore suffice. In a now-classic and much-cited study published in
1948, geneticist A. J. Bateman placed a limited number of male and female
fruit flies in small containers and then observed their sexual behavior as well
as the reproductive outcome. Obviously, zero copulations resulted in zero
reproduction, for either sex. And the breeding payoff of a single copulation
was pretty much the same for males and females (although not identical,
since a female's breeding success nearly always jumped ahead with her first
mating, whereas a male's sometimes didn't, if he copulated with an alreadyfertilized female).
One of Bateman's most influential findings was that beyond the initial
mating, the reproductive success of males increased substantially with additional copulations, whereas that of females did not. Or rather, it increased
much more slowly and reached the point of diminishing returns more rapidly. This is because a female's eggs, once successfully fertilized, cannot be
fertilized any more, whereas a male can-at least in theory-fertilize additional females each time, until there are no more candidates.
But, in fact, females of many different species copulate many time's, more
than seems necessary to get their eggs fertilized. Most of the time, this apparent sexual excess takes place with the same male and within the identified
social unit; that is, they are IPCs rather than EPCs. But as we shall see, EPCs
may nonetheless be implicated.
Kestrels (sparrow hawks) copulate nearly 700 times per clutch. Female
lions copulate on average every 15 minutes-day and night-throughout
their frenetic, four-day estrous cycle. Generally, when such high mating frequencies are found, it is the female who is the initiator. Indian crested porcupines copulate every day throughout their estrus, pregnancy, and lactation, although in this species females are fertile for only slightly more than
1 percent of their estrus (and not at all when pregnant or lactating).
The traditional explanation for such behavior has long been that nonreproductive sex of this sort helps to maintain or enhance the pair-bond (as in
at least one species, Homo sapiens). This seems eminently reasonable, but ·
not sufficient. It is simple and, as such, worthy of distrust. Why does a high
'
90 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
frequency of copulations enhance the pair-bond ... assuming that it does
so? On an immediate, "proximate" level, we might conclude that frequent
matings generate sexual satisfaction and that this is reason enough. But why
should females be wired to be "satisfied" in this way, especially if such
behavior is not needed for fertilization?
One possibility-potentially disconnected from the question of EPCsis mate assessment. Since it takes time and energy for a male to copulate, a
female could assess a male's vigor and health by his sexual ability and inclination. Repeated matings also seem important in pair-formation. Newlywed kittiwake gulls copulate more often than old married couples, a phenomenon to which nearly all human beings can also attest. Although male
sexual inadequacy is occasionally cited by women as the reason for seeking
a divorce, there are remarkably few animal parallels, that is, cases in which
a female abandons her mate when he reveals himself to be sexually unenthusiastic, inadequate, or just plain uninspiring. There are also few animal
examples of what might be called the "Lady Chatterley option, " after .
D. H. Lawrence's novel in which the wife of the paraplegic Lord Chatterley, erotically frustrated by her husband's incapacity, has a series of EPCs
with her virile gamekeeper. Lady Chatterley is pictured as aroused and
downright awe-struck by her lover's erect penis, although this may tell us
more about Lawrence's erotic imaginings than about the realities of female
sexual psychology.
On the other hand, something similar may be common in the natural
word, motivated not so much by a mate's shortcomings as a lover as by his
inadequacy as an inseminator: As we have seen, females of several species
have been known to respond to their mate's diminished fertility by engaging
in EPCs with other, more reproductively competent males. Sexual performance as such could be used by females as a secondary sexual characteristic
analogous to the "sexy son hypothesis": A sexually voracious female kestrel, lion, or Indian porcupine may thus be more a tactician than a nympho- ,
maniac, substituting her mate's sexual enthusiasm and capacity for what in .
other species is. provided by an irresistibly dark throat patch, bright feathers, or impressively forked tail.
.
In the above cases, EPCs lurk in the background, an option for females
if their males should fail their sexual exams. In others, EPOi may be more
directly responsible. Females might well copulate repeatedly with a preferred mate so as to swamp sperm already received-for example, via a
forced copulation-from a less valued male. Even if not rape victims,
females may occasionally acquiesce in EPCs because giving in is less costly
than resisting (more on this later). In such cases, a female may then attempt
to rectify her situation (i.e., inseminated by a less-desirable male) by repeatedly copulating with a preferred one-who also happens to be her mate.
UNDERMINING THE MYTH: FEMALES (OTHER CONSIDERATIONS) 91
Or maybe females seek to ensure fertilization by a preferred male after
having recently copulated with one or more other males whose genes they
may esteem less but who, in return for being granted EPCs by the female,
provide other benefits such as additional courtship feeding, the opportunity
to forage on their territory, the promise of parental assistance for any young
produced, and so on. High in-pair copulation frequency may also be a
female's way of preventing polygyny or of keeping her male from partaking
of his own EPCs.
Possibilities abound. For example, by copulating frequently, a female
could increase her mate's confidence that he is the father, making him less
likely to desert, more likely to help, and perhaps also less inclined to seek
. EPCs. Such enhanced confidence might or might not be justified: Frequent
copulation probably does suggest a higher probability of paternity, but it
isn't beyond the capacities of many animals to deceive their mates as to
likely paternity in order to keep the male nearby and also more inclined to
help take care of the kids.
Finally, an oft-copulating female might not simply be acting on her sexual motivation; she may also be signaling that she is sexually inclined.
Throughout the animal world, such inclinations are generally at least somewhat correlated with ovulation and could therefore influence her mate to
stick around and mate-guard ... since EPCs loom as the alternative.
" I t is a truth, universally acknowledged," writes Jane Austen in the
famous opening sentence of Pride and Prejudice, "that a single man, in
possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." She goes on:
However little known the feelings or views of such a man may
be on his first entering a neighborhood, this truth is so well fixed in
the minds of surrounding families that he is considered the rightful
property of some one or other of their daughters.
Less universally acknowledged is the appeal of material resources to
those daughters themselves, an appeal that may be so great that a man "in
possession of a good fortune" may obtain copulations even if he is not single, or not "in want of a wife." In short, females may be inclined toward
EPCs even if they are not prospecting for genes-if the material rewards
are sufficient.
Red-billed gulls, studied off the coast of New Zealand, show a common
pattern: Females who are well fed during courtship resist all EPC attempts,
and they also remate with their partner the following year; on the other
hand, females who had been poorly provisioned are especially likely to
92 THE MYfH OF MONOGAMY
divorce in the future ap.d are more likely to submit to EPCs-and even to
solicit them. We have already reviewed a similar pattern among ospreys,
another species in which males are expected to provide substantial calories
and in which females engage in EPCs if their mates slack off.
It is at least possible that among species such as ospreys and red-billed
gulls, which generally form long-term pair-bonds and which invest heavily
in producing chicks and then caring for them, males . are better off taking
good care of their wives rather than spending their time and energy gallivanting. After all, in such species, males that switch partners end up with
fewer successful offspring than do those who remain faithful and affiliated.
In such cases, as red-billed gull expert J. A. Mills concludes, "the attentive
prosper. " Marital virtue-in this case, bringing home the bird equivalent of
"the bacon"-may be its own reward, or rather, it can lead to higher reproductive rewards. Ditto for female fidelity, in all likelihood, but with the
added proviso that if your male isn't a good provider, you might be better
off mating with someone else.
There is a hard-hearted but deep-seated logic in females exchanging sex
for resources and, if possible (or necessary), looking elsewhere for sex in the
event that adequate resources aren't forthcoming from one's own mate.
Among human beings, there is a long cross-cultural history of women being
wooed by display of resources and being disaffected by material want. There
. is also a long cross-cultural history of men, whether married or not, using
money to obtain sex from women, who also may or may not be married.
Moreover, even if prostitution isn't the world's oldest profession, it is
without doubt one of the most widespread. And there is a difference only in
degree between the prostitute who offers sexual services in return for a fee
and the mistress who makes a similar exchange with a man who may be
married but who has sufficient resources to provide her with various material benefits: an apartment, fancy clothing, jewelry, luxurious meals and
vacations, and so forth. To be sure, the man "keeping" a mistress or visiting a prostitute is not attempting to reproduce, nor-in virtually all casesis the woman. But in trading sex-often EPCs-for resources, people are
almost certainly re�ponding to an ancient connection, one that recent research has made increasingly evident.
The animal world is similarly filled with examples of females providing
sexual access to themselves in exchange for resources controlled by males.
Among the purple-throated Carib hummingbirds, males defend territories
containing as many flowering trees of a particular, highly valued species as
possible, aggressively chasing away other males. Interestingly, they also attack trespassing females ... except those that solicit copulations. The technical article describing this system is aptly titled "Prostitution Behavior in a
Tropical Hummingbird."
UNDERMINING THE MYTH: FEMALES (OTHER CONSIDERATIONS) 93
Another example comes from an odd little bird-the orange-rumped
honeyguide--that lives in Nepal and loves to eat beeswax. Beehives, not surprisingly, are highly valued and are defended energetically by male honeyguides. To obtain the treasured beeswax, a female must first copulate with
the proprietor male. In the world of orange-rumped honeyguides, "those
that have, get, " and those that don't, don't. Indeed, only hive-owning males
do any mating, and one particularly "wealthy" male was observed to copulate 46 times with at least 18 different females during one breeding season.
In other cases, the concept of male as "provider" is taken even more literally, to the extent that the successful male may appear less enviable, at
least to the human observer. Thus, certain spider species practice female
sexual cannibalism, by which females profit directly from multiple copulations if only because they get to eat their numerous sexual partners.
Although there is little obvious benefit from consuming just one male (especially since, in such species, the males tend to be much smaller than their
voracious mates), multiple matings offer females the alluring prospect of a
multicourse meal. It is conceivable that in such cases, the material benefit of
munching on males--even more than mating with them-is what drives
females to copulate as often as they do.
The insect world is especially rich in peculiar patterns of this sort,
whereby females gain material benefits in unexpected ways. For example, in
a species of moth, adults and eggs achieve protection from their predators
via certain chemicals known as pyrrolizidine alkaloids (PAs). The moths
cannot synthesize PAs; they have to obtain them from plants they eat ormore efficiently-from a male who has eaten these plants. Males secrete
PAs into their spermatophores, large blobs of proteinaceous goo that are
transferred to the female during mating and are consumed by her, whereupon they protect her and her eggs. Male moths attract females by use · of
specialized chemicals, pheromones, and the most effective pheromones-the
ones most likely to turn on a female moth-are those containing large doses
of PAs.
N
o one ever considered chimps monogamous. They have long been
known, in fact, for the diverse, inscrutable, amorphous complexity
· of their sex lives. Alternatively, one might say that chimpanzee sexual arrangements were notorious for their simplicity: their lack of structure.
But the former interpretation-complexity-is more likely accurate. Some
tantalizing new discoveries about the sex lives of chimps have begun shedding light not only on Pan troglodytes themselves but also on yet another
reason why females may engage in EPCs: recruiting lovers to provide enhanced care and protection of their offspring.
94 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
Female chimpanzees in heat will sometimes associate preferentially
with one male, with the duo occasionally even isolating themselves from
other troop members for several days to a few weeks. More often, a dominant male may monopolize (or attempt to monopolize) sexual access to a
given female, especially when her anogenital swelling indicates that she is
at peak fertility. Most commonly of all, females will copulate with many
different males in their troop, although even in this case they seem especially prone to being inseminated by the most dominant adult male, since
they are most likely to have sex with him when they are ovulating. At the
same time, however, chimpanzees were at least thought to restrict their
promiscuity (is "restricted promiscuity" an oxymoron?) to their own social
group. No more.
It had long been assumed that the reason adolescent female chimps disperse from their social group is to avoid inbreeding. It may still be. But now
it is also clear that females are not limited to the troop in which they reside;
rather, they can-and do-mate with other males on the sly.
It is now apparent-once again, as a result of modern DNA technology-that females actively seek and obtain mating partners from outside
their social unit. (Not quite an example of EPCs; we might call them
EGCs-extra-group copulations.) It had long been known, from field observations, that femaJes occasionally leave their troops for periods of a day or
more, although no one knew why.
Recently, however, a study of chimps in the Tai forest, Cote d'Ivoire,
found the answer. Females actively seek out mating partners from adjoining
groups. In 13 cases, mother-infant pairs were analyzed for their DNA content and the results compared with DNA profiles obtained for in-group
males. The results were startling: In 7 of these 13 cases, all the in-group males
could be excluded as possible fathers! So, the baby chimps must have been
fathered by males outside the mothers' group. Interestingly, all 7 of these
females were known to have left their troops during their estrous period, precisely when the infants in question would have been conceived. It is also
interesting that such absences are brief-in 4 cases, only one to two daysand, moreover, matings with nongroup males must be exceedingly furtive:
During 17 years of continuous observations, the sharp-eyed researchers
saw nary a one! (Without the DNA analysis, we would have had no way of
knowing about this furtive aspect of the love lives of female chimps.)
The researchers suggest that this behavior by females allows them to
choose from a wider variety of potential mating partners while still retaining the resources and social support of their in-group males. Another major
possibility: They gain toleration of their young when different troops interact. Males may well say to themselves, in effect: "I remember this female, an
old flame from several months ago. So maybe, just maybe, this cute little
baby is my kid! "
UNDERMINING THE MYTH: FEMALES (01HER CONSIDERATIONS) 95
Paternal perceptions of this sort, whether accurate or not, may turn out
to be especially important for the survival of young chimps. An ethically
troubling discovery-deriving initially from the pioneering research of primatologist Sarah Hrdy-has been that many animals practice infanticide. In
brief, the pattern is as follows: Among polygynous species, when the haremkeeping male is eventually deposed, the newly ascendant male not uncommonly embarks on a grisly policy of killing the nursing infants. Although
despicable by human moral standards, such behavior makes "good" evolu- ·
tionary sense, since after their youngsters are eliminated, nursing mothers
quickly resume ovulating, whereupon they are likely to mate with the new
harem-keeper ... despite the fact that he murdered their offspring. Insofar
as the unfortunate infants were sired by the preceding male, their fate is of
no biological concern to the newly ascendant infanticidal male. He is interested in his own progeny, not someone else's.
Female langur monkeys have even evolved an interesting counterstrategy.
If a female langur is in the late stages of pregnancy when a male takeover
occurs, she may undergo a "pseudo-estrus," developing swollen genitals and
a sexual appetite for the new harem-keeper. Then, when her offspring is born,
. the adult male is more likely to act paternal than infanticidal.
Among many species, including chimpanzees and numerous other primates, the danger of infanticide is not limited to the aftermath of male
takeovers. It is ever-present whenever two groups meet. However, as Sarah
Hrdy has pointed out, given that even hard-hearted adult males are concerned about their own progeny, it may be that by copulating with more
than one male, females introduce a degree of strategic uncertainty (or even
erroneous confidence) as to whether a male who has enjoyed a female's sexual favors may accordingly have fathered her offspring. If so, then EPCs
might serve as a kind of infanticide insurance, a means whereby females purchase a degree of immunity for their offspring.
Such a policy is not cheap. If purchased by chimpanzee females, it is at
the cost of substantial risks. For example, females are at risk of predation,
especially by leopards, while in transit between groups. Since male chimps
are larger than females and physically dominant over them, females can be
injured, even killed, when approaching a strange troop. In addition, there is
potential risk if home-group members (especially males) discover that a
female has been mating outside the social unit, although it isn't clear exactly
how they would find out, nor has such a discovery ever been documented.
Bear in mind that in addition to their occasional trysts, female chimps
also typically immigrate, as adolescents or occasionally as adults, into a
troop different from the one in which they were born. It may be that, at such
times, their prominent sexual swellings buy chimpanzee females a crucial
degree of social acceptance. (It is an interesting fact that newly immigrant
females often keep their sexual swellings for an unusually long time, and
96 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
when they have recently changed troops, even pregnant females often produce swellings ... something that does not normally happen when they
are less at risk.) It seems likely that estrous swellings are important "safeconduct passes" when an adult female encounters strange males.
It·would seem that males from the home troop would be especially sensitive to the absence of females, particularly if such absence correlated with
subsequent pregnancy. But at least in the Tai forest, females that mated with
neighboring-group males were not absent from their home group any more
than were those that mated exclusively within the troop, who occasionally
depart for other reasons, including "legitimate" consortships with in-group
males. So a female's absence from the group does not yield reliable cues as
to whether she has been inseminated by outsiders. This may be quite important, since it is evident that, in other circumstances, chimps are capable of
infanticide directed toward offspring obviously sired by outside males.
Hrdy's original suggestion was that females may engage in multiple mating so as to dupe males as to their paternity and thus obtain protection from
infanticide. She has since expanded that notion, suggesting that females may
also be inclined to mate with the male(s) best able and most likely to protect their young. From here, it is not much of a stretch to envision males displaying a degree of benevoknt behavior toward a female's existing offspring
as a part of their courtship tactics. It is well documented that among many
primates living in multi-male troops, females have a mating preference for
one particular male, or sometimes two.
University of Michigan primatologist Barbara Smuts has argued that.
female baboons mate preferentially with males with whom they have
already established close "friendships" and that, in return, the females gain
protection from aggression by other males toward themselves and their offspring. She reports that 91 percent of the time when a male defended a
female or her young children from other baboons, he was the female's
friend. Among the tiny rain-forest primates known as cotton-top tamarins,
males carry their benevolence toward their sexual partner's existing offspring to great lengths: They often mate while literally holding the adult
females' children.
Given that, among primates in particular, adult males are so often a
threat to a female's offspring by a different male, it is not surprising that a
male is more likely to win his lady-love's heart by showing that he is benevolently disposed toward her present offspring ... or, at least, is unlikely to
kill them.
T
his idea can be expanded further. It appears that females may often
choose their EPC partners with an eye toward finding lovers who
will not merely refrain from killing their offspring and will defend
UNDERMINING THE MYTH: FEMALES (OTHER CONSIDERATIONS) 97
them from other bloody-minded males, but who will also contribute other
forms of direct paternal care.
Female barn swallows, for instance, have an opportunity to assess the
quality of a male's future par�nting: by the type of nest he has built. In this
species, nest-building occurs after mating. It appears that effort expended in
nest-building serves as a "post-mating male sexual display," whereby males
indicate to their females that they are ready and willing to invest in reproduction. It turns out that female barn swallows actually invest more in
reproduction when their mates have constructed a large nest. Female barn
swallows, you may recall, prefer males with long, deeply forked tails, even
though such males provide less paternal care than do their less forked-tail
counterparts. So, if you are a male barn swallow, genetically bequeathed a
relatively short tail, all is not lost: To some extent, you can make up for it
by demonstrating by your assiduous nest-building that you are still worth a
female's attention. This is precisely what barn swallows do: Short-tailed
males spend more time and effort nest-building than do long-tailed males.
Female appreciation of males that are potentially good parents is not
limited, incidentally, to the comparatively brainy birds and mammals:
Among fish known as the sand goby, females are known to reject dominant
males in favor of those .that are good fathers. Male sand gobies do all the
parenting. On the other hand, in species with biparental care, a female who
succeeds in deceiving her social mate about an EPC with an especially
"paternal" male might receive a double dose of child-rearing assistance:
from her social mate as well as from her sexual partner-that is, from her ·
deceived "husband" as well as the actual father of her offspring.
We have already seen how in a small European songbird, the dunnock,
males provide paternal assistance in proportion as they have copulated with
the breeding female. Switching now to the female's perspective, it is entirely
possible that a female dunnock doles out copulations to the males in her
entourage, thereby leading each to believe that he is the likely father and to
respond by behaving parentally-in particular, by providing food for her
nestlings and, if need be, by defending them from predators. (This is reminiscent of the fabled grandmother who hugs her many grandchildren, whis-.
pering to each, in turn, "You are my favorite!")
It might therefore· be in the interest of female dunnocks to mate with a
large number of different males, so long as each can be similarly deceived.
For their part, males, especially if socially dominant, attempt to monopolize
the sexual attention of females, thereby maximizing their own reproductive
success. As a result, female dunnocks engage in vast amounts of copulatory
solicitation-sometimes more than 1,000 copulations per clutch. Not coincidentally, male dunnocks also have huge testes.
Another intriguing bit of dunnock lore: As part of precopulatory behavior, the male pecks at the female's cloaca; she responds by ejecting a small
98 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
drop of semen, the remains of her most recent copulation (likely with a different male). Probably she does this to convince her current mating prospect
that with his rival's sperm unceremoniously extruded, he has at least a
chance of fertilizing some of her eggs.
. Such deception is an option especially available to females that are fertilized internally, such as birds and mammals. In these cases, a male can
never be certain that he has fathered a female's offspring: "Mommy's babies;
Daddy's maybes." So, by permitting or even soliciting copulations, female
birds or mammals may essentially dangle the prospect of paternity before
gullible males. There are also many species that partake of external fertilization, as in numerous fishes and salamanders. In such cases, eggs and
sperm are extruded into the surrounding water, which-despite the greater
VU:lnerability of gametes to that water-at least gives males greater confidence of their paternity.
It is one thing for human fathers to be in the delivery room-and thus,
perhaps, more bonded to their children as a result of this innovation-quite
another for a male frog or fish to be literally present at the moment of conception, which happens in "public" instead of in the private confines of his
. mate's reproductive tract. At the same time, external fertilization can challenge females to ensure that their eggs get fertilized at all, especially when
there is a strong water current that threatens to dilute their partner's sperm.
One species of catfish has evolved a remarkable solution to this problem:
Female Corydoras aenus practice a unique form of oral sex: sperm drinking,
in which they place their mouth around the lower abdomen of the male. His
sperm pass with extraordinary speed as well as digestive immunity through
the female's stomach and intestines to emerge from her anus, whereupon
they fertilize her eggs in a protected space created when the female curls her
body and her pelvic fins.
Among fish and amphibians-in strong contrast to mammals-it is
quite common for males to provide parental care. This makes sense when
we consider that, in cases of external fertilization, male fish and amphibians commonly guard the eggs from the moment they are extruded from
the female's body; thus, they are able to ensure that they are the fathers.
Male birds, too, despite being internal fertilizers, often act paternally,
although one especially revealing experiment showed how such tendencies
are vulnerable to being exploited by savvy females, especially when such
females are in need of help. Male pied flycatchers (another species of small
songbird) were removed from the nest shortly after their females had laid
eggs. These females-'suddenly finding themselves potential single mothers-began soliciting copulations from other males, at least some of whom
then helped the females rear broods, even though they were not the genetic
fathers. Most likely, the males were duped; certainly, they are never
observed to assist in the rearing of brpods when they have not copulated
UNDERMINING THE MYTH: FEMALES (OTHER CONSIDERATIONS) 99
with the mother. The pattern is reminiscent of those female langur monkeys, suddenly presented with a new and potentially infanticidal male,
who respond with a seductive pseudo-estrus. Although female pied flycatchers do not have to worry about infantiCide, they nonetheless resp.ond
to the loss of their "husbands" in a langur-like way: soliciting copulations
from other males, some of whom are thereby recruited to assist with the
child-rearing.
T
he sad truth is that sometimes sex can be a chore ... especially, it
seems, for females, who must cope with males who are not only
more ardent but often physically dangerous as well as demanding. It
seems reasonable, therefore, that females may occasionally engage in EPCs
not because doing so is in their interest, but because it is simply easier for
them to go along than to resist. Such cases fall short pf rape but are nonetheless examples of sexual coercion.
For example, if a female bird is sexually accosted while incubating, it is
possible that resistance on her part might damage her eggs. Since most male
birds lack a penis, they are probably unable to physically force a copulation.
But they might nonetheless coerce an EPC by, in effect, threatening to
destroy the victim's existing eggs unless she complies. Thus, among some
species-including mallard ducks and indigo buntings-when females
engage in EPCs but typically do not solicit them, extra-pair copulations may
occur simply because the cost of just saying "no" is too great.
There may even be a physical cost to saying "yes." Among white ibis,
marsh-dwelling birds with unusually graceful down-curved bills, EPCs are
common-and so is theft. Male ibis never contribute nesting material to
their extra-pair mates; instead, they often steal such material from them! A
researcher of ibis mating behavior observed 164 cases of nesting-material
theft. Of these, 82.5 percent occurred immediately after an EPC attempt,
with the male intruder-evidently not content with trying to steal a copulation-also stealing from the nest.
Adding to the burden of EPC-ing females is violence, even when the
female does not resist: 16 percent of all EPC attempts in this species
involve males attacking females, jabbing and battering them with the tips
of their bills, sometimes removing feathers and drawing blood. The researcher reports:
Females that were chronically attacked, usually by particular males,
would become wary and leave their nests at the approach of any males
other than their mates. As a result, their nests were potentially more
prone to predation ... and nesting material theft than the nests of
unabused females.
100 THE MYlH OF MONOGAMY
Interestingly, this behavior was not characteristic of EPC-obtaining
males generally, but only of certain individuals: Fewer than one-quarter of
all males accounted for more than one-half of all such attacks, suggesting
that certain males were especially prone to "rough sex" as part of their EPC
tactics; it is also noteworthy that females tended to avoid such males. At the
same time, it is possible that if these males were not such aggressive brutes,
they wouldn't obtain any EPCs at all.
Here is another example of females acquiescing to multiple matings, if
not EPCs as ·such, in order to avoid the hassle of not mating with their
importunate suitors. Courting male Sierra dome spiders come and squat in
the web of nubile females, where they proceed to steal substantial numbers
of prey. Only after females finally break down and mate with them do the
freeloading males depart! Virtue may be its own reward, but for a beleaguered female Sierra dome spider, an even greater reward comes from giving the importunate males what they want ... so they'll get out of her hair
or, at least, her web.
At the same time, sometimes a little sexual jealousy can be a useful thing.
Female eider ducks, for example, enjoy a higher feeding rate when they are
attended by a guarding male. In these circumstances, the female is subjected
to less harassment by other males. R. E. Ashcroft, the biologist who first
described this phenomenon more than 25 years ago, believed that he had
identified an additional function of the pair-bond-diminished harassment-in this species. With growing awareness of the importance of EPCs,
it is now possible to see mate-guarding and even the pair-bond itself as a
response to the risk of EPCs, with such possible benefits as improved foraging efficiency likely to be at most a secondary by-product of the primary reason for such behavior: efforts by males to thwart EPCs.
Similarly, the mating choices of females may be driven by the payoff that
comes from keeping other importunate males at bay. We have already considered the hypothesis that female primates may be inclined to mate with
more than one male because, by doing so, prospective mothers may recruit
a cadre of expectant-father candidates who might therefore inhibit their otherwise infanticidal tendencies. Moreover, they might even choose males
especially likely to provide protection for their offspring. Such cagey sexuality-assuming, of course, that it occurs at all-need not be limited to primates. For example, female mallard ducks paired with attractive males produce heavier chicks than when paired with unattractive males. This might
conceivably be due to attractive males producing healthier offspring, but the
actual reason appears to be even more straightforward: Females paired with
desirable males lay larger eggs. No one knows the mechanism involved, but
it may be as simple as that females mated with more socially dominant
males aren't harassed as much by other males and are therefore able to feed
more efficiently. (More than a few women are familiar with the tactic of
UNDERMINING THE MYTH: FEMALES (OTHER CONSIDERATIONS) 101
choosing to spend the evening with the most physically imposing man at a
bar or nightclub, thereby purchasing a kind of social immunity for themselves ... at least insofar as being bothered by other males is concerned!)
Maybe one reason attractive males tend to invest less in their offspring
is that their females tend to invest more. There is ·evidence from a number
of different species that females often lay more eggs, each of which is larger
and heavier, and that they also feed their chicks more actively when mated
to an attractive male. Under these conditions-with females eagerly picking
up the slack, or at least the pace-perhaps it isn't so surprising that males
invest less! "Peahens Lay More Eggs," proclaimed the title of one noteworthy research article, "for Peacocks with Larger Trains."
A mong human beings, divorce is strongly correlated with EPCs, and
vice versa. Most people assume, in fact, that EPCs, once discovered,
lead to divorce. Indeed, adultery is among the most oft-cited grounds
for marital dissolution.
But causation may often go the other way: Couples heading for a
breakup are probably more likely to have EPCs. Carry this one step further-as some researchers have been doing in their studies of animals-and
we get this: One reason for engaging in extra-pair copulations may well be
to explore the possibility of divorcing one's current mate and reaffiliating
with the EPC partner.
Sometimes, this might' simply be another case of females in particular taking out a kind of insurance, analogous to the patterns of "fertilization insurance" described in Chapter 3. In this case, EPCs may be a suitable strategy
for a female who might find herself divorced, or widowed, in the future.
Even for the linguistically squeamish, it should be no more incongruous
to speak of animal "divorce" than to describe animal "courtship," "mating,"
"dominance hierarchies," "territories," "reproduction/' "parental care," or,
for that matter, to employ other words also used to describe the activities
of human beings, such as "eating," "sleeping," "migrating," "digesting,"
"copulating," "defecating," "respiring," and "perspiring."
First, let's note that divorce is not unknown among animals; just as
mateships are formed, they can be broken, and not only by the death of one
of the partners. Some animals (most eagles, geese, beavers, and possibly
foxes) are believed to mate "for life," but we are finding that even in these
species, individuals occasionally desert their mate and establish a relationship with someone else. Take, for example, gibbons, those long-armed apes
of Indonesia and Southeast Asia whose aerial acrobatics make them
favorites at zoos and who have been admired for another reason, too: They
were long considered paragons of lifetime monogamy. It is now clear, however, that permanent gibbon monogamy is a myth. Thus, one study has
102 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
referred to their "dynamic pair-bonds,". which is a nice way of saying that
the "pair-bond" among gibbons turns out to be less a bond than a band ...
a rubber band. Gibbon mating systems are so "dynamic" as to make us conclude that gibbons are swingers after all, and not just in matters of brachiation. Thus, of 11 heterosexual pairs observed in a long-term study in Sumatra, 5 were severed when one individual left its mate, typically to join a
neighboring adult of the opposite sex.
There are many possible reasons for pairs-animal no less than
human-to break up. These include incompatibility between them, either
partner sensing that it has a better option, recognition that one or the other
has made a mistake, a third-party intruder who forces a pair member out,
and so forth. It used to be thought that animal divorce resulted simply from
incompatibility (behavioral, genetic, physiological, even anatomical)
between the partners, in which case a breakup would be beneficial to both.
Thus, a renowned study of cliff-nesting gulls known as kittiwakes found
that the best predictor of divorce in this species was a failure to breed successfully the previous year.
An alternative view, recently advanced, is the so-called better options
hypothesis, which suggests that divorce results from a unilateral decision
made by one member of a mated pair seeking to improve his or her situation. This leads to the possibility that EPCs and divorce may be closely
related, if the former are a means whereby a female determines whether to
initiate the latter.
Thus, divorce and EPCs could be intimately connected as part of a
"mate-sampling" process by which females use EPCs to assess the quality of
potential mates prior to divorcing their current partner. A research paper
titled "Why Does the Typically Monogamous Oystercatcher ... Engage in
Extra-Pair Copulations?" answered that question as follows: to identify a
better mate. There is, however, an alternative possibility. Maybe EPCs occur
particularly when divorce is not an option! Assuming that most, if not all,
living things are inclined to "move up" if the option exists, an equally consistent strategy would be that if you cannot, and if you are stuck with a partner who is somehow inadequate-or, rather, less desirable than someone
else who might be available-then try EPCs.
A growing body of evidence suggests, however, that females engaging in
EPCs may be trying to pave the way for an eventual switch of partners,
strengthening a prospective pair-bond. with a future mate. Spotted sandpipers, for example, are likely to pair with individuals with whom they have
previously engaged in EPCs. Such behavior has been described as a "mateacquisition·tactic," and it is employed particularly by females. Similarly, in
another bird species, the ocean-going razorbills, EPCs are evidently used for
mate appraisal.
UNDERMINING THE MYTH: FEMALES (OlHER CONSIDERATIONS) 103
As we have seen, females of many species are now known to intrude into
the territory of extra-pair males, where they solicit copulations. They may
even be increasing their chances of gaining more EPCs by choosing to settle
down someplace where there are many male neighbors. It has also been suggested that the tendency of many species to breed in dense social groups
("colonies") may be due to the insistence of females upon mating with males
whose nest-sites are near the territories of other males specifically because
this gives these females the opportunity to mate with other males if they
choose! (If so, males would have relatively little leverage; a male who
refused to participate and insisted on maintaining his solitary splendor so as
to be unthreatened by the prospect that his mate might copulate with a
neighboring male might end up solitary indeed.)
. When eastern bluebirds have already succeeded in breeding together successfully and are "old married couples," mated for at least the second time,
they are significantly less likely to engage in EPCs than are "newlyweds"
breeding together for the first time. Maybe female bluebirds are less likely
to chance an EPC if they are already "happily married." In bird species as
diverse as lesser scaup (a duck), barn swallows, and indigo buntings, females
paired with younger males are more likely to stray sexually; those paired
with older males are less likely to do so.
Generally, divorce rate is positively associated with EPC rate; in short,
divorce and adultery are closely connected in animals, just as in human
beings. It seems likely that females suffer possible mate desertion if their
partner discovers that they have engaged in EPCs (more on this shortly).
But despite many efforts to test such a connection, virtually no research
has thus far confirmed it. A comparative study, looking at many different
species, found a positive association between divorce and the frequency
of EPCs in many different species; this is certainly suggestive, but it could
be due to ·something else. Thus, if divorce is more likely when there is
some inadequacy in either individual or incompatibility between them,
then this inadequacy or incompatibility could give rise to EPCs and alsoindependently-to divorce, rather than divorce arising be cause the male
detected his female's infidelity and therefore terminated the relationship.
In our own species, it seems likely that the connection between divorce
and sexual infidelity works in several ways: To begin with, adultery is likely
to lead to divorce; indeed, it has long been the most frequently cited reason
for marital dissolution. But at the same time, adultery doesn't occur in a
vacuum. An otherwise happily married individual doesn't suddenly find
him- or herself being adulterous-in our more antiseptic terminology,
engaging in one or more EPCs-without any antecedents, as one might suddenly be struck by lightning, pulverized by an errant meteor, or victimized
by a flowerpot accidentally dropped by someone from a window 10 stories
104 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
overhead. More likely, even if the adultery has not been carefully planned,
it is predisposed by a degree of vulnerability within the married pair. When
either husband or wife perceives that something is wrong (even if just a little bit wrong, and even if the existing discontent is below the level of conscious awareness), there may well be an increased openness to "prospecting" for an alternative partner. In this sense, impending divorce-or, �t least,
problems within the marriage-can also cause adultery.
L et's turn now to some reasons for not engaging in EPCs. Some likely
ones are the most obvious. Maybe a female's in-pair male is simply
more desirable than any extra-pair prospects. Maybe her male's mateguarding is just too effective to permit any extracurricular copulations. Or
maybe female choice is prevented by males in other ways. Although there is
no doubt that female choice is important, often overwhelmingly so, there
are situations in which females simply don't have much choice, typically
when males are substantially larger and more aggressive, as in elk, for example, or elephant seals. In such cases, when males may be several times the
·females in size, as well as sporting potentially lethal weaponry (antlers,
tusks, etc.), females are likely to go along with the male who gathers them
together into his harem.
The physically impressive· and behaviorally intimidating bull elk almost
certain owes his attributes to male-male competition: Large, ferocious males
succeed in besting other males who are a bit smaller and less ferocious. In the
process, they can also . work their will upon the females ... who, after all,
generally have little reason to complain, since it is in their interests to mate
with males whose traits have brought them such success. (Because their offspring, in turn, will be likely to have these traits and enjoy similar success.)
In other cases, female choice and male-male competition coexist uneasily. For example, the following experiment was conducted with captive
brown trout. Female trout were exposed to two physically separated males
who differed in the size of their adipose fin (long thought to be the key trait
used by female trout to choose their mates). After the female revealed her
choice-by preparing her nest closer to one of them, nearly always the one
with the larger adipose fin-the two males were released. They proceeded
to fight each other for the opportunity to spawn with the female in question.
The result was that fewer than half the females ended up spawning with the
male they had chosen. So, although mate choice is a real phenomenon for
. female brown trout, such a choice-at least in the laboratory--can be overwhelmed by male-male competition. It is interesting to note that successful
males had higher levels of androgens, suggesting that while females were
choosing based on a physical trait (size of the adipose fin), male success in
UNDERMINING THE MYTH: FEMALES (OTHER CONSIDERATIONS) 105
. competing with one another can be influenced by other, physiological factors, such as hormone levels.
Female EPCs can also be constrained by direct costs borne by the
females. In Chapter 2, we considered possible costs to EPC-seeking males:
being cuckolded by other males while you are away from home, being
injured by your lover's mate, simply wasting time and energy . if you are
unsuccessful or if your lover isn't fertile. There is reason to think that the
downsides of EPCs ·are more pronounced for females.
One possibility is sexually transmitted disease. The risk is notorious,
especially for human beings in the age of AIDS. (Although, clearly, venereal
diseases preceded AIDS, with gonnorhea and syphiiis-and, more recently,
herpes-being ancient scourges of those whose sexual �dventuring transcended monogamy.) It seems likely that EPCs among animals, too, pose
potential health risks, although it is remarkable how little we know about
venereal diseases among free-living animals.
Males are generally rather bold when out cruising for possible extra-pair
·copulations, whereas, in nearly all species, females are furtive, often downright secretive. "Open marriages" are exceedingly rare in the natural world;
when females engage in an EPC, it is pretty much only when their partners
are absent. Indeed, .such secretiveness also explains why EPCs were generally not observed by biologists studying the behavior of free-living animals,
even after literally thousands of observation hours. If females are attempting to deceive their mates, they are likely to be even more successful with
human observers, who are probably far more obtuse! (To this must be
added an important point about the intersection of science and psychology:
Even in so strictly a "reality-driven" enterprise as natural science, most of
us tend to wear intellectual blinders, often failing to recognize something
until we first have an explanation for it ... or at least, an expectation of it.
Believing is seeing.)
The fact that EPCs are nearly always hidden strongly suggests that
male detection of such behavior is costly for the females. For example, in
a study of red-winged blackbirds in the state of Washington, Elizabeth
Gray found that fully 78 percent of all EPCs occurred when the female
was away from the territory where she was nesting. EPCs took place either
on the territory of the extra-pair male or off the marsh altogether. That is,
in this species, extra-pair trysts are most likely to occur either at ''his
place" or at some. neutral site. (Are there red-winged blackbird equivalents
to cheap motels?)
·
Since animal copulations often require only a few seconds, they are
sometimes surreptitiously and seamlessly squeezed into the crevices of an
otherwise normal day. In contrast to male-female social units, which
are normally formed only after the extensive give-and-take of lengthy and
106 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
conspicuous courtship, EPCs are the animal equivalent of what author Erica
Jong memorably dubbeda "zipless fuck," a sexual exchange so quick and
transitory that the participants hardly even bother to unzip their clothes.
British behavioral ecologist Nick Davies tells the following anecdote: A
pair of dunnocks had been feeding. together, hopping peacefully toward a
bush. Reaching it, the male proceeded to one side, the female to the other.
Once out of the male's field of vision, the female instantly flew into the
nearby undergrowth, where she copulated with a different male dunnock
who had been hidden there. Immediately afterward, the female flew back to
the bush, emerged around the side, and rejoined her mate, all the while acting as though nothing had happened.
Similar patterns are often observed among nonhuman primates, especially various species of macaque monkey s: The female copulates rather hurriedly behind a roc:;k, tree, or bush, while her consort is temporarily distracted or otherwise unaware of what is transpiring. Immediately afterward,
the extra-pair male will often cover his still-erect penis with a hand, as
though to hide the evidence from the cuckolded male. All the while, Mrs.
Macaque assumes a pose of almost comical nonchalance.
Why all the secrecy?
One possibility is that the outraged male will attack the female, punishing her physicallyfor her infidelity. Surprisingly, perhaps, this has very rarely
been documented. One exception is David's research on the "Male
Response to Apparent Female Adultery in the Mountain Bluebird." In this
stl.ldy, he attached a model of a male mountain bluebird near two different
nests occupied by mated pairs while the male was away foraging. Upon
returning, each male was confronted with the appearance that his female
had been sexually unfaithful. In each case his response was to attack the
model quite vigorously; not only that, but in one instance the male bluebird
actUally attacked his mate as well, pulling out two primary flight feathers.
She left and was replaced by another female, with whom the male subsequently reared a brood. (The researcher, duly chastened, and not wanting to
continue in the role of Shakespeare's !ago, did not interfere additionally in
the connubial bliss of this particular Othello. His Desdemona was presumably still alive, although residing elsewhere.)
In this case, the male attacked his �ate immediately after attacking the
model of an intruding male; his chastisement of his seemingly unfaithfulbut actually innocent-mate may have been due to unappeased aggression,
which was aroused by the model but not fully discharged, since the model
did not fight back. In the case of real-life EPCs, the outraged "husband"
may be more likely to vent his fury on the other trespassing male than on
the "errant wife." Also, each species presents a slightly different situation.
Mountain bluebirds nest in empty holes in trees; because such nest-sites are
rare, there is typically a reservoir of unmated female mountain bluebirds
UNDERMINING THE MYTH: FEMALES (OTHER CONSIDERATIONS) 107
available to mate with a male who has driven out a suspected adulteress.
Among most other species, males may not have the luxury of responding so
aggressively. Their most effective countermeasure appears to be a withdrawal of parental assistance.
It is not a trivial threat.
B
eing a single parent is difficult, whether among animals or human
beings. Indeed, the advantage of two parents over one seems to be the
main reason why social monogamy occurs at all. Given that, in most
species, females make the bulk of the parental investment, they are especially .
vulnerable to being left holding the bag-for our purposes, holding the
babies-without assistance from their mate. In other words, among birds
and mammals there is a much greater risk that females will be abandoned
by their mates and left to be single mothers than that males will be stuck
with being single fathers. And among the risk factors that seem likely to contribute to abandonment, EPCs rank very high. After all, males are ulllikely
to invest time and energy, or to undergo substantial risk, in caring for someone else's kids.
In Rodgers and Hammerstein's classic Broadway musical Oklahoma !,
there is a marvelous duet sung by the two comic leads, Ado Annie (the "Girl
Who Cain't Say No") and her betrothed, Will Parker. Will chastises Annie
. for her wild ways, demanding that, for them to marry, she must agree to be
a chaste, submissive, dutiful wife: "If you cain't give me all, give me nothin',
and nothin's what you'll git from me." Annie responds:
I ain't gonna fuss, ain't gonna frown,
Have your fun, go out on the town,
Stay out late and don't come home till three.
And go right off to sleep if you're sleepy ...
No use waitin' up for me!
Rather than exceptions, the Ado Annies of the world are abundant, and
maybe even the rule. (Hence, this book). At the same time, it is noteworthy that later in the same song, when Annie asks, "Supposing that we
should have a third one?" Will responds immediately: "He'd better look a
lot like me!"
Female bam swallows who "cain't"-or, at least, don't-say "no," get
less help from their mates: When females copulate repeatedly with other
males, their own mates provide less assistance in rearing their young than
when females rarely if ever copulate outside the mateship. When m�les
reduce paternal care in response to female EPCs, females often increase their
owil maternal care, but frequently not enough to compensate entirely; as a
108 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
result, their offspring are often short-changed. In other cases, compensation
by the female is apparently complete, although females seem likely to suffer
in the long run, probably through reduced survival rates during the nonbreeding season or a diminished life span.
Although eastern bluebirds are normally monogamous-at least
socially-when males were experimentally removed, the remaining singleparent females were as successful at rearing offspring as were dual-parent
bluebird families. This ability and inclination on the part of female bluebirds
to make up for male absence may have the paradoxical effect of encouraging males to wander in search of EPCs. It also suggests that even in some
socially monogamous species, females might not be as utterly dependent on
males as previous researchers had assumed ... although, once again, it
remains possible--even likely-that when females are forced to make up for
their mate's absence, they ultimately suffer in the long run, perhaps by having a shorter life span.
The risk that males may reduce their parental contribution may limit the
degree to which females pursue EPCs, especially in species with biparental
care. Fulmars and kittiwakes are colonial-breeding seabirds for whom cooperation between males and females is essential in order for nestlings to be
reared. Among these species, EPCs are notably rare, perhaps because the
cost of detection is too high to be worth the risk.
On the other hand, the well-studied red-winged blackbirds are typically
polygynous, but not necessarily monandrous. Since most females are mated
to males who have other "wives," they are already adapted to caring for
their young single�handedly. And not surprisingly, EPCs are comparatively
frequent in this species, since females have less to lose. This is not to say that
the male's contribution is trivial, however. In a population of red-winged
blackbirds studied in eastern Ontario, nest defense is the major contribution
made by fathers. (Blackbird chicks make a tasty meal for a variety of predators, including crows, gulls, hawks, weasels, raccoons, and mink). Previous
research has shown that male swallows are less inclined to defend their
young from a stuffed model predator (presented by the experimenter) when
their females had earlier engaged in EPCs.
A five-year study of red-wings in eastern Ontario found that the greater
the proportion of nestlings sired via EPCs, the less . vigorous is the nest
defense provided by resident males. Nests in which the putative father had
fathered all the young had the highest success rate (number of fledging
young). Those in which all the young were sired via EPCs had the lowest.
Mixed broods were.intermediate. Not only are resident males zealous in defending juveniles in proportion as they have fathered some of them, there is
even some evidence that males who sire young via EPCs in other territories
are more likely to defend those young.
UNDERMINING THE MYTH: FEMALES (OTHER CONSIDERATIONS) 109
These results have not been found in all cases. Indeed, even other populations of the same species, red-winged blackbirds, fall out differently. A
study conducted by University of Kentucky biologist David Westneat, for
example, found no difference in fledging success between nests with and
without extra-pair young. In fact, Westneat found that broods sired by multiple males were more successful. Having found no difference in the feeding
of nestlings in the two cases, Westneat concluded that mixed-paternity nests
did better because the additional males provided, on balance, more paternal
defense, not less.
These studies are not necessarily contradictory, however: Let's assume
that out-of-pair male red-wings are more likely to help defend their potential offspring if they have had an EPC with the mother. Then it simply
becomes a matter of whether the assistance that is forgone (from the resident male, whose confidence in parentage is diminished if he knows of his
mate's EPC) is compensated by the additional defense that is obtained (from
the extra-pair male).
In most cases, however, it appears that when a female engages in one or
more EPCs, she runs a risk that her offspring will receive less paternal care
as a result. The salient finding of one research effort was conveyed in the
title of the article: "Paternal Investment Inversely Related to Degree of
Extra-Pair Paternity in the Reed Bunting." In some cases, males evidently
refuse to pay child support if their mate has copulated with someone else.
After an EPC that took place in the middle of the female's fertile period, a
male magpie abandoned the clutch that he and his mate had been incubating; shortly afterward, he initiated another breeding attempt ... interestingly, with the same female. (A second marriage, it has been said, represents ·
the triumph of human hope over experience; maybe something similar can
be said of renesting, at least among magpies.)
Young male purple martins, which are often cuckolded by older males,
are rather lethargic about feeding "their" nestlings, being significantly less
attentive than the females. On the other hand, older male purple martins,
cuckolded only rarely, are comparable to females when it comes to fulfilling
their parental duties. (It is also possible, of course, that young males jus·t
aren't "into" feeding nestlings, whether they have been cuckolded or not.)
Behavioral ecologist Bert Kempenaers rela�es this story: After a male
blue tit was injmed-apparently by a sparrow hawk-his mate visited males
in several nearby territories . and was seen to copulate with at least one of
them. She then laid a number of eggs, and a few days later, her mate (the
injured male) died. Of the six nestlings produced, DNA analysis revealed
that one had been fathered by the deceased male, three had been fathered by
the extra-pair male seen to have copulated with the female, and the remaining two had been fathered by another male. Neither of the extra-pair males
110 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
helped care for his bastard children, although it is interesting that one· of
them threatened a human observer visiting the widowed female's nest; male
blue tits have never been reported to behave in this way toward a nest not
their own ... so perhaps this male was displaying at least a modicum of
parental inclination.
Aside from the potential downside that a cuckolded male may provide
less parental care, EPCs may subject offspring to enhanced risk in another
way: Without EPCs, all the nestlings would be fathered by the same male (as
well as conceived by the same female, of course). As a result, they would all
be full siblings, with a high probability of shared genes and, thus, shared
interests in one another's success. With EPCs, some of the nestlings would
have different fathers and would therefore be half-siblings, as a result of
which their genetic relatedness is diminished by a factor of 2. It is increasingly clear that shared genes correspond to greater altruism and less selfishness; as a result, EPC-produced offspring, being less closely related, may
well be less benevolently inclined toward one another. This, in turn, might
result in less food sharing, less mutual defense, and generally diminished
success. And it has already been found that when nestmates are less closely
related, they tend to beg more loudly and selfishly; this, in turn, could attract
additional predators.
It might also be costly for females to incur the jealousy of their mates,
aside from the possibility of physical punishment or abandonment. Even
being guarded by one's mate could have a negative impact, and it is not
unreasonable to suppose that females who are prone to EPCs are liable to
being guarded more closely. For example, male dunnocks shadow their
female partners while the latter are foraging, and this results in a diminished
food intake. Among dunnocks that are truly monogamous, as opposed to
those groups consisting of two or more males and one female, males guard
their females less closely, and so the latter get to forage unencumbered and
thus more efficiently.
I
t is time to end this chapter. But first, let's look briefly at a strange aspect
of extra-pair reproduction on the part of some female birds. It goes by
the indelicate term egg dumping.
Normally, we think of EPCs as producing a situation in which the male
is cuckolded because "his" female has mated with someone else. As a result,
some of the offspring produced are not his ... although they are still hers.
But not necessarily. It occasionally happens that females deposit fertilized
eggs in someone else's nest, leaving the foster parents to perform the child
care. These cases are well known for a number of animals known as "nest
parasites," species such as the Etiropean cuckoo or the North American
UNDERMINING THE MYTH: FEMALES (OTHER CONSIDERATIONS) 111
cowbird, which typically do not care for their own offspring; rather, they
sneak their eggs into the nests of unwitting "host" species.
This is not considered egg dumping; rather, it is a species-wide reproductive strategy, albeit a parasitic one. True egg dumpers are found in species that normally take care of their own offspring but in which a small
number ofindividuals have opted for this tactic of semi-parasitism. Not surprisingly, female birds are more likely than mammals to foist their offspring
onto another female. And among birds, a successful "dumper" can "cuckold" another female, no less than her mate. At the same time, it is also possible for the dumper to have copulated (via an EPC) with the mate of the
victimized female ... in which case, we might expect that this male would
be especially solicitous of the offspring, assuming that he somehow knows
that the eggs were deposited by his clandestine lover! There already exists a
phrase in the technical literature that describes this situation in which the
attending male, but not the female, is the genetic parent: quasi-parasitism.
We have long known that among many species of birds, there exists a
kind of female underworld, a population of so-called floaters-nonbreeding
individuals who are kept in their spinster status by a shortage of resources,
usually suitable nest-sites. A recent discovery has been that these floaters are
not quite so nonbreeding as had been thought. For example, one study of
European starlings captured floaters by attracting them to artificially constructed nestboxes. Nearly 50 percent of these homeless, unmated, and ostensibly nonbreeding females were found to have either laid an egg in a nest
or carried a fully developed egg in their reproductive tracts, indicating that
they had mated with someone and were about to deposit their egg somewhere. Since they did not have their own nests, that "somewhere" was going
to be someone else's nest! As a rule, floating females are significantly
younger and smaller than normal breeders.
Generally, it isn't clear whether egg dumping is largely the work of
floaters, but it quite likely is. Among the waterbirds known as coots, for
example, this is well established. In any event, the likelihood is that it isn't
only males that are prone to a "mixed reproductive strategy." Whereas for
males such a strategy typically involves monogamy combined with extrapair copulations, for females it includes the additional option of being a
floater who dumps her eggs into someone else's nest (relying, therefore, on
others to do the parenting). As a rule, however, egg dumping is unlikely to
be a preferred strategy. Rather, in most cases it is probably an attempt by
disadvantaged females to make the best of their bad situation, forced on
them by the animal. equivalent of poverty.
On the other hand, in at least one documented case, egg dumpers are the
cream of the crop: Among goldeneye ducks, the oldest and strongest females
not only maintain their own nests, they also lay additional eggs in the nests
112 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
of other females. It appears that younger, weaker females are incapable of
producing so many eggs; hence, they are less likely to dump and more likely
to be dumped upon.
Although it is relatively uncommon, egg dumping nonetheless occurs in
perching birds, such as starlings and house and savanna sparrows, as well
as in ducks. One study found that among cliff swallows (which nest monogamously, but in colonies consisting of dozens, sometimes hundreds, of individuals), nearly one-quarter of all nests contained eggs laid by one or more
females who were not incubating or feeding the young. The researcher concluded that egg dumping is a major downside of colonial life, at least among
birds. Among mammals, females have complete confidence of their maternity (a certainty that males can never attain). But among birds, even females
cannot know for certain that their nestlings are really theirs!
We can expect that prospective victims�both male and female-would
be on guard to prevent such dumping ... except, as noted, if the male had
recently copulated with the dumper. Then he and she could conceivably be
in cahoots. (In a novella by Joseph Conrad, a man's determination to adopt
an orphaned child leads his wife to suspect-wrongly, it turns out-that
her husband had fathered the child via an extramarital affair.) In Dr. Seuss's
children's book Horton Hatches the Egg, Mayzie bird-"lazy bird"....,­
leaves an egg in the care of our hero, a big-hearted elephant, who steadfastly guards it through thick and thin. Mayzie eventually returns and
demands her egg, just before it hatches; righteousness is ultimately
rewarded, however, since the creature that emerges· bears a striking resemblance to generous, gentle Horton!
Maybe, while Horton the elephant was incubating Mayzie's egg, some
of Horton's genes somehow leaked through the shell (a one-of-a-kind event).
Or maybe Horton and Mayzie had earlier partaken of an EPC or two on the
side (equally improbable, since mammals and birds do not normally interbreed, not even a little bit). In any event, Dr. Seuss's poetic justice satisfies
our notion of what is fair: Mayzie the egg dumper gets trumped.
CHAPTER FIVE
Why Does Monogamy Occur At All?
T
he eminent eighteenth-century English essayist and critic Dr.
Samuel Johnson once wrote this about a dog walking on its hind
legs: "It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at
all." We might say the same about monogamy: Considering how many
strikes there are against it, how wobbly most living things are when they
seek to balance on monogamous limbs, it is remarkable that it is done at
all. Since both males and females have reasons to deviate from it, why
does monogainy ever occur?
To be sure, monogamy is rare. But it does happen sometimes, and so
logic suggests that it must-at least on occasion-have something going for
it. There are several possibilities, some of them unique to human beings and
others that seem to apply to animals generally. Let's look at the general patterns first.
B
etter the devil you know than the one you don't. Maybe some animals
(and, occasionally, people) form monogamous unions because they
are, in a sense, conservative. After all, courtship and mating are risky,
requiring that both partners venture out of their personal shell and become
vulnerable to rejection, injury, bad choices, or just plain wasting of time and
energy. Having done so once-and succeeded in obtaining a mate-it is possible that certain individuals might just elect to stop such anxious and risky
prospecting and settle down to a life of cozy, comfortable domesticity. "If it
ain't broke, don't fix it." Leave well enough alone.
114 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
On a more positive note, having found a reliable and mutually gratifying relationship, why rock the boat? More positively y et� it has been documented among animals that the longer pairs are together, the more likely
they are to be successful at rearing offspring. This may be because experience and familiarity with each other . make for better and more efficient
parenting. Familiarity doesn't have to breed contempt; it can also breed
competence (particularly competence at breeding!). On the other hand, causation may also work the other way : mates that remain together in succeeding years are generally more likely to be those that are reproductively
successful. Thus, competence breeds contentment. And, in turn, commitment. Divorce, as we have seen, is common in nature, often correlating with
whether the pair had been reproductively unsuccessful in the past. Among
kittiwake gulls, for example, couples are more likely to split up after a y ear
in which they failed to breed.
It is also likely that many Jiving things-human beings included-have a
sense of their own self-worth as measured by their potential success in what
might be called the "mating market." One of the best-documented tendencies in animal (and human) courtship and mate selection is "assortative mating," which refers to the phenomenon whereby mates tend to be similar. To
be sure, opposites attract-at least opposite sexes-but otherwise, it is
remarkable to what extent individuals choose members of the opposite sex
who are similar to themselves. Whether in matters of physical size, cultural
background, intelligence, political inclinations, or overall degree of personal
attractiveness, people gravitate toward mates who are like themselves. (How
often have you met an unattractive woman married to a very handsome
man, or vice versa?) A similar pattern is found in animals, too.
What does this have to do with monogamy ? Just this: When a mated
pair consists of individuals who are not only mated but also matched, there
is probably a greater chance that their monogamy will persist. The greatest
stability would presumably arise from a situation in which each partner
actually is-or perceives itself to be-just a bit less desirable than the
other! In this case, each would likely think that he or she has gotten a good
deal (that is, a somewhat "better" mate than entitled) and would be unlikely to risk rocking the boat by reaching higher yet. The greater the disc
parity, the greater the chance that the more highly valued individual will
attempt either to terminate the relationship or, failing that, to go outside
the monogamous union.
Biologists have long known that females are generally the choosy sex
and that males tend .to be much less fussy. There are interesting exceptions,
however. For example, when males perceive themselves to be especially
desirable, they tend to become proportionally more demanding of high-class
partners. only. Not surprisingly, the same applies to females to an even
WHY DOES MONOGAMY OCCUR AT ALL? 115
greater degree, since they have something-their large eggs or, in the case of
mammals, the promise of nourishing offspring during pregnancy and lactation-that males want.
Sometimes, however, the options for either sex are restricted simply by
the force of circumstance. The result is a higher probability of monogamy,
simply because there is little alternative. If there aren't many potential partners from whom to choose, or if it is literally difficult to get near anyone
else, the likely result is a higher degree of fidelity-not because of choice or
because the partners are especially virtuous, but simply out of necessity.
.
Some studies dealing with fish reveal a pattern of exceptions to female
choosiness (or rather, examples of fine-tuning). In one case, researchers
designed an experimental setup in which female fish had to swim against a
current of water in order to get to different males. In this situation, males
that had been unacceptable suddenly became highly attractive, if the normally preferred alternatives were unattainable.
In an earlier publication, the same researchers had reported that female
fish use male coloration in mate choice, thereby avoiding parasitized males
(who are unable to produce bright coloration). These findings led Silvia
Lopez, then a doctoral student at Oxford University, to ask the following
question: What about the effect, on females, of being parasitized? Thus,
what happens when the females themselves are less healthy and, thus, less
desirable? Do they become less choosy? For her research, Lopez chose guppies, the common, brightly colored aquarium fish.
Guppy males engage in one of two courtship strategies: attempting to
persuade females to mate with them by vibrating and bending their colorful
bodies (traditional guppy courtship) or attempting to sneak a copulation.
With the first strategy, brightly colored males have a definite advantage,
being preferred by the females. This seems doubly beneficial for the females,
since they not only increase their chance of producing young that are
brightly colored because of inheriting their father's sexy genes, but they also
avoid parasitized males, who might infect them or their offspring and whose
parasitized state may indicate a genetic weakness when it comes to keeping
parasites at bay.
Lopez noted, however, that virtually nothing was known about the effect
of being parasitized on the behavior of females. So she established populations of virgin guppies, some of whom were parasite-free, and some,
infected. Her findings? They are indicated by the title of her research report:
"Parasitized Female Guppies Do Not Prefer Showy Males." Beggars, it
seems, can't be choosers ... even among guppies. Maybe parasitized females lack the energy to assess several different males and then choose the
best one. Or maybe these females recognize that they are, in a sense, "damaged goods" and lower their sights accordingly. It is even possible that their
116 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
behavior is somehow manipulated by their parasites: Bear in mind that parasites have an interest in getting themselves transmitted to new hosts, and
unparasitized males may well be somewhat resistant to them, so the guppy
parasites may opt for parasitized males as a more vulnerable target. The biological world has seen other outcomes that are at least as devious.
In any event, the result in this case is that females, no less than males,
may be limited in their choice of mating partners by factors related to their
own desirability. It probably wouldn't be wise to anticipate a glowingly
faithful monogamous future for a healthy female mated to a heavily parasitized male or vice versa. But matched pairs-in which male and female are
both healthy or both unhealthy-may be destined for (or doomed to) a lifetime of monogamous bliss.
illiam James is said to have composed this ditty, although with ·
insights inspired by opium rather than evolutionary biology:
Higamous hogamous, woman monogamous
Hogarhous bigamous, man is polygamous.
And in her "General Review of the Sex Situation," Dorothy Parker put
it this way:
Woman wants monogamy;
Man delights in novelty.
Love is woman's moon and sun;
Man has other forms of fun.
Woman lives but in her lord;
Count to ten, and man is bored.
With this the gist and sum of it,
What earthly good can come of it?
We now understand that women (females) are not all that monogamous,
and that men (males) aren't always polygamous. But we also know that
males-because they are sperm-makers rather than egg-makers-are more
likely, in general, to seek multiple mating opportunities than are females. It
is also generally true that the biological· success of a male is more likely to
be diminished by his female's EPCs than her success is by EPCs on his part.
(This is because males are liable to being cuckolded-reproductively
excluded-by their female's extra-pair matings, whereas a female will continue to be the mother of her offspring even if her male copulates with one
WHY DOES MONOGAMY OCCUR AT ALL? 117
or more additional females.) Nonetheless, a male's EPCs can still have consequences for his social mate, and nearly always these consequences are negative. The male may be injured during his gallivanting and thus less able to
help with his domestic responsibilities. He may contract a sexually transmitted disease and then infect his mate. He may elect to leave his mate, having discovered a more desirable partne(. And-probably the greatest risk,
because the most likely-he might find himself devoting time and effort to
his lover's offspring, providing benefits· that are deducted from his "official"
mate and her offspring. .
This risk is greater yet in species that are sometimes monogamous, sometimes polygynous-that is, in which males occasionally succeed in transforming an EPC conquest into an additional, full-time reproductive partner.
We can therefore expect that in such cases, females will be strongly motivated to keep their males from engaging in EPCs-and even more strongly
inclined to prevent their switching from monogamy to polygyny. The end
result? Males may seek multiple mates and even polygyny but end up with
monogamy because of the intervention of their females, who won't let them
bring their girlfriends home.
In a species of lizards common in the Southwest, females defend small
territories from which they exclude other females. Males cannot monopolize more than one female because females are so antagonistic to one
another that their territories are dispersed.
In most such cases, it appears that females are moved to keep other
females at bay when the males have something of value--usually, parental
care--to contribute. But sometimes, even when males provide virtually
nothing (besides sperm) to their offspring, mondgamy remains the most frequent system; for example, among willow ptarmigans, grouse-like residents
of mountain and arctic habitats, it seems likely that females are too dispersed to permit bigamy. These animals may also be too aggressive toward
each other to accommodate a second female within their domain .. : much
as the male might want to.
It isn't clear what the "married" female ptarmigan would lose by permitting her husband to have a second wife, since his contribution is essentially nil; probably it isn't a matter of having to share him, but, rather, having to share limited· food resources with another female and her brood.
Similarly, among eastern bluebirds (normally monogamous), males provide
little more than a nesting cavity. What generates social monogamy in the
bluebird world is the fact that suitable nest-sites are few and far b�tween,
and-acting in their own self-interest-female bluebirds won't share them.
(It must be pointed out, however, that polygynous females do not always
suffer an <:>bvious cost when their male takes another mate; it is possible,
that in such cases, males are able to add one or more additional females to
118 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
their harems precisely because doing so imposes no extra cost to existing
females. When this is true, the current wives do not seek to interfere.)
In the world of European starlings, breeding occurs in socially monogamous pairs, or in bigamous trios consisting of one male and two females, or
occasionally even trigamous quartets of one male and three females. The latter arrangements benefit males but are disadvantageous to females, since
multiple-mated males provide less parental care per nest than do their
monogamous counterparts. In an experiment, males were given the opportunity to form bigamous or trigamous relationships, or to remain monogamously mated to their current female. Males who remained monogamous
when they apparently had the opportunity to attract a second or third
female were those mated to unusually aggressive females. (This aggression,
incidentally, was directed toward the potentially home-wrecking females,
not toward the male.) In starlings, at least, female aggression is a reliable
predictor of male mating status. So, if you are a male starling with a yen for
multiple mates, better choose them from the mild-mannered end of the
female spectrum.
In another bird species whose breeding system is all over the marital
map, the European dunnock, it appears that female song serves to deter rival
females. Just as males sing to attract females and post a vocal "no trespassing" sign to other males, females evidently can inform other females that
"this male is taken" ... and not only that, he is taken by a feisty female.
Such feistiness can become lethal. Spanish biologist Jose Veiga studied
house sparrows breeding monogamously, yet close to other mated pairs. He
wanted to know why 90 percent of them were monogamous. Veiga could
eliminate several possible explanations: House sparrow monogamy was not
due to the fact that an attentive male is needed for rearing young (bigamously mated females reared as many offspring). Nor was it due to female
reluctance to mate with already-mated males. And it wasn't because there
weren't enough unmated, available females. Why then? Because mated
females were aggressive toward other females: Moving nestboxes closer
together induced females to attack each other. Earlier, Veiga had found that
a female house sparrow will sometimes kill the young of another female
who is sharing her male's sexual attentions ... shades of the movie Fatal
Attra ction . Given that female house sparrows are willing to carry their sexual rivalry to such extremes, there is evidently a certain proactive, nonviolent wisdom in a healthy degree of female-female repulsion.
A growing number of studies have in fact confirmed that among animals, females are frequently aggressive toward potential "home-wreckers."
In Chapter 4, we examined the peculiar phenomenon of egg dumping,
whereby females occasionally deposit eggs in another's nest; female-female
aggression among birds may often be motivated by anti-dumping watchful-
WHY DOES MONOGAMY OCCUR AT ALL? 119
ness on the part of mated females. Thus, when a female bird chases other
females away, she might well be less concerned that the intruders will
attempt to mate with "her" male than that they have already mated with
someone and are now seeking-like Horton's nemesis, the infamous Mayzie
bird-to dump the offspring in her lap (or rather, nest).
Whatever its origin, it is likely that such female-female alertness gives a
boost to monogamy as well, simply by making it difficult for a male to affiliate with more than one female. One might also recall those animals-birds,
in particular-for which EPCs often precede divorce. By extension, therefore, it could pay a female to break up any such liaisons, so as to make it
less likely that her mate will desert her and set up housekeeping with a new
paramour. (It is pretty much taken for granted that male-male aggressive
alertness serves in many species to keep social monogamy from becoming
polyandry, insofar as, by mate-guarding, males keep "their" females from
affiliating-if not EPC�ing-with other males.)
Among mammals, monogamy also seems to be maintained, on occasion,
by female-female aggression: There is some tendency among monogamous
. mammals for the females to be aggressive, especially toward other females.
The feistiness of resident female beavers, for example, seems to keep other
females away. If Madame Beavery were less aggressive, perhaps the species
would be polygynous.
Female vigilance of this sort is evidently common in nonhuman primates, too. Primatologist Barbara Smuts reports that female baboons
behave aggressively toward other females that show sexual interest in their
consort partner or in which their partner shows sexual interest. There are
also many cases in which female mammals-especially among the social
canids, including wolves, jackals, and African wild dogs-prevent subordinate females from breeding. A wolf pack, for example, will typically contain
only one breeding female, who also, not surprisingly, is socially dominant
over the other females. Only if this alpha female is removed will the others
copulate and produce pups. As a result, the dominant male of the pack may
be so cially polygynous (that is, he "has" a harem consisting of more than
one female) but be kept reprodu ctively monogamous by the breeding
female's impact on her female rivals.
We have been discussing cases in which monogamy is maintained by
female aggression toward other females, thwarting the polygynous inclinations of their mates. It seems only logical that there should also be species in
which females impose monogamy by aggressive behavior toward their males
when the latter show a hankering for EPCs or-worse y et, from the female's
perspective-one or more additional mates. We are only aware of one such
case, the burying beetle Nicrophorus defodiens. In this monogamous insect,
male and female cooperate in the unseemly task of burying a dead animal-
120 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
commonly a mouse-upon which the female will lay her eggs. Having initi�
ated the burying of a carcass, which the female has duly anointed with her
fertilized eggs, male beetles are sometimes moved to emit mate attraction
chemicals (pheromones). If successful in this maneuver, the male will have
lured a second female, who, after copulating with him, would add her eggs
to the appealing lump of moldy mouse meat already occupied by the initial
female's developing brood. As a result, the freshly hatched maggots of
female number two would compete for food with the offspring of female
number one, who, after all, got there first, has already "shot her wad" of
eggs, and, moreover, has also expended effort in getting the dead mouse
prepped to become grub for her own grubs.
So what does the "outraged" female beetle do? As soon as she detects
that her mate is beginning to feel frisky and inclined to broadcast his
pheromones, she rushes over to him, pushes him off the perch from which he
is attempting to broadcast his love potion, and often bites him as well! Not
surprisingly, this interferes with his ability to fulfill his polygynous hopes. To
demonstrate this, researchers tried tethering number-one females so that they
could not reach their pheromone-secreting mates. Thus liberated from their
jealous wives, male burying beetles joyously broadcast their sexy scents for
prolonged periods-and were rewarded with additional girlfriends.
T
hese more or less direct examples of female-female competition
should not blind us to the existence of subtler forms of
female-female sexual maneuvering, all of which are also potentially
implicated in the maintenance of monogamy.
Thus, jealous females are not limited to outright aggression in their
quest to keep their male partners monogamous. Happily married starlings
were experimentally presented with an extra nest-site at different distances
from their current nest. Among these birds, as among many others, nestsites are in short supply, so the prospect of two nest-sites is pretty much
equivalent to the prospect of exchanging monogamy for bigamy. But when
such additional mating opportunities were close to their existing domicile,
very few male starlings became polygamous; the farther the new potential
love-nests, the more likely that they were employed. In fact, most males
became polygynous when there was enough distance between their new
lovers and their preexisting mates-but only then. This suggests that what
constrains mated males to monogamy is the existence of their present
mates, but, by itself, it doesn't exp!ain how a starling wife interferes with
her mate's polygynous designs.
There are several ways for a female to get in the way of her mate's efforts
at acquiring additional females. One of the most interesting involves her own
WHY DOES MONOGAMY OCCUR AT ALL? 121
sexuality: A female starling is especially likely to solicit copulations from her
mate when he is actively courting other females! There is nothing as likely
to make a female starling feel friendly and sexy than the prospect that her
mate is showing interest in another female. Equally interesting: A large proportion of these solicitations are refused by her partner, but they nonetheless succeed in causing any prospecting females to depart. ·
.
Not surprisingly, however, the male is often less than entranced at such
a show of sexual solicitude fro!J1 his mate. Belgian biologists Marcel Eens
and Rianne Pinxten observed 14 instances of male starlings attacking or
chasing their females after the ladies had solicited a copulation. Some of
these chases were quite vigorous, lasting more than a full minute. In most of
them, males had previously landed on another nestbox and were singing,
evidently attempting to attract an additional female. By contrast, of ten
males who were monogamous and showed every sign of remaining that
way, not one was ever observed to attack his female when she solicited a
copulation. Why do would-be polygynous males often refuse to copulate?
Two likely reasons: First, by doing so, they give away to any potential new
mate the fact that they are already mated. Secondly, by copulating with an
existing mate, they might so deplete their sperm resources that they would
be less likely to fertilize any newcomer.
(It would be interesting to know if anything comparable were true of
harems in that peculiar species Homo sapiens. It is widely acknowledged
that women in human harems competed with one another for resources and
benefits, especially those potentially useful to their children. But did they
also compete sexually for the erotic attentions of the harem-keeper? If so,
then perhaps we should pity the poor, sexually beleaguered sultans, who
were likely to have been doubly exhausted, not only because of the simple,
numerical demands mandated by their various wives and concubines, but
also because of the extra pressure generated if each female-because of her
competitive relationship with her co-wives-was especially desirous of his
sexual attention.)
Why don't female starlings simply attack would-be rivals? Probably for
the same reason that human harem-members are unlikely to do so: It is bad
politics, likely to evoke the wrath of the male. In such cases, subtle, seductive tactics are probably more successful. Thus, mate-guarding-of the sort
we saw in Chapter 2-is not a males-only tactic. Females sometimes go out
of their way to "keep company" with their males, especially when those
males are particularly attractive. Among blue tits, for example, attractive
males are followed more by their mates than are unattractive males, with
"attractive" defined as "those males that receive many visits from neighboring fertile females." Presumably, female blue tits whose mates are unattractive are confident that their males will not be "hit upon" by other
122 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
females; in addition, such females may well be spending some of their free
time prospecting for their own EPCs from other, more attractive males!
There is another reason why females occasionally interfere with their
mates' EPC endeavors. To some extent, natural selection is a zero-sum
game: Success for you means less success for me and vice versa. This is
especially true if certain key resources are in short supply: If, for example,
an environment can only support a restricted number of youngsters of a
given species, then the offspring of female A will do less well in competing
with the offspring of female B if B has been inseminated by a high-quality
male. Thus, a female mated to such a male could be more successful if his
good genes weren't spread around. This is because her own offspring would
not have to compete with others who share their high-quality genetic endowment. By mating repeatedly with an especially desirable male, a female
could enhance the competitiveness of her own offspring by keeping the_highquality . stud functionally depleted of sperm-and thus unlikely to fertilize
other females.
It is notable that female mate-guarding-whether it leads to femalefemale aggression or enhanced sexual solicitation of the male-has been
observed among polygynous species but only rarely among socially monogamous ones. This is counterintuitive. It would seem that possible loss of the
male's assistance would be a greater blow to a socially monogamous female
(who is more likely to rely on her mate's assistance) than to a polygynous
one, who presumably is already resigned to sharing her male with others in
his harem. Apparently, it is rare for socially monogamous males to follow
up an EPC with other behavior that is costly to their mates; by contrast,
among polygynous species, males are more likely to help secondary or tertiary females, or even to invite them into the. harem.
In any event, the use of sex as a mate-guarding strategy is not limited to
birds (or possibly humans). It may occur in lions, where females in heat are
known to solicit-and obtain-upwards of 100 copulations per day during
a stretch of fo� or five days! When it comes to copulations, the lion's share
is truly impressive. But one must ask "Why bother?" After all, in the case of
lions, there is no question of females enforcing monogamy on the males,
since lions typically live in prides consisting of many females, sometimes six
or more, and it seems unlikely that her reproductive physiology is so ineffi.:
dent that a healthy lioness must copulate every 10 or 15 minutes for days
on end just to get fertilized.
The answer seems to be that the king of the jungle and his descendants
must often endure periods when prey is scarce, and at such times, cubs in
particular are at great risk of starvation; accordingly, it is at least possible
that by making extraordinary sexual demands on the dominant male, a
lovelorn lioness makes it unlikely that another female will be fertilized at the
WHY DOES MONOGAMY OCCUR AT ALL? 123
same time. The likely outcome is that when her cubs are born, they will not
have to compete with another litter, born to another female. If so, then natural selection would reward lionesses who are the·most sexually demanding,
resulting in a kind of serial reproduction: not monogamy, but a system in
which even polygynously mated females reproduce one at a time rather than
· all at once.
The suggestion has been made that multiple mating by females may be
tactic of nonhuman primates as well, designed to deprive other females of
sperm from their sexual partner. After all, even though sperm are cheap,
they are not infinitely replaceable, and even the "studliest" of males may
have difficulty producing a constant and undiminished supply. It is even
possible that something akin to female-female competition for male sexual attention explains an interesting womanly mystery: menstrual synchrony. It is a well-known fact that when women live together-in dormitories, sororities, rooming houses-their menstrual cycles tend to
become synchronized. Young women typically begin the academic year
with their periods randomly distributed throughout the calendar, but by
finals in May or June, nearly everyone in the same domicile is reaching for
tampons on the same days.
It is, as Yul Brynner famously put it in The King and I, "a puzzlement. "
But not an impossible puzzlement. Maybe by "agreeing" to ovulate at the
same time, women are revealing an ancient, prehistoric, and adaptive
response to primate , polygyny, whereby they reduce the ability of one male
to monopolize the fertility of many different women. One problem here is
that it is difficult to see how this strategy would benefit subordinate females;
they would seem to be better off if they refused to play along and didn't synchronize with the cycles of dominant females. But perhaps they have little
choice-perhaps their physiology is simply manipulated by the latter. Moreover, even this could ultimately be in their interest, if the offspring of lessdominant females would be subjected to damaging competition when
resources were limited and if their birth coincided with that of infants conceived by dominant females.
If such strategizing seems far-fetched, bear in mind once more that it
needn't be conscious at all and is no more sophisticated than the astounding "strategies" by which liver cells deactivate toxins or nerve cells conduct
impulses. And, in fact, it isn't only among the "higher" vertebrates that
females are known to compete by sexually monopolizing a male. Consider
the so-called poison-arrow frogs, named because lethal chemicals contained
in the skin of brightly colored individuals are used by indigenous rain-forest
peoples to envenom their arrows and darts. Among many of these amphibians, males provide most of the parental care, so it is in a female's interest to
restrict his ·sexual attention to herself. In such cases, females often remain
124 1HE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
near their mates, engaging in repetitive courtship behavior, probably to prevent them from mating with other females.
C
aring for offspring emerges time after time as a key issue in the maintenance of monogamy. Most biologists' ideas about the evolution of
monogamy have long centered around the presumed necessity of
male parental care. The idea was that females nearly always prefer
monogamy because it gives them-and their offspring-the undivided attention of a caring male. According to this reasoning, polygyny becomes possible when males can be "emancipated" from parenting duties; that is, when
females are capable of carrying the whole burden by themselves. (Also, of
course, when females aren't too aggressive toward each other ... most
likely when they don't need their male's help in rearing offspring.)
There is probably more than a grain of truth in this assumption. Thus,
even though monogamy is largely a myth, even among birds, it remains true
that the avian world is more prone to monogamy than is any other group
of animals. Not coincidentally, birds have very rapid metabolisms and
nestlings typically must be fed immense quantities of food, sometimes an
insect every 15 seconds or so! Given such extraordinary demands, there is
an obvious payoff in having two committed adults caring for a brood, so it
is understandable that social monogamy is something of an avian specialty.
For the same reason, it is understandable that monogamy is especially
rare among mammals, since female mammals are uniquely qualified to
nourish their offspring. Male mammals-although not altogether irrelevant-have comparatively little to contribute. When males do provide for
their offspring, they must-not surprisingly-be assured of fatherhood; that
is, males are likely to behave paternally only when females do not engage in
many EPCs. Hence, we find remarkable paternal solicitude in ostensibly
monogamous species such as foxes, beavers, and certain nonhuman primates such as the tiny New World marmosets. In some marmoset species,
males carry the juveniles almost as much as females do, and they even act as
"midwives," assisting at the birth of their offspring, who--:-not coincidentally-are likely to be really theirs. .
The predominant theoretical explanation for polygyny, the · "polygyny
threshold model," proposes that females elect polygyny when, by doing so,
they obtain sufficient additional benefits (food, good nest-sites, protection )
to make up for the undiluted parental assistance they would otherwise
receive from a monogamous mate. On the other hand, this model was developed with birds in mind, and it remains ornithocentric. When it comes to
direct paternal care, male mammals generally have less to contribute than
their avian counterparts; a would-be polygynist can frequently offer a
WHY DOES MONOGAMY OCCUR AT ALL? 125
female more in resources, territory quality, and so forth, than she would lose
if she forgoes his paltry paternal assistance. And so most mammals are not
even socially monogamous.
Human beings are a dramatic exception to this generalization. Baby people are more like baby birds than like baby mammals. To be sur�, newborn
cats and dogs are helpless, but this helplessness doesn't last for long. By contrast, infant Homo sapiens remain helpless for months ... and then they
become helpless toddlers! Who in turn graduate to being virtually helpless
youngsters. (And then? Clueless adolescents.) So there may be some payoff
to women in being mated to a monogamous man after all.
I t is an interesting proposition that monogamy may have arisen as a male
response to sperm competition; that is, as a way for males to minimize
the risk that someone else's sperm will fertilize the eggs of a given female.
Male rats, for example, prefer the odor of unmated females to that of
females that have recently mated with another male. It seems likely that
polygynous males are more liable to being cuckolded than are monogamous
males, simply because it is harder for a male to keep track of many wives
than of just one. This, in turn, could help tip the balance in favor . of
monogamy or, at least, ostensible monogamy. The argument may seem contradictory, but it is internally consistent: Females, as we have seen, have
many reasons to seek EPCs, and, moreover, they have become quite adroit
at hiding such behavior from males. Male animals, unlike the fabled sultans
of yore, cannot enlist the assistance of eunuchs to guard their harems.
Accordingly, it is quite possible that such males find that in the long run
their reproductive success is higher if they have only one mate, and keep
close tabs on her extracurricular sex life, than if they accumulate many ...
each of whom might be unfaithful to him.
This speculation can be carried further, to the possibility that mateguarding (by either sex, or both) in turn paved the way for the evolution of
paternal care. The idea is that if a male remains closely associated with a
female, copulating with her until she is no longer fertile, then he has a high
level of confidence as to his own paternity and thus is predisposed to help
care for the offspring. Moreover, in the case of birds at least, he is likely to
be on the scene when the eggs are laid and is therefore available to do his
share of the parenting. This is the case among birds because it is most common for one egg to be laid per day and for that egg to be fertilized shortly
before it is laid. If a male bird copulates with a female just before she lays
her egg, such an egg will probably be carrying his genes. In birds, therefore,
there is a payoff to being the last male to copulate, and since one egg is typically produced per day, there is a further payoff to staying around; hence-
12fi THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
perhaps-monogamy. Among mammals, on the other hand, the benefit of
male attentiveness is generally more limited, since estrus is more restricted
in time. It therefore pays male mammals to be sexually attentive to a female
when she is in heat, but-unlike in the case of male birds, who are in attendance at e�-laying because they are likely to be have copulated with the
female immediately before-there is no particular reason for male mammals
to be present when the female is giving birth. '
Unlike birds, mammals experience a long delay between copulation and
birth, during which time the female is pregnant. It therefore doesn't seem
likely that fatherly behavior among male mammals simply results from the
fact that they are nearby when "their" female gives birth, as has been argued
for birds. (Remember, daddy birds may be present in the avian delivery
room simply because they've recently copulated with their female.) At the
same time, it seems that when mammals are paternal, it is when they have
been in attendance not just at the birth of their young but also throughout
their mate's estrous; after all, female mammals, unlike insects and birds, lack
obvious sperm storage organs. Paternal mammals are likely to be fathers,
not cuckolds ... a correlation unlikely to be coincidental.
, Often, mammalian monogamy and paternal care depend on the alternatives available. Earlier, we considered those large ground squirrels known as
hoary marmots-western, mountain-dwelling relatives of the woodchuck.
They show a range of male parenting behavior, from devoted fatherhood to
virtual indifference. Local ecology holds the key. Some marmots occupy
large open meadows in which there are numerous adult males, many adult
females, and a range of juveniles. Under these conditions, males spend much
of the early summer gallivanting about in search of additional mating
opportunities and also mate-guarding, attempting to thwart the gallivanting
of other males. Males in this busy social situation essentially ignore their offspring; they are too taken up with the press of sexual threats and opportunities. On the other hand, some marmots occupy small isolated meadows
that can only support what is essentially a single extended family: one male,
one or two females, and their offspring. Here, without the social and sexual
distractions of other adults, male marmots settle down and become devoted
family men, playing with their offspring, warning them of the approach of
predators, and so forth. It may be significant that under these more isolated
conditions, males are also more likely to be the fathers of those young
toward whom they are so solicitous.
In the case of hoary marmots, as for most mammals, it appears that
males are capable of paternal behavior; it's just that they can often reap a
more substantial payoff by interacting with other adults ... especially
because their mates are guaranteed to lactate and, thus, to provide at least
minimal care. Substantial parental involvement is evidently a lower priority,
something. that happens only by default: "If there are no other females to
0 ne of the attractive things about monogamy is its egalitarianism:
one male, one female, everyone equal. After all, polygamy is inherently unequal, regardless of which sex ends up being the haremkeeper. If one male "has" many females (polygyny), there is the implication
WHY DOES MONOGAMY OCCUR AT ALL? 127
solicit, and no other males to worry about," one can almost hear the males
announcing to themselves, "then I may as well help take care of the kids. "
In contrast to male parenting, which is generally "facultative"-that is,
something that may or may not happen-female parenting (especially
among mammals) is likely to be obligatory. Even female birds generally get
stuck with most of the child care. Among birds known as lapwings, both
monogamy ·and polygyny occur, and yet neither males nor females behave
differently from one social situation to the other. Whether monogamous or
polygynous, female lapwings still end up bearing the brunt of parental care.
When mated polygynously, females end up doing nearly all the incubation,
to the extent that they have little time available for feeding themselves.
When mated monogamously-so that, presumably, they had the advantage
of male assistance with some of the parenting chores- things are no better!
(Something distressingly similar seems to happen in at least one other
species; namely, Homo sapiens. Even in supposedly liberated households,
women are often expected to do most of the domestic and child-related
chores. Even when women work full time, men typically do very little to
pick up the slack at home. For a large number of women, vocational effort
is simply added to home effort.)
Ecological circumstances seem to loom large in the "decision" whether
a species-or a particular individual-is monogamous, polygamous, promiscuous, or anything else. Examples are as diverse and as fascinating as life
itself. Here is a small sampling: The birds of paradise, a group of tropical
species in which. the males sport spectacular plumage-hence their nameare nearly all polygynous, with males seeking to mate with a relatively large
number of females and providing essentially no parental care. However, in
a closely related species, the trumpet manucode, males are faithful mates
and devoted fathers. The reason? Manucodes eat figs, which are rich in carbohydrates but comparatively poor in protein and fat. In addition, fig trees
are relatively rare (at least in the mountains of New Guinea, where these
birds were studied) and, moreover, they fruit unpredictably. Two parents are
needed, therefore, to bring enough of the low-quality, semidigested fig glop
to the nestlings to assure their survival. The result? Manucode monogamynot from manucode morality, but fig-forced. Among the other birds of paradise, incidentally, the preferred food is more energy rich, and so females
can generally provide enough by themselves, which in turn emancipates the
males to go seeking additional sexual partners ... which they do.
128 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
that he is somehow "worth" all of them put together and is more valuable
and more important than any one of his wives; similarly, if one female "has"
many males (polyandry), it seems that the worth and value of each of her
husbands is less than that of the one, dominant female. Not so with
monogamy, which-whatever its biological difficulties-feels morally right,
if only because it is a perfect tie, a 50-50 compromise in which both male
and female enjoy equal weighting.
It is also appealing to think that monogamy is a situation of mutual gratification in which the needs of male and female are equally met. This can in
fact be true, but a darker, more cynical view can also be justified, one in
which monogamy is not so much the result of a beneficent positive-sum
game, with balanced winners all around, as of a prolonged conflict of interest in which both males and females lose equally. (Instead of a glass half full,
monogamy may thus be a glass half empty.)
The fundamental conflict here is the interest of each sex in confining
its mate to only one sexual partner-itself-while at the same time obtaining additional mates, via either polygamy or EPCs. Mate-guarding would
therefore be one of many examples of how such conflicts of interest play
themselves out. It is most conspicuous on the part of males, each of whom
typically seeks to enhance his fitness by reducing his mate's opportunities
to engage in EPCs ... contrary to the female's preference. So, as we have
seen, females occasionally circumvent mate-guarding, sneaking away for
EPCs when possible. When females mate-guard, their goals are similar: to
prevent their male from obtaining those additional mates-or matingsthat he would prefer. In this admittedly glum perspective, monogamy is still
a success story of sorts: Each sex is equally successful in thwarting the
other's desires!
Close and persistent mate-guarding can be costly in other ways-as
demonstrated in animals as distinct as dunnocks (birds) and water striders
(insects)-interfering with the females' ability to obtain food or avoid predators. Sometimes, as in the water strider case, there are direct energy costs,
since gu3;rding males commonly mount the females, who are then obliged to
carry their "guardians" on their backs.
The opportunities for conflict seem endless. For example, there may be
conflict over resources provided by the male. Among scorpionflies, males
generate a salivary mass rich in calories that is transferred to the female during mating; while the female munches, the male mates. The larger the male's
nuptial gift, the longer the duration of copulation (simply because it takes
the female longer to consume it); and the longer the duration of copulation,
the greater a male's success in fertilizing the female's eggs. Also, the larger
the male's salivary mass consumed by the female, the greater the size and
success of the eggs that the female is able to produce. Not surprisingly, when
a male's salivary mass is too small, females seek to
,
end the copulation ...
WHY DOES MONOGAMY OCCUR AT ALL? 129
prematurely, from the male's perspective. At this point, the male scorpionfly
is likely to use a specialized anatomical structure, his notal organ, which
clasps the female-evidently against her will-and coerces her to continue
mating longer than would be in her interest.
The natural world is filled with similar examples of the male-female
conflicts that are inherent in sexual reproduction. Among fruit flies, for
example, males benefit from repeated matings. The more copulations, especially with additional females, the more offspring. But for females, the situation is quite different. Although a minimum number of matings is necessary if they are to reproduce, matings are costly. In fact, copulation is
dangerous to their health: The more a female fruit fly mates, the shorter her
life span. This is because, during insemination, males introduce not only
sperm but also a sublethal cocktail of chemicals that enhance their own
reproductive success, but at a cost to their female partners. These sexual
substances induce females to lay eggs more rapidly, diminish their receptivity to other males, and do battle with any sperm already present in the
female's reproductive tract. These latter chemicals in particular appear to
damage the female and shorten her life span. All this male-male chemical
warfare may also reflect y et another devious male strategy: by producing
such a nasty brew, they not only compete with prior (and subsequent) males,
they also might restrict the eagerness of females to mate ' yet again with
another male, since any who do so will obtain yet another dose of troublesome chemicals. The result is not quite male-imposed female monogamy,
but doubtless a female disinclination to be as sexually adventurous as they
would otherwise be.
One notable study, conducted by William Rice of the University of California at Davis, sought to tease apart the likely adaptations and counteradaptations of male and female Drosophila by establishing a system in
which one sex was, in effect, unilaterally disarmed. Through complex
genetic manipulations, male Drosophila in a laboratory population were
permitted to evolve, but females were prevented from developing counteradaptations. After 41 generations, the evolving male line was more successful in sperm competition than males from control populations, whereas the
nonevolving female line suffered unusually high mortality due to the toxicity of seminal fluid. Under normal conditions, when natural selection acts
on females as well as males, the tug-of-war between male adaptations for
sperm competition and female counteradaptations evidently results in a
more balanced outcome, with each kept in check by the other.
Sexual conflict generally occurs when the reproductive success of one
sex is enhanced by something that reduces the reproductive success of the
other. Males accordingly seek to minimize sperm competition, as by mateguarding, whereas females try to promote it. Among dunnocks, an alpha
male mate-guards to protect his paternity, whereas a female attempts to
130 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
escape the guarding alpha male and actively encourages copulation attempts
by beta males, probably so as to induce the beta male to assist with rearing
her chicks (by increasing the probability that they might also be his).
Among mammals, we have considered the possibility that reproductive
synchrony may be a female counteradaptation to polygyny, making it more
difficult for a single harem-keeper to inseminate-or even to guard.:_all the
fertilizable females. Insofar as synchrony enhances opportunities for females
to engage in EPCs, it is likely to be in the interests of females but counter to
the interests of males.
Then there is the matter of copulatory plugs: Males and females have a
shared interest in preventing a male's sperm from leaking out. (This assumes, of course, that the inseminating male was chosen by the female in
question and did not coerce the copulation.) But perspectives probably differ on whether it is desirable to keep other males from getting in! Hence, it
may be worth noting that female fox squirrels as well as eastern gray squirrels have been observed removing copulatory plugs from their vaginaseither discarding or eating them-within 30 seconds of copulating. Male
squirrels would presumably prefer their sexual partners to leave these plugs
in place, but there is probably little they can do about it.
In many animals, males prefer to mate with virgins. This way, they gain
a higher confidence of paternity. In addition, among species such as the scorpionflies in which males provide a metabolically valuable nuptial gift, a male
whose partner is engaging in sex for the first
.
time is guaranteed that his
investment will go toward nourishing eggs fertilized by him rather than by
some preceding male. But females are likely to see things differently, since
they can gain extra nutrients by mating with more than one male. Among
bush crickets-another insect species-males cannot distinguish virgins
from nonvirgins, because females have evidently evolved means of disguising chemical and physical cues as to their erotic history. Not to be entirely
outdone, however, male bush crickets have adopted another tactic to assess
the sexual desirability of would-be mates: They evaluate females by age, preferring those that are younger, since all other things being equal, younger
individuals are less likely to have already mated. (Of course, a preference for
virgins-as marriage partners, as opposed to one-night stands-is not limited to nonhuman animals. Among many human societies, it is still considered a major transgression for a woman to have lost her virginity before
marriage; indeed, there is a cross-cultural tradition that voids a marriage if
the bride is not a virgin. Physicians in Japan and-more covertly-in the
Middle East have long had a booming business re-creating virgins via plastic surgery. )
When it comes to male-female reproductive conflict, there is a pattern
that goes even beyond the infamous double standard; namely, sexual coercion. Coercive sexual practices are generally one-way affairs, imposed by
WHY DOES MONOGAMY OCCUR AT ALL? 131
males on females, with rape only the most extreme form. And rape has few
if any implications for monogamy. By contrast, there is room for members
of one sex-usually, but not always, males-to induce females to cease their
wandering ways and accept monogamy in return for certain promises, generally promises involving parental care.
Biologist Patricia Gowaty introduces the novel and milder concept of
"helpfully coercive" males, individuals who manipulate females into mating with them by helping the females rear offspring. In some cases, the benefits of such help may not be sufficiently great to make up for the lost
genetic benefits potentially obtained via EPCs, and females will resist sexual
monogamy or else follow this time-honored strategy: Enter into social
monogamy but engage in EPCs on the sly.
Those females with a lot to lose if the male withdraws his assistance are
most likely to be coerced (or, to put it more kindly, seduced) by male offers
of parental helpfulness. Similarly for those females with relatively little to
gain via EPCs; that is, if there are only minor differences in genetic quality
among available males. It is also possible that high-quality females are especially able to succeed in child-rearing without male help. If so, then these
high-quality females-being less fearful of losing male assistance-should be
especially liberated to seek extra-pair sex. This, in turn, might provide a
novel explanation for why broods with EPC-produced young often have a
higher success rate: not so much because extra-pair males provide especially
good food, genes, protection, or anything else, but simply because these
broods are produced by "superfemales," who, buttressed by their superiority, are capable of disregarding the helpfully coercive efforts of their husbands to keep them athome.
Not that males don't typically try to keep their mates in thrall, often indirectly. Males who compete successfully for choice real estate, for example,
may be doing so in an effort to prevent their eventual mates from looking
elsewhere for mating opportunities. As a result, it is possible that such
females are thereby seduced into mating with males of relatively low genetic
quality. But this is unlikely, since, in all probability, high-quality malesbecause of their high quality-are successful in male-male competition for
resources, too. Pair-bonds can, nonetheless, become pair bondage, even
without direct p)lysical coercion.
If there are no winners in a world of male-female sexual conflicts, it may
be reassuring to note that there probably are no clear losers, either. Adaptations beget counteradaptations, measures generate countermeasures, and in
any sexually reproducing species, every reproduction represents a precise,
mathematically equal triumph for one male and one female. So, although
individuals win or lose, males and females overall do equally well. (Technically, males in general are exactly as "fit" as are females in general.) Biologist Leigh van Valen introduced the "Red Queen hypothesis" as a new
132 THE MYlH OF MONOGAMY
evolutionary law: Recall the scene when the Red Queen of Wonderland
instructs Alice that with the world moving so rapidly, everyone must run just
to stay in place ... and to get anywhere, it is necessary to run twice as fast!
The Red Queen hypothesis states that for systems-such as males and
females-that are inextricably tied together, "winning" by one side necessarily generates a compensating response by the other. No matter how fast
or how far we run, we are all in the same boat.
N
ext: human beings. As we shall see in the next chapter, monogamy
is not natural to our own species. And indeed, it is much less common than a naive, sentimental view of "marriage and the family"
would suggest. But it does occur, and we must ask why.
The short answer is that no one knows. There has, however, been a lot
of interesting speculation, not all of it from biologists. In The Origin of the
Family, Private Property and the State, Friedrich Engels (best known for his
collaboration with Karl Marx in writing The Communist Manifesto) developed one theory, traceable at least to Rousseau and perhaps to earlier origins. In the beginning, according to this speculation, there were no exclusive
social or sexual relationships. Children belonged to everyone. Then came
the initial worm in that Edenic apple: private property. Whoever had it
wanted to pass it on to his descendants, but with "omnigamy"�veryone
' copulating with everyone-whose children were whose? The solution was
monogamy, whereby men could control the sexuality of women, thereby
insuring heirs and validating their property interests.
Engels missed some important points. First, why would men be concerned with establishing property rights for their heirs at all? (Because of
the deep-seated biological inclination to favor one's genetic relatives, or,
to put it in "selfish-gene" language, because genes tend to favor copies of
themselves in those bodies that we call "children" ?) And second, both
Engels and Rousseau before him almost certainly got it backwards: Men
don't domi�ate women so as to protect their property. More likely, they
accumulate property-as well as prestige and power of other sorts-so as
to attract women.
There have been several other theories to account for the origin of human
monogamy. Another nonbiological one was developed by pioneer sociologist Thorstein Veblen, in The Theory of the Leisure Class. Veblen attributed
much social behavior to a need for self-display, including the accumulation
of women. For a man to "have" a woman-and better yet, many womenis a clear sign that he is powerful and successful. And in turn, according to
Veblen, "the practice of seizing women from the enemy as trophies gave rise
to a form of ownership-marriage. " Women were primordial property.
WHY DOES MONOGAMY OCCUR AT ALL? 133
Other ideas reflect more evolutionary sophistication. Thus, we have
already considered how the rapid growth of young birds-typically combined with the utter helplessness of many nestlings-seems correlated with
avian monogamy ... such as it is. Human infants grow more slowly than
infant birds, but they are, if anything, even more helpless at birth, and they
remain profoundly needy for a very long time. Under these conditions, it is
reasonable that mothers, and even fathers, would be predisposed to shared
parenting, quite literally for the sake of the kids.
The likely connection to monogamy would doubtless go beyond a
shared male-female interest in cooperative parenting: To some extent, males
can be expected to insist that in return for fathering-and not mere inseminating-they are offered a high confidence of paternity. And, in fact,
although human beings are perfectly good mammals, we are also unusual in
our fathering.
Aside from pregnancy and lactation, there is nothing that mothers do
that fathers can't. Nonetheless, even though paternal care is better developed and more frequent in human beings than in most other mammals, it
is not all that prominent even in our own species. A survey of paternal
behavior in 80 different societies reported a close father-infant relationship in only 4 percent of them. And even in these cases, fathers spent less
than 15 percent of their time actively engaged with infants. Moreover, when
they do interact, much of what transpires is play rather than caretaking as
such. On the other hand, even though fathers consistently do less fathering
than mothers do mothering, there is evidence that what they do may be
quite important. Among the Ache Indians of South America, for example, a
child is relatively safe and secure if he or she has a father: Up to age 15, such
a child suffers only a 0.6% chance of dying. On the other hand, a child
under age 15 and lacking a father suffers a 9.1% risk of death.
Given that there can be a real payoff to having a dedicated male caretaker, it is not a great stretch to consider that there may also be a benefitto the offspring, and thus to both parents-in monogamy. After all,
monogamy means that a male, no less than a female, is available for child
care. On the other hand, if the issue is protection and access to resources,
then it stands to reason that a powerful, wealthy polygynist could in theory
provide as much to each of his many wives and their offspring as could a less
impressive, impoverished man, even if the latter is devotedly monogamous.
Monogamy is widely seen as benefiting women, while it is often assumed
that polygyny is a patriarchal, male-dominated system that oppresses
women. But it is easy to forget that for every successful polygynist man,
there are several unsuccessful bachelors; since there are roughly equal numbers of men and women, if one man has ten wives, for example, then there
are nine without wives at all. Focusing on the high achievers is reminiscent
134 THE MY1H OF MONOGAMY
of those people who claim to remember their previous lives: For some reason, their recollections always involve a prior existence as Napoleon, Joan
of Arc, one of the pharaohs or queens of Egypt, or a medieval lord or lady
... never as a serf, slave, or peasant!
It may be that, in fact, polygyny is a disaster for most men and, comparatively speaking, a good deal for most women. With polygyny, more
women have the option of associating themselves with a powerful, successful man. For subordinate, less successful men, it is a serious problem, but
very few women are likely to be shut out. Thus, although we often think of
monogamy as benefiting women, it may be far more congenial for men,
especially those in the middle or lower ranks. Monogamy is the great male
equalizer, a triumph of domestic democracy. '
On the other hand, even systems of ostensible monogamy-as found in
modern Western societies-often allow successful men, married or not, to
have additional sex partners, a situation typically not condoned for married
women. There are also other ways of maintaining the legal form of
monogamy while circumventing it nonetheless. Of these, the most common
pattern is serial monogamy, in which powerful or wealthy men divorce their
wives and take up with younger (more fertile and physically attractive)
women as their earlier wives grow older. The movie The First Wives Club
depicted the situation of women deserted by husbands seeking younger
spouses as their financial success enabled them to accumulate a kind of
harem, albeit serially instead of simultaneously. The question arises: Is serial
monogamy, wherein powerful, successful men abandon their wives, more
humane than polygyny, wherein they might simply add additional mates?
(Serial monogamy is also practiced, on occasion, by wealthy and successful
women, and although it appears to be less frequent than its male counterpart, no data are available.)
To be sure, various coercive causes of human monogamy are also less
than humane. There is, for example, the fear of social ostracism or-in the
case of traditional Roman Catholics-fear of excommunication if they elect
to terminate a marital union considered sacred by the Church in order to
marry someone else. There can also be fear of physical injury inflicted by a
"wronged" spouse: The most common cause of one spouse killing another
is sexual jealousy, specifically a man's suspicion that his mate has been
unfaithful. One must wonder how many marriages are kept together by fear.
Aside from fear of death, battering, ostracism, and damnation, there is
also fear of abandonment, poverty, and vulnerability. One must also ask,
accordingly, how many marriages are kept together by a woman's fear that
if she leaves her husband-especially if she has dependent children and may
also have sacrificed her own economic prospects for her husband's-she is
liable to have a terribly difficult time making ends meet, particularly if she
WHY DOES MONOGAMY OCCUR AT ALL? 155
is no longer young and attractive. The alternative is a kind of long-standing
sexual exchange, almost an inverted prostitution, whereby women exchange
fidelity-or, at least, the appearance of fidelity-for resources, especially a
decent standard of living and protection. When it comes to the evolution of
monogamy, however, the phenomenon to be explained is less female fidelity
than male willingness to "stop at one. " (After all, part of the burden of this
book is that fidelity-whether male or female-is more myth than reality. )
· And, finally, there is the old chestnut: staying together for the sake of the
children. It sounds trite, but is nonetheless real for thousands, probably millions, of couples. Insofar as the benefit of shared parenting is a major cause
of monogamy, it may be altogether understandable-if profoundly unromantic-that this benefit is often responsible for maintaining monogamy as
well ... for better or worse.
Kristen Hawkes, an anthropologist at the University of Utah, reports
that there are many isolated pretechnological societies in which paternity is
unclear, suggesting that maybe men get · something else from monogamy.
Among the Bari of Colombia and Venezuela, "partible paternity"-the idea
that a child can have several fathers-is a common belief: 24 percent of Bari
children and 63 percent of Ache children (Paraguay) were said to have multiple fathers. And kids were better off with multiple fathers than with just
one: 80 percent of the former survived to age 15 versus only 64 percent of
those with a "single father. " This finding also supports Sara Hrdy's theory,
described earlier, that female sexual receptivity to multiple males (and concealed ovulation) is a strategy to keep males uncertain as to paternity. Hrdy
sees this as a way of avoiding infanticide, but it might also help generate tendencies to provide dependent children with food and other crucial resources,
as well as defending them if need be.
Hawkes also points out that among the Ache of Paraguay and the Hadza
of northern Tanzania, different families are likely to receive equal portions
of meat brought back from the hunt. This, also, doesn't fit the "bargain
hypothesis" of monogamy, under which a successful hunter's wife-and her
offspring-should get to hog the proceeds. Hawkes has found, however,
that successful Hadza hunters have younger wives, have more EPC partners,
and father more children than do the less successful hunters. Their offspring
also have a higher survival rate, perhaps because of better nutrition or
because successful hunters got to select more competent women as wives
(and, thus, mothers). According to Hawkes, monogamy may have arisen as
a result of "negotiations among males," whereby access to women is divided
up and harmful fighting is avoided.
Nonetheless, as we shall see in the next chapter, there is overwhelming
evidence that monogamy is not "natural" to human beings. If, then, monogamy is a rather peculiar and derived state, why has it been victorious ... at
136 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
least in official doctrine, if not in the actual observance? A simple answer is
that it is the avowed marital system of Western countries, whose military,
economic, and cultural power have simply imposed Western preferences on
the rest of the world. But this ducks the question: Why is monogamy
approved-in theory if not in practice-in these Western countries?
To some extent, it may be a little-appreciated example of the triumph of
democracy and "equal opportunity," at least for men. Polygyny, as already
mentioned, is a condition of elitism, in which a relatively small number of
fortunate, ruthless, or uniquely qualified men get to monopolize more than
their share of the available mates. With monogamy, by contrast, even the
most successful individual cannot have mote than one legal mate; as a result,
even the least successful is likely to obtain a spouse as well. H it requires
some suppression of our tendencies for multiple mates, monogamy offers in
its place an enhanced prospect of there being a mate for each of us.
The early evolutionary history of human mating systems is unclear, but
here is a possible quick-and-dirty scenario: Our early ancestors roamed the
Pleistocene African savannas in small bands. Most current hunter-gatherer
human societies are monogamous (although with adultery relatively common). Only a small number of men-typically 5 to 15 percent-are active
polygynists, and even then, it is eXtremely rare for one man to have more
than a few wives. With a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, it is almost impossible for
one man to obtain a monopoly of resources, or even a preponderance: Luck
is often involved in hunting, for example. Besides, when game and gathered
vegetable foods are at issue, it is difficult to store excess. Then came agriculture, providing the opportunity for some men to own large amounts of land
and, with it, large surpluses. The rich were able to get richer yet. Out of this
came enhanced competition as well as the prospect of enhanced successespecially more wives:-for the winners. In a sense, maybe Rousseau wasn't
altogether wrong, after all, when he suggested that people were primitively
egalitarian, with this Eden disrupted by the invention of private property!
In any event, with increased wealth concentrated in t�e hands of a few
came the prospect of additional wives. Polygyny flowered___;_and not just
among early farmers: The same applied, if anything more so, to pastoralist
societies, nearly all of which were traditionally polygynous. Even today,
large herds of cattle, goats, camels, and so forth equal large wealth, which
equals large numbers of wives for the "haves."
Polygyny was evidently widespread in the Near East, as reflected by
numerous Old Testament references to the many wives of the early Israelite
kings. And polygyny continued to be the favored practice in much of the
world, especially in what anthropologists and sociologists call "highly stratified societies," those in which there are substantial ·economic and social differences between the poorest and the wealthiest. As expected, polygyny has
WHY DOES MONOGAMY OCCUR AT ALL? 137
long been a preferred system for wealthy, powerful men, continuing up until
modem times in India, China, and Africa. Western Europe, however, was a
notable exception; even though there has long been plenty of disparity in
wealth between the richest and poorest Europeans, these people moved rapidly toward what has been called "socially imposed monogamy. "
Opinion is divided as to why. One possibility is that by the Industrial
Revolution, most people (i.e., workers) were once again more or less equal
in possessions. Of course, successful captains of industry became fabulously
wealthy; the point is that even the average wage-slave-although badly off
compared to the factory owners-was capable of supporting a family, at
least minimally.
Monogamy may thus be, at least in part, a result of male-male equality;
even more so, however, it is a cause of equality, a great reproductive leveler
(for men)-at least in biological terms. The possibility therefore arises that,
historically, monogamy arose in Europe as an implicit trade-off. The
wealthy and powerful would in effect have agreed to give up their nearmonopoly on women in return for obtaining greater social involvement on
the part of middle- and lower-class men, who, if reproductively excluded,
might have refused to participate in the social contract necessary for the
establishment of large, stable social units. According to this view, these men
were offered a level-or, at least, a somewhat more level-reproductive
playing field in exchange for their cooperation in dealing with internal or
external threats.
Male-female reproductive conflict, whatever its degree, pales in comparison with the intensity of male-male conflict, which, in turn, may have
induced powerful men to accept restrictions (however unwillingly) in order
to enlist the aid of their less fortunate but more numerous competitors. And
so, · instead of bread and circuses, the hoi polloi may have been offered
monogamous marriage. In any event, among Europeans in particular, Christianity became especially active in promoting monogamy and imposing it on
the secular elite.
T
he foregoing explanation fails to account for the fact that many highly
stratified polygynous societies-such as those of the Incas, Aztecs,
Indians, and Chinese-also maintained an extraordinary amount of
social cohesion despite an intense degree of non"monogamous reproductive
despotism. This criticism is not devastating, however, since the theory relating European monogamy to enhanced social integration simply claims that
the connection may be significant, not that it is necessary or exclusive.
Even Bill Gates is legally forced to be monogamous ... although successful sports and rock stars often have multiple sexual liaisons, and, for all
we know, so does Mr. Gates himself. Bill Clinton, too, is legally forced to be
138 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
monogamous ... although powerful men are typically inclined to seek additional pairings (if only briefly) and-because of the nature of female sexual
psychology-are generally able to find willing partners.·It is easy, as well, to
· imagine queen bees such as Elizabeth Taylor, Madonna, or Oprah Winfrey
being in demand-and command-as polyandrous females ... except for
the legalrestraints. The point is that although social ideology and legal
. restrictions cannot change human nature, they can and do impose egalitarianism in several · forms: Everyone is supposed to be equal before the law,
equally deserving of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, · and entitled
to-or bound by-monogamy.
CHAPTER SIX
What Are Human Beings,
"Naturally"?
E
thel Merman used to belt out a song that advised "doing what comes
naturally. " (As you might expect, it was about sex. ) It is easier to
talk-or sing-about what is "natural" than to pin it down, especially when the subject is human beings. After all, people could never, in a
sense, do anything truly unnatural: We cannot survive without air, walk
upside down on the ceiling, or grow additional heads. At the same time,
everything we do, everything we are, is a consequence not only of our internal "human nature" but also of our experiences. There is no way to know
for certain what human beings would be like without the influence of the
environment, since a person without an environment could not survive, not
to mention behave in interesting and meaningful ways.
Nonetheless, people keep trying to tease apart the roles of experience,
environment, culture, social tradition, and so forth, hoping to get a glimpse
of what "naked, unaccommodated man" (as Shakespeare's Lear put it) is
like. The devout King James of England-who commissioned what became
the most famous translation of the Bible-is said to have arranged for a few
children to be reared in complete isolation from any spoken language, so as -
to ascertain the "natural" human language, uncontaminated by the prompting of others; James apparently hoped that the unfortunate subjects would
spontaneously begin speaking Hebrew! They didn't. (Not even Aramaic.)
Nonetheless, the search for bona fide human "naturalness" goes on.
Underlying much of the research of anthropologists has been the unspoken
140 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
hope that by studying the lives of nontechnological people, they would gain
insight into the "natural," unaccommodated inclinations of Homo sapiens,
unpolluted by MTV, computer games, air conditioning, or microwaved popcorn. Even though such efforts can easily be caricatured, there is nonetheless something meaningful about asking what human beings, deep inside,
really and truly, unconstrained by civilization-or at least, minimally constrained-naturally are . To be sure, no one lives in a pure state of nature,
but if we look both intensively and extensively at human beings, it is possible to discern some patterns that persist.
One such pattern concerns monogamy, polygamy, and EPCs.
T
wenty-five hundred years ago, Plato offered an answer-albeit
tongue-in-cheek-to this chapter's title question. His dialogue The
Symposium presented this scenario, put in the mouth of the bawdy
playwright Aristophenes: It seems that originally people were not as they are
today, divided into male and female. Rather, they were happy, fulfilled, selfcontained Androgynes, each individual consisting of four arms, four legs,
two heads and sporting duplex genitalia. Each "person" was a self-contained monogamous unit. But Zeus found their smugness intolerable andas was his wont under such circumstances--<:ommenced flinging thunderbolts, which split the Androgynes asunder. Since then, we have all been
doomed to wander the earth, seeking to find our "other half," to reestablish
that perfect, prethunderbolt state of united bliss.
(Plato's story, incidentally, has the added charm of providing an explanation for homosexuality as well· as for heterosexual monogamy: Not all the
original Androgynes, it seems, were truly androgynous. Some were composed of doubled female halves and some, of doubled males. Male and
female homosexuals were thus generated by the same process as heterosexuals, and-like heterosexuals-they also seek ultimate satisfaction by
reestablishing their preschismatic union.)
According to the Androgyne myth, monogamy-whether heterosexual
or homosexual-is our natural state, our route to anatomic as well as emotional wholeness. Seen this way, Plato's tale extols monogamy. Or, alternatively, maybe it does just the opposite: explains the frequent departures from
monogamy. Thus, maybe monogamy is natural, but only with the correct
mate! H one's designated, monogamous union happens to be with the wrong
half (who presumably is someone else's correct half), then EPCs are understandable efforts to locate that long-lost partner! ( "Are you my missing
Other?" "No? Well, how about you? ")
But this myth, engaging as it may be, is not the one with which we are
presently concerned. Rather, the myth of monogamy that we are seeking to
WHAT ARE HUMAN BEINGS, "NATURALLY"? 141
investigate is the opposite of Plato's. It is the more widespread myth, the one
claiming that in monogamous union the partners are naturally joined
together, like the Androgynes before Zeus's untimely intervention. This
myth, the one that not only extols monogamy but also insists on its virtual
universality, is a "real" myth; that is, one that is widely held, but false.
As we shall see, the evidence is overwhelming that monogamy is no
more natural to human beings than it is to other living things. First, we turn
to polygyny.
The evidence includes sexual "dimorphism" combined with sexual
"bimaturism." Dimorphism ( "two bodies") refers to the fact that males and
females are significantly different, not only in their genitals but also in basic
bodily attributes, especially size. Even though some men are smaller than
some women, and some women are larger than all but the largest men, men
are g�nerally larger than women, on average about 10 to 15 percent taller
and heavier. (This isn't a value judgment, just a statement of statistical and
biological fact. ) The most likely explanation for such a disparity is that the
larger sex has evolved to be larger because of the payoffs associated with
success in competing with other same-sex members. And the most direct
route to such a payoff is reproductive success; namely, a harem consisting of
more than one female.
Looking at other living things, we find that the greater the degree of
polygyny, the greater the degree of dimorphism: Certain rain-forest deer that
are essentially monogamous are also monomorphic, while elk-classic
harem-keepers-are highly dimorphic, with the bulls considerably larger
than the cows. Similarly with members of the seal family: Monogamy and
monomorphism go together, as do polygyny and dimorphism. Primates, too:
Compare the dimorphic (and polygynous) gorillas, for example, with the
monomorphic (and largely monogamous) marmosets.
In some primates, monogamy-or, rather, monandry, · female fidelity to
one male--seems remarkably persistent, despite opportunities for EPCs. In
one study of free-living hamadryas baboons, for example, four out of five
males in some isolated groups were vasectomized. After four . years, both
females associated with the intact male had given birth, whereas of the
remaining six females associated with the four vasectomized males, not one
had done so. Not surprisingly, male hamadryas baboons have much smaller
testes relative to their body size . than do the more sexually promiscuous
baboons. Human beings are definitely at the big-ball end of the primate
spectrum, more like chimpanzees than like gorillas or hamadryas baboons,
further suggesting that we have long been accustomed to competing via our
sperm as well as our bodies.
Don't be deceived, however, into thinking that human beings can easily be pigeonholed as to their "natural" way of living. Even other species
142 THE MYlH OF MONOGAMY
(presumably "simpler" than Homo sapiens) can be so variable as to defy
ready generalization. For example, in the primitive, egg-laying Australian
mammals known as short-beaked echidnas, males form "mating trains" of
up to 11 individuals, all neatly-and, tb the human observer, comicallylined up nose-to-tail, patiently marching along behind an estrous female,
each waiting for his chance to mate with her. But this is only true in the
warmer climates of northern Australia. In colder climates (e.g., in Tasmania)
echidnas are monogamous. Go figure.
Nonetheless, certain basic patterns can be identified, and, in fact, doing
so is much of what science is all about. A Martian biologist, sent to earth to
describe its various life-forms, would have little doubt, based on sexual
dimorphism alone, that Homo sapiens is mildly polygynous.
Added to this is the evidence from sexual bimaturism, the peculiar phenomenon whereby girls become women a year or two before boys become
men. Like sexual dimorphism, sexual bimaturism is a consistent, specieswide trait. And like sexual dimorphism, sexual bimaturism has "polygyny"
written all over it. Just as being larger and stronger conveys an advantage
when it comes to same-sex competition for getting and keeping a harem,
there is a payoff in being older, too. So a predictable hallmark of polygynous
species is that the males delay their maturation until they are somewhat
older, stronger, tougher, and presumably a bit more savvy than their more
callow counterparts.
There is more evidence yet.
Men are consistently more ·violent than women, which again is a predictable trait of the more competitive, harem-keeping sex. A high level of
aggressiveness among women carries with it relatively little payoff along·
with substantial possible cost, since women are unlikely to be rewarded by
acquiring a "harem" of men. Biologically, there is relatively little difference
between the most and the least successful women; by contrast, there is a
huge difference between the most and the least successful men, especially if
the mating system is polygynous. This, in turn, results in the harem-keeping
sex being not only larger and later-maturing but also, on average, more
aggressive. In strictly monogamous species, there is generally very little difference between the sexes when it comes to propensities for violence ...
once more, because there is little to be gained and much to be lost. The
harem-keeping sex, by contrast, plays a more high-stakes game and is more
likely to use risky strategies; playing it safe makes sense in a world .of
monogamy or if one is a harem-member.
It is tempting to conclude that male-female differences in sexual dimorphism and bimaturism-and even male-female differences in vi�lence and
risk-taking-are "hard wired" into human biology. On the other hand, cultural traditions must be acknowledged, especially when it comes to behav-
WHAT ARE HUMAN BEINGS, "NATURALLY" ? 143
ioral differences: Society generates expectations that men are "supposed"
to act one way and women, another. In fact, even such apparently biological differences as body size and age at sexual maturation could have cultural components-if society dictates, for example, that boys should eat
more than girls and thus, perhaps, grow larger. (It is more difficultalthough not impossible-to see how age at sexual maturation could be a
cultural construct.)
But the idea that such differences are culturally determined founders on
this hard fact: They occur cross-culturally, in societies as diverse as urban
America, the highlands of New Guinea, the arctic tundra, and the islands
of the South Pacific. If male-female distinctions were arbitrary productions
of culture, then they should vary randomly from one society to the next.
But they don't. These differences occur wherever Homo sapiens is found,
and all of them point to a dollop of primitive polygyny as part of our biological heritage.
T
here is yet more evidence for an underlying pattern of human polygyny. It comes from a series of studies and observations concerning
our species-wide sexual inclinations. Conducted by different researchers at different times, they converge on a few basic principles, including the fact that men, worldwide, have a much greater interest in sexual
variety than do women. Once again, this makes particular sense if Homo
sapiens is inclined to be polygynous, because a harem-keeper will have
sexual relations with many women and also because, as sperm-makers,
men can increase their reproductive success by doing just this. As a general
rule, the male strategy has been to increase the number of sex partners
rather than to have more children per partner-that is, to opt for quantity
over quality.
· In one study, unmarried U.S. college students were asked how many sex
partners they would ideally like to have during various time intervals, from
the next month to the rest of their lives. Men consistently indicated a desire .
for more partners than did women: During the coming year, for example,
men wanted 6; women, 1. For the next three years, men wanted 10; women,
2. And as time went on, the desired difference in number of sex partners
increased, until, on average, men indicated wanting 18 different sex partners
over their lifetime, as compared to women's desire for 4 to 5.
,
Men and women were also asked to estimate the probability that they
would agree to sexual intercourse with an attractive member of the opposite sex if they had known this person for one hour, one evening, a whole
day, a week, a month, all the way up to five years. Men and women were
equally inclined to have sex with such a person after five years, but for
144 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
every interval short of that, men indicated a higher probability than did
women. (For women, the "break-even" point was between three and six
months; for men, it was about one week. Women indicated a virtually zero
probability of sex after one hour, with essentially no change over the first
day; even after one week, women reported themselves as very unlikely to
have sex. Men said that after just one day, their likelihood of consenting
would be nearly 50-50.)
These studies can be criticized for relying on what people say rather
than what they actually do. Here, then, is another innovative piece of
research that comes closer yet to measuring actual behavior. An attractive
man or woman approached strangers of the opposite sex on a college campus and said, "I have been noticing you . around campus. I find you very
attractive." Then, they posed one of these three questions, selected for each
subject at random: (1) "Would you go out with me tonight?" (2) "Would
you come over to my apartment tonight?" (3) "Would you go to bed with
me tonight?"
Of the women who were asked for a date, 50 percent agreed; of those
asked to go to the man's apartment, 6 percent agreed; of those asked for sex,
none agreed. Of the men who were asked for a date, approximately 50 percent said "yes" (the same as the proportion of women who had consented),
whereas 69 percent agreed to go to the woman's apartment and no fewer
than 7 5 percent agreed to go to bed with her that night! Interestingly, among
the 25 percent who refused, a large number felt it necessary to explain,
pointing to a previous engagement with a girlfriend and so forth.
As with other living things, both men and women are liable to suffer
some costs associated with EPCs, such as increased risk of sexually transmitted diseases and other possible physical risks (notably being physically
injured by the partner or-if one or both participants are already pairedby one's own mate or the mate of the short-term partner). This latter tariff
in particular is most likely to be paid by men. On the other hand, loss of reputation is a significant possible cost that falls most heavily on women:
Although men can suffer if they develop a reputation of being promiscuous
or unprincipled, the aura of being a Casanova or Don Juan also has its benefits, often enhancing social status among men and even, on occasion, making such a man more attractive to women.
Why? In part because of the well-known consumer effect, whereby any
product-shoes, car, food item, Wall Street stock-becomes more desirable
if it is seen as being desired by others. And in part because of a logical outgrowth of polygyny as the long-standing, primitive human condition. Polygynous societies are not uniformly polygynous; after all, there are approximately equal numbers of men and women, so it is impossible for all men to
be harem-keepers! Those who succeed are likely,
to be especially powerful,
WHAT ARE HUMAN BEINGS, "NATURALLY" ? 145
physically or mentally well endowed, high in status, and in control of substantial resources (land, domestic animals, other forms of material wealth,
social allies ) .. Given this connection, it is not surprising that men who
acquire a reputation for sexual access to many women are widely perceived
to be high in status or control of resources, so that-by a process similar to
that described earlier for the "sexy son hypothesis"-success can lead to
success ... for men.
By contrast, a reputation for promiscuity does far more harm to a
'woman than to a man. Whereas a man who is sexually successful with many
women is likely to be seen as just that-successful-a woman known t.o
have "success" with many men is unlikely, as a result, to have enhanced her
reputation. Instead, even in today's more sexually liberated and egalitarian
climate, she is more likely to be known as a "slut."
A "fast" woman known to be an "easy lay" may well be popular among
men seeking their own short-term sexual liaisons, but not among those
looking for a committed relationship. This, of course, is part of the longlamented double standard, whereby men and women are typically subjected
to different sexual expectations. Willard Espy neatly expressed the curious
double-bind implicit in the male approach to the double standard:
I love the girls who don't.
I love the girls who do.
But best, the girls who say, "I don't ...
But maybe just for you.
Although such standards are undoubtedly heavily influenced by culture,
the fact that they are generally cross-cultural-that is, found among a wide
variety of human societies-strongly suggests that they are ultimately rooted
in biology. Those roots probably sprout from the difference between men and
women when it comes to confidence of genetic parentage. (The long-term
reproductive success of men would not generally be well served by affiliating
with women likely to cuckold them; men can therefore be expected to refrain
from marrying women who have a reputation for being EPC-prone. By contrast, although a reputation for EPCs could indeed be a detriment to the
desirability of a man, especially when monogamy is expected, it would do little to diminish a man's prospects if the expectation were polygyny.)
A woman with a reputation for sexual promiscuity may well be signaling that she is less discriminating, perhaps because she is unable to obtain a
high-quality long-term mate. A woman's history of many short-term sexual ·
partnerships may thus have precisely the opposite effect of a similar reputation for a man: It is likely to announce that she is of low quality and minimum long-term desirability.
14fi THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
T
he case "for" human polygyny--'-not as an ethical good but simply as
a biological "natural"-is further solidified by the findings of primatologists and anthropologists. Primatologists first.
Monogamy had been reported for 10 to 15 percent of all primate species, as compared to 3 percent or so for mammals generally (and better than
90 percent for birds). As we have seen, reports of avian monogamy-and
mammalian monogamy generally-have turned out to be greatly exaggerated ... like Mark Twain's comment on the rumor of his death. Similarly,
field t;vidence, accumulated after thousands of hours of direct observations
of elusive tropical primates in the wild, has been showing that primate
monogamy, too, is not what it was cracked up to be. A recent review of the
evidence has concluded, in fact, that only nine species of primates live in
exclusive two-adult groups throughout their geographic range. (Some others appear to be monogamous under certain conditions only. ) So there is no
reason to think that human beings represent a mal)lffial group that is unusually predisposed to monogamy.
As to human predispositions, the clearest evidence comes from how people actually lived before the cultural homogenization that came with Westem imperialism and the Judea-Christian ethic of monogamy. (Incidentally,
even that ethic was not originally monogamous: King David had at least
6 wives. [2 Samuel 3: 2-5] and later took more [2 Samuel 5:13]. And
Solomon is said to have had 700 wives as well as 300 concubines [1 Kings
1 1: 1-3].)
Students of human society have long been divided as to how and why
human beings ever arrived at monogamy. The nineteenth-century Finnish
anthropologist Edward Westermarck maintained that monogamy came first
and was subsequently embroidered upon as various other marriage systems
were developed. By contrast, Lewis Morgan, father of American anthropology, argued that monogamy isn't primitive at all but is, rather, not only an
advanced condition but, in fact, the pinnacle of human family structures. In
this view, monogamy rests triumphantly, if not chastely, on top, like a man
in the missionary position. This view is no longer widely held and has even
been ridiculed, as in the following passage from the noted student of South
Pacific · cultures, · anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski, who noted that,
according to Morgan,
Human society originated in complete sexual promiscuity, passed
then through the consanguine family, the punaluan household, group
marriage, polyandry, polygamy and what not, arriving only after a
laborious process of 15 transformations in the happy haven of
monogamous· marnage.
. . . WHAT ARE HUMAN BEINGS, ''NATURALLY" ? 147
Malinowski further notes that, . in this view,
The history of human marriage reads like a sensational and
somewhat scandalous novel starting from a. confused but interesting
initial tangle, redeeming its unseemly course by a moral denouement,
and leading as all proper novels shotild to marriage, in which "they
lived happily after."
·
Whatever course the evolution of the hilman family may actually have
traveled, it is clear that we didn't all arrive at the same place. And, moreover, it is also clear that monogamy was at best a minority destination. Of
1 85 human societies surveyed by anthropologist C. S . . Ford · and psychologist Frank Beach, only 29 (fewer than 16 percent) formally restricted their
members to monogamy. Moreover, of these 29, fewer than one-third wholly
disapproved of both premarital and extramarital sex. In 83 percent of the
societies examined (154 out of 1 85), males were allowed multiple mateships-that is, polygyny or socially approved concubines rather than
monogamy-if they could afford it.
The renowned anthropologist G. P. Murdoch, in his classic study Social
Structure, found that of 238 different human societies around the globe,
monogamy was enforced as the only acceptable marriage system in a· mere;
43. Thus, before contact with the West, on average more than 80 percent of
human societies were preferentially polygynous, meaning that male haremkeeping was something that most men sought to attain. It is safe to say that
institutionalized monogamy was very rare.
Anthropologist Weston LaBarre concurs:
When it comes to polygyny, the cases are extraordinarily numerous.
Indeed, polygyny is permitted (though in every case it may not be
achieved) among all the Indian tribes of North and South America,
with the exception of a few like the Pueblo. Polygyny is common too
in both Arab and Negro groups in Africa and is by no means unusual
either in Asia or in Oceania. Sometimes, of course, it is culturallylimited polygyny: Moslems may have only four wives under Koranic
law-while the King of Ashanti in West Africa was strictly limited to
3,333 wives and had to be content with this number .
. The greater the degree of "stratification" in most nontechnological societies, the greater the degree of polygyny. In other words; those who were
very powerful and very wealthy (the two have long been pretty much synonymous) were nearly always (1) men and, also, (2) possessors of large .
148 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
harems. Not uncommonly, harem size was precisely calibrated to power and
wealth. "In Inca Peru, as probably everywhere," notes evolutionary anthropologist Laura Betzig of the University of Michigan,
the reproductive hierarchy dramatically paralleled the social hierarchy.
Petty chiefs were by law allowed up to seven women; governors
of a hundred were given eight women; leaders of a thousand got
15 women; chiefs over a million got 30 women. Kings had access to
temples filled with women; no lord had less than 700 at his disposal.
Typically, the "poor Indian" took whatever was left.
However, a preference for polygyny does not mean that it is always
achieved. Even when multiple mateships are considered highly desirable, at
any given time most men had no more than one mate. But in these situations, many men, if they lived long enough, still had more than one socially
approved mate, since as they grew older, they typically got richer.
S
o much for polygyny. (Although a great deal more can be said!) For
now, the point �s that monogamy is under assault from many different
directions, one being that it is not the "natural" human condition. On
this, the evidence from anatomy, physiology, behavior, and anthropology
can be considered decisive. Another point is that even when human
monogamy occurs, it is shot .through with extra-pair copulations, with the
same penchant for EPCs that has been so persuasively documented of late
for animals.
In their sample of 185 widely separated human societies, anthropologist
Ford and psychologist Beach found that 39 percent not merely tolerated but
actually approved extramarital sexual liaisons, generally of specific kinds.
Incest was the only consistent sexual prohibition. The Toda people oflndia,
for example, reputedly had no concept of adultery and even considered it
immoral for one man to begrudge his wife to another. In many societies,
extramarital sex was limited to certain categories, such as brothers and
sisters-in-law aru.ong the Siriono of eastern · Bolivia. These people were
"monogamous," but men were permitted to have sexual intercourse with
their wife's sisters and with their brothers' wives. Women, in turn, could
have sex with their husband's brothers and their sisters' husbands. Among
the Haida tribe, married men and women were generally permitted sexual
relations with anyone belonging to the spouse's clan; at most, the husband
or wife could "object softly. " Usually he or she did not. In short, even when
monogamy has been the legally instituted form of mateship, it often has not
WHAT ARE HUMAN BEINGS, "NATURALLY"? 149
precluded certain specified extramarital relationships, at least among some
human societies. Most of the world's peoples, throughout history and
around the globe, have arranged things so that marriage and sexual exclusivity are not necessarily the same thing.
fu addition to permitting extramarital sex among designated relatives,
many otherwise monogamous societies have approved extramarital sex at
special times, notably religious or harvest festivals such as the Brazilian
Mardi Gras.
Next: polyandry. As a socially sanctioned institution, it is exceedingly
rare. It is also a fascinating biological irony that although men stand to gain
more-in terms of producing offspring-from multiple copulations, women
are physiologically capable of "having" more sex than men. Add to this the
peculiar anthropological fact that nearly all social systems are structured the
other way around. In his Letters from the Earth , Mark Twain had great fun
with this paradox. Here is Twain's Devil reporting his discoveries, after visiting our planet:
Now there you have a sample of man's "reasoning powers," as he
calls them. He observes certain facts. For instance, that in all his life he
never sees the day that he can satisfy one woman; also, that no woman
ever sees the day that she can't overwork, and defeat, and put out of
commission any ten masculine plants that can be put to bed to her. He
puts those strikingly suggestive and luminous facts together, and from
them draws this astonishing conclusion: The Creator intended the
woman to be restricted to one man.
Now if you or any other really intelligent person were arranging
the fairnesses, and justices between man and woman, you would give
the man a one-fiftieth interest in one woman, and the woman a harem.
Now wouldn't you? Necessarily, I give you my word, this creature ...
has arranged it exactly the other way.
Twain's Devil is absolutely right: One man is less capable of sexually satisfying many women than one woman is of satisfying many men. Nonetheless, from a biological perspective the difference between eggs and sperm
proclaim that it is more logical for one man to mate with multiple women
than for one woman to mate with several men. And, in this case, evolutionary logic has won out.
Group marriages are even scarcer than polyandry. Perhaps the most flexible matrimonial system was found among the Kaingang of southeast Brazil:
8 percent of Kaingang marriages were truly group affairs, involving tWo or
more men mated to two or more women; 14 percent involved one woman
150 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
married to several men; in 18 percent, one man was polygynously mated to
several women; and 60 percent were monogamous. But clearly it would be
misleading to call the Kaingang "monogamous," even though monogamy
was the most frequent pattern. Other arrangements were officially permitted, and, in fact, polygyny was preferred (at least by men).
Even among those societies that can legitimately be described as monogamous-that institutionalize marriage between one man and one womansexual relations between husband and wife are less exclusive than a Western
Judea-Christian perspective might anticipate. For example, among
avowedly monogamous societies, about 10 percent actually permit relatively
free extramarital sexual intercourse. Among the Lepcha of the Himalayas,
for example, a husband is expected to object only if his wife has sexual relations with another man in his presence! About 40 percent of ostensibly
monogamous human societies permit extramarital sex under special conditions (certain holidays) or with particular individuals (such as the husband's
brothers), and only about 50 percent prohibit extramarital coitus altogether.
Among these restrictive societies, the rules apply most tightly to wives, much
less so to husbands: Only a very small percentage prohibit extramarital sexuality on the part of men. .
In a number of human groups, men routinely exchanged sexual relations
, with each other's wives. Among certain Eskimo, Cumana, Araucay, and
Crow Indians, honored guests were permitted to sleep with the host's wife,
and the Siberian Chukchee established regularized patterns of wifeexchange, so that a traveler, far from home, could be guaranteed a warm
bed and pleasant accommodations. (Nothing has been reported regarding
the wives' attitudes toward this system.)
Similar arrangements were set up by the Mende people of Sierra Leone.
In this case, wives were supposedly encouraged by their husbands to take
lovers; these, in turn, were then expected to provide manual labor to help
the family.
Aside from cases in which the rules of marriage allow for sexual relations with persons other than the husband or wife, extramarital sex-even
when socially disapproved-sometimes carries only mild penalties; for
many of the world's people, it is closer to a misdemeanor than a felony.
According to anthropologist Ruth Benedict, for example, the Pueblo people
of New Mexico
do not meet adultery with violence, ... [T]he husband does not
regard it as a violation of his rights. If she is unfaithful, it is normally
a first step in changing husbands, and their institutions make this
sufficiently easy so that it is a really tolerable procedure. They do not
contemplate violence.
WHAT ARE HUMAN BEINGS, "NATURALLY" ? 151
Wives are often as moderate, if not more so, when their husbands are
known to be unfaithful. As long as the situation is not unpleasant enough
for relations to be broken off, it is frequently ignored, as with this case
among the Zuni:
One of the young husbands of the household ... had been carrying
on an extramarital affair that became bruited about all over the
pueblo. The family ignored the matter completely. At last the white
trader, a guardian of morals, expostulated with the wife. The couple
had been married a dozen years and had, three children; the wife
belonged to an important family. The trader set forth with great
earnestness the need of making a show of authority and putting an end
to her husband's outrageous conduct. "So," his wife said, "I didn't
wash his clothes. Then he knew that I knew that everybody knew, and
he stopped going with that girl." It was effective, but not a word was
passed. There were no outbursts, no recriminations, not even an open
recognition of the crisis.
The Pueblo are what Benedict termed "Apollonian"-after the Greek
god Apollo, deity of the sun, music, medicine, and reason-in that they are
reluctant to show violent emotions. Divorce is readily available to the
· Pueblo people, and, in fact, a wife who remains with her husband after he
has had numerous affairs is considered faintly ridiculous, because her perseverance is seen to indicate that she must really love him!
By contrast to the Apollonian Pueblo, anthropologist Benedict described
so-called "Dionysian" cultures, in which violent emotion is permitted, even
encouraged. For example, on the island of Dobu, off the coast of New
Guinea, adultery is frequent, but it is also cause for outrage and jealousy:
"Faithfulness is not expected between husband and wife, and no Dobuan
will admit that a man and woman are ever together even for the shortest
interval except for sexual purposes." The Dobuan husband, according to
Benedict, is suspicious even when his wife goes briefly into the bushes to urinate. And for good reason:
Adultery within this group is a favorite pastime. It is celebrated
constantly in mythology, and its occurrence in every village is known
to everyone from early childhood. It is a matter of profoundest concern
to the outraged spouse. He (it is as likely to be she) bribes the children
for information, his own or any in the village. If it is the husband, he
breaks his wife's cooking pots. If it is the wife, she maltreats her
husband's dog. He quarrels with her violently .... He throws himself
out of the village in a fury. As a last resort of impotent rage he
152 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
attempts suicide by one of several traditional methods, no one of
which is surely fatal.
As we shall see, however, even the Dionysian Dobu are mild in their
response to adultery compared with many of the world's peoples.
The double standard is widespread in most societies, with men permitted far greater freedom than women to engage in sex outside marriage. After
reviewing 116 different . human societies, anthropologist Gwen Broude
reported that whereas 63 permit extramarital sex by husbands, only 13 permit it for wives. In addition, 13 had a "permissive single standard," allowing extramarital sexual activities equally to both husband and wife, whereas
27 engaged in a "restrictive single standard," prohibiting husband and wife
equally from engaging in any extramarital affairs. Similarly, Laura Betzig
evaluated the causes of marital dissolution worldwide, concluding that
whereas there are many causes--childlessness, economic failures, sexual
incompatibility-adultery is "the single most common cause of divorce"
and that infidelity by the wife is far more likely to be cited than is infidelity
by the husband.
If a female mammal becomes inseminated because of an out-of-pairbond copulation, she is no less the mother of the offspring produced; but her
deceived mate-who may nonetheless provide food, defense, baby-sitting,
and so forth-is very much less the father! So it is anticipated that, for most
living things, not only will males be more eager for EPCs, but they will also
be more intolerant of the same behavior by their mates: The stage is therefore set for the double standard, wherein sexual expectations differ for men
and women, as they typically do for males and females of other species.
Friedrich Engels, in The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the
State, suggested that the human family "is based upon the supremacy of the
man, the express purpose being to produce children of undisputed .paternity. " In a famous oration known as Against Neaira, the Greek orator
Demosthenes stated the sexist bias of society in his day: "Mistresses w� keep
for pleasure, concubines for daily attendance upon our persons, and wives
to bear us legitimate children and to be our housekeepers." Of these various
"uses" of women, the production of legitimate children seems to have been
especially important, and it may go a long way in explaining the reason
male-dominated society has been so persistent in institutionalizing the double standard.
But Homo sapiens is a peculiar creature, influenced by many things
beyond its biology. Given any biological predispositions in a particular
direction, however slight, we often extend these inclinations by cultural prescriptions and injunctions, sometimes even hyperextending them far beyond
WHAT ARE HUMAN BEINGS, "NATURALLY"? 153
any reasonable scope provided by biological underpinnings. The sexual
double standard may well be a "cultural hyperextenson" of this sort, an
instance of human societies taking a biological molehill and exaggerating it
into a mountain of male-female differences.
H aving looked, although briefly, at the diversity of human mateships,
what can we conclude? For one thing, it seems undeniable that
human beings have evolved as mildly polygynous creatures whose
"natural" mating system probably involved one man mated, when possible,
to more than one woman. It is also clear than even in societies that institutionalized some form of polygyny, monogamy was nonetheless frequent,
although, for men at least, this typically meant making the best of a bad
situation. (Worse yet was bachelorhood.) There is also great diversity,
however, in the patterns of monogamy, ranging from frequent extramarital sexuality, condoned and sometimes even encouraged by the social code,
to occasional affairs, frowned upon but not taken very seriously, to rigid
monogamy, jealously and violently enforced ... although even here it seems
likely that the rules of absolute sexual fidelity are often violated, in secret.
Certainly there is no evidence, either from biology, primatology, or
anthropology, that monogamy is' somehow "natural" or "normal" for
human beings. There is, by contrast, abundant evidence that people have
long been prone to have multiple sexual partners.
In a sense, howevet; even if human beings were more rigidly controlled
by their biology, it would be absurd to claim that monogamy is unnatural
or abnormal, especially since it was doubtless the way most people lived,
most of the time ... even while men strived for polygyny and women (as
well as men) engaged in EPCs. This is clearest for men, if only because
polygyny has often been institutionalized-and, thus, proudly displayed by
the male "winners"-whereas EPCs among Homo sapiens, as among most
living things, have been much more covert, because of the costs of disclosure. Nonetheless, male philandering would never have become part of our
biological heritage if women did not permit some men, at least on occasion,
to succeed in their quest for EPC. Which is to say that, whether officially
polygynous or monogamous, women-perhaps no less than men-have
long sought extramarital lovers.
Human beings are enormously flexible creatures, at least socially. They
are capable of living a variety of lives depending on the demands and expectations of the society in which they live. To some extent, then, human inclinations may be able to fit whatever matrimonial pattern happens to exist in
the society they happen to experience.
154 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
But, on the other hand, mild polygyny is likely so much a part of the
primitive human condition that it is reflected not only in our anatomy, physiology, and development-not to mention the anthropological record-but
also in our behavioral tendencies. H this is true, then the marriage bed may
be a procrustean bed as well, insofar as it denies the possibility of nonexclusive sexual relationships. Deprived of both socially approved polygyny .
and EPCs, perhaps it is not surprising that many people, throughout history
and around the globe, have chafed at lifetime monogamy and often circumvented it.
at makes human beings unusual among other mammals is not
ur penchant for polygyny but the fact that most people practice
t least some form of monogamy. At the same time, Homo sapiens
is quite prone to sexual jealousy, which strongly suggests that monogamy has
long been unstable.
Psychiatrist Wilhelm Reich is an interesting case. Reich insisted in his
work and his writings that monogamy was an unhealthy state for human
beings, undermining their sexual health and stunting their emotional lives.
Yet his wife reports that Reich was often insanely jealous:
Always, in times. of stress, one of Reich's very human failings came
to the foreground, and that was his violent jealousy. He would always
emphatically deny that he was jealous, but there is no getting away
from the fact that he would accuse me of infidelity with any man who
came to his mind as a possible rival, whether colleague, friend, local
shopkeeper, or casual acquaintance.
Among animals, male-male competition is the centerpiece of the most
consistently aggressive and often violent actions that take place within a
species, including the great skull-splitting clashes of bighorn sheep and the
ferocious natural battles that span the animal kingdom from whales to
dungflies. ·
Small wonder, then, that even some of the most perc�ptive,
avowedly liberated, and otherwise civilized members of Homo sapiens sometimes "lose it" when it comes to sexual jealousy and male-male competition.
Even Sigmund Freud, so insightful-and sometimes fanciful-with regard to unconscious mental processes, was afflicted with jealous rages. In
one of his many hundreds of letters to his fiancee, Freud noted his reaction
upon finding out that she had once encouraged another suitor to express his
affection for her: "When the memory of your letter to Fritz ... comes back
to me I lose all control of myself, and had I the power to destroy the whole
world . .. I would do so without hesitation. "
WHAT ARE HUMAN BEINGS, "NATURALLY" ? 155
Freud later proposed that sibling rivalry developed '
as a result of the
older child's fundamental jealousy at being displaced in the mother's affections by a younger one. His interpretation may be more appropriate if
applied to sexual jealousy, which in fact is more aptly described in the following passage devoted to sibling rivalry:
What the child grudges the unwanted intruder and rival is not
only the suckling but all the other signs of maternal care. It feels that
it has been dethroned, despoiled, prejudiced in its rights; it casts a
jealous hatred upon the new baby and develops a grievance against
the faithless mother.
In one of Shakespeare's lesser-known plays, Cymbeline, Posthumus is
made to think that his wife has been unfaithful. When shown her ring,
which convinces him of his wife's adultery (although actually she has been
altogether faithful), Posthumus cries out his jealous anguish:
It is a basilisk unto mine eye,
Kills me to look on't. Let there be no honor
Where there is beauty; truth, where semblance, love
Where there's another man. The vows of women
Of no more bondage be to where they are made
Than they are to their virtues, which is nothing.
0, -above measure false!
As his overheated mind dwells on the imagined act, the husband's words
become more and more specific: "No, he hath enjoyed her. " And later: "She
has been colted by him." Eventually, his wife's imagined single act of adultery becomes equivalent to innumerable such events: "Spare your arithmetic; never count the turns. Once, and a million!"
Jealousy is one of those things that appears to make no sense, yet afflicts
us anyway. Indeed, some of our most deep-seated traditional teachings are
ambivalent-if not downright contradictory-as regards jealousy. The Old
Testament spoke approvingly of the emotion-at least in High Places: "I the
Lord your God, am a jealous God" (Deuteronomy 5:9). And yet St. Paul
cautioned: "Love is not jealous or boastful" (I Corinthians 13:4).
By and large, jealousy is not one of our more admired emotions. Shakespeare's Iago called it "the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it
feeds on. " John Dryden described jealousy as "the jaundice of the soul," and
in Paradise Lost, Milton referred to it as "the injured lover's hell." The English poet Robert Herrick derided jealousy as "the canker of the heart. " And
156 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
yet the Roman poet Lucian opined that "When a man is not jealous he is
not really in love." Insofar as there is a possessive quality to love-and there
may always be, to some extent-love rarely exists without jealousy. Would
an absence of jealousy simply be an absence of possessiveness--or an
absence of caring?
· According to anthropologist Ruth Benedict, there is a connection
between jealousy and passionate intensity: You can't have one without the
other. In her description of the Dionysian inhabitants of the island of Dobu,
she recounts:
Any meeting between man or woman is regarded as illicit, and in
fact a man by convention takes advantage of any woman who does
not flee from him. It is taken for granted that the very fact of her being
alone is license enough. Usually a woman takes an escort, often a small
child, and the chaperonage protects her from accusation as well as
from supernatural dangers.
The deep-seated prudery of Dobu is familiar enough from our own cultural background, and the dourness of Dobuan character that is associated
with it also accompanied the prudery of the Puritans. But there are differences. We are accustomed to associate the Puritans with a denial of passion
and a lesser emphasis on sex. But this disassociation of prudery and passion
is not inevitable. On Dobu, prudery coexists with prenuptial promiscuity
and a high valuation of sexual passion and techniques. Men and women
alike rate sexual satisfaction as highly important and make achievement of
it a matter of great concern. The stock sex advice given to women entering ·
marriage is that the way to keep a husband is to keep him as sexually
exhausted as possible. There is no belittling of the physical aspects of sex.
· The Dobuan, therefore, is dour and prudish, consumed with jealousy, suspicion, resentment-and also sexual passion!
Adultery, jealousy, and violence often make for a lethal mix. Among the
Venezuelan Zorcas, an adulterous woman isn't punished by the tribal lead�
ers ... provided that her husband kills the lover. The ancient Maya allowed
the husband to decide whether his wife's lover should be killed. Male
responses to adultery are not invariably violent, however, with or without the
involvement of civil authorities. We have already seen cases in which wives are
traditionally exchanged, and there have even been some societies-although
not many-in which EPCs are seen as "no big deal. " In certain Eskimo
groups, men responded to their wives' adultery by challenging the lover to a
public song contest. The Gabriellino Indians of southern Califomia had an
even less resentful and somewhat more practical solution: The offended husband could give his wife to her lover and take the other's wife as his own.
WHAT ARE HUMAN BEINGS, "NATURALLY"? 157
A woman is generally less likely than a man to behave violently-including, under most circumstances, in response to adultery-but she is is not
necessarily any less likely to be emotionally hurt, even infuriated by a
spouse's infidelity. As William Congreve put it: "Heaven has no rage like
love to hatyred turnedi Nor Qell a fury, like a woman scorned. " The
"scorned" wife is the closest English equivalent to a cuckolded husband,
although the former part of the Congreve phrase has never been quoted as
widely as the latter.
For all the power of jealousy, however, it is noteworthy that, despite
nagging doubts, most people retain substantial confidence in monogamy as
an institution generally and in the monogamous inclinations of their partner in particUlar ... regardless of whether either is justified. "It is the property of love," wrote Marcel Proust in Remembran ce of Things Past, "to
make us at once more distrustful and more credulous, to make us suspect
the loved one, more readily than we should suspect anyone else, and be
convinced more easily by her denials." Whatever the human penchant for
jealousy, the desire to think well of a loved one is generally even greater.
The facade of fidelity is terribly important to most people, although, to be
sure, there are those who enjoy being publicly victimized in the hope of
gaining spectator sympathy.
In general, however, . virtually no one wants his or her spouse to be
unfaithfUl, and virtually everyone will go to great lengths to ignore or deny
evidence to the contrary. One might think that a bit of introspection would
convince most people that even a much-loved and much-loving spouse is at
least capable of "going outside" a marriage, any marriage, should the
opportunity arise.
B
ehind sexual jealousy and the widespread human concern with adultery there lurks-as with other animals-concern about parentage.
Such concern need not be conscious and may even be denied if made
explicit; there is no reason to think, for example, that childless couples are
any less prone to sexual jealousy than are "breeders." The point is that
intentional childlessness is relatively new to the human experience; after
all, genes for not reproducing would generally face a rather bleak evolutionary future! And so we have almost certainly evolved with reproduction-relevant tendencies, no less than have doves, dunnocks, or donkeys.
And once again, the spotlight is especially on men, not because they are
more important than women but because they are less important: Whereas
mammalian mothering is obligatory, fathering is more problematic. Not
surprisingly, for mammalian fathers in particular, their mates' EPCs pose
a special problem.
158 lHE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
Female birds are generally more prone to desert than are female mammals, at least in part because male birds are as capable as females of doing
the parenting chores, whereas female mammals are to some extent tied by
their breasts to their kids. At the same time, it seems likely that EPCs by
their mates are more hurtful to male birds than to male mammals, since,
among birds, males can do-and actually do-much of the child-rearing.
(A cuckolded male mammal at least doesn't end up lactating for someone
else's offspring!) We might expect, therefore, that male birds might object
more strongly to female infidelity. On the other hand, human beings are
unusual-perhaps unique-in the amount of parental care often provided
by males. So we can expect that, among human beings, infidelity by a mate
would typically be seen as a very grave offense. It is.
Considering all mammals, primates are the subgroup (technically, the
"order") among which fathers are most involved with their offspring. Perhaps 40 percent of mammalian genera have some form of father-offspring
interaction. At the same time, infanticide-the polar opposite of paternal
aid-is also frequent among primates. This is not contradictory, however,
because it is probably the substantial amount of paternal involvement that
inClines nonpaternal males to kill juveniles to whom they are not related, so
that their paternal care goes only to those young to whom they are related.
Monogamy, too, is somewhat more common among primates than
among most mammals, but as already pointed out, it remains rare, and the
more we know of the private lives of the generally secretive monogamous
primates (or rather, those purported to be monogamous), the fewer of them
there appear to be. Human beings-although, to be sure, not reliably
monogamous-are more monogamous than most primates and far more so
than most mammals. Maybe men would be even better fathers if women
were more reliably monogamous. (Which, in turn, would require that men
be more reliably monogamous, too!)
It may be a tall order. A review of 56 different human societies found
that in fully 14 percent nearly all women engaged in EPCs, whereas in
44 percent, a moderate proportion did so, and in 42 percent relatively fewbut still some-did so. It is revealing to compare these figures with those of
their male counterparts: Nearly all men engaged in EPCs in 13 percent of
societies, a moderate proportion of men did so in 56 percent, and a fewbut still some-did so in 31 percent. In short, cross-cultural analysis of infidelity rates shows that females and males are remarkably similar.
The United States is no exception. According to Kinsey and colleagues,
slightly more than one-fourth of adult females in the United States had
engaged in EPCs. A Cosmopolitan magazine poll reported numbers doser
to 50 percent (perhaps reflecting the readership of Cosmopolitan). A differ-
WHAT ARE HUMAN BEINGS, "NATURALLY"? 159
ent survey found that 12 percent of women had been sexually unfaithful to
their husbands during their first year of marriage; after 10 years of marriage,
this number rose to 38 per�ent.
Compared with the high probability of male retribution after female infidelity, it is quite rare for male infidelity to trigger female retribution. (Female
retribution, similarly, is almost unknown among animals, although interference, as we have seen, is not uncommon.) Among human beings, about
75 percent of societies permit male infidelity, whereas only about 10 percent
permit female infidelity-and even in these cases, it is not guaranteed that
males will actually be tolerant of such behavior. One can also predict a correlation between male suspicion of female EPCs and male neglect of, or even
violence toward, that female's offspring.
Earlier, we considered the notion that multiple matings might serve several different animal species as a form of infanticide insurance; this would
be a risky strategy, however, in Homo sapiens, whose large brain makes possible both a penchant for suspicion and an ability to put 2 and 2 together.
Thus, female infidelity-if detected-could make infanticide more likely.
Among the Ache people of eastern Paraguay, women commonly rely
upon their former lovers to provide not only food but also protection. Seventeen different Ache women were interviewed by a pair of anthropologists;
among them, these women had 66 offspring, which were attributed-by
their mothers-to an average of 2.1 fathers each! Interestingly, this was
pretty much the optimum, because the chances of survival declined for an
Ache child who had more than two or three possible fathers, apparently
because no one felt sufficiently confident of fatherhood to help out.
The Ache, according to the interviewing anthropologists, recognize
three different types of fatherhood: " One type refers to the man who is
married to a woman when her child is born. Another type refers to the man
or men with whom she has had extramarital relations just prior to or during her pregnancy. The third type refers to the man who she . believes actually inseminated her. " It seems likely that Ache men, for their part, make
parallel distinctions, at least concerning children they might have fathered
versus those they definitely did not. This has not as yet, however, been
reported in the literature.
On the other hand, paternal care need not be driven strictly by confidence of genetic relatedness. The man's "quality" seems likely to be relevant
as well, although, at this point, we cannot predict how the correlation will
go. For example, males in general and men in particular who are in poor
condition might contribute relatively little to the care of their offspring, for
no other reason than that they are less able to do so, whereas males in good
condition might contribute more, simply because they can. Low-quality,
160 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
less-desirable men might also be cuckolded more, as has been documented
for numerous animals. If both are true, then such men would both have a
low chance of being related to their offspring and display a low level of
paternal involvement-and yet the two would not be causally connected.
It is also possible, however, that a male in poor condition would invest
more in his offspring; if he has a low chance of surviving, he might therefore place all his bets on his present family. For their part, women-like
females in other species-might well be prepared to invest more in offspring fathered by attractive males. If those offspring were generated via
EPCs, and if the high-quality mate of a heavily investing f�male is himself
inclined to invest less (because she is investing more), then there would
once again be a correlation between low probability of paternity and low
paternal investment-although, once again, one not mediated by confidence of genetic relationship!
Historically, it is at least possible that the combination of monogamy
plus adultery was as important-or more so-than polygyny. In general,
adultery is more common than polygyny, at least in hunter-gatherer societies, simply because it is very difficult for a man to acquire more than one
wife-and to keep her. This might also help explain our human penchant for
a high frequency of sexual intercourse, as follows.
Among those species that copulate very often-lions, bonobo chimpanzees, acorn woodpeckers-it seems that the threat of sperm competition is
the driving force. But these animals do not even make a pretense of
monogamy. A better model for us humans might well be those socially
monogamous species-notably certain birds, such as the white ibis-in
which males as well as females make a significant investment in care of the
young and which are driven by ecological considerations into living in highdensity colonies. Socially monogamous nonhuman primates generally live
such isolated lives that the threat of EPCs is greatly reduced ... even if the
predilection still persists. But as noted, despite the fact that human beings
are biologically inclined to polygyny, most people end up being socially
monogamous and also-like our fathered friends-living in dense
"colonies" known as towns, villages, or cities.
Under these circumstances, with a premium placed on biparental care
but also a substantial risk of cuckoldry, it makes sense that Homo sapiens is
· a pretty sexy creature, inclined to engage in lots of sexual intercourse.
Admittedly, it is unromantic to see much of human lovemaking as driven by
the threat of adultery and, hence, the need to prove one's worth, not to mention the even more "mechanical" payoff that comes from prevailing in
sperm competition. Many will reply that we make love a lot (by most animal standards) because we love each other a lot, or because it feels good, or
simply because we like to do so. But why is sexual intercourse so closely
WHAT ARE HUMAN BEINGS, "NATURALLY" ? )fi)
connected to love in human beings? Why does it feel so good? Why do we
like to do it, even when we aren't interested in reproducing ... sometimes
especially when this is the case?
Although there are exceptions (some of which we have reviewed),
among most species of monogamous mammals, sexual behavior is neither
especially frequent nor especially fervent. For the great majority of socially
monogamous mammals, sex takes a back seat to resting together, mutual
grooming, and simply "hanging out. " In most species, when the pair-bond
is well established, relatively little energy is expended on sex or obvious
social interactions of any sort. Yet sexual behavior is prominent among
Homo sapiens, often identified as an important component of love and,
thus, monogamy. Maybe our unusual preoccupation with sexual love has
developed because, unlike the great majority of monogamous mammals,
which live rather isolated, hermit-like lives, for which the risk of EPCs is
very low, we are highly social and, thus, sorely tempted to stray. Seeking to
maintain a degree of monogamy despite living so close to one another, ·perhaps human beings have added lots of sex both as a way of reconfirming
and, if need be, reestablishing the pair bond, while also meeting the
demands of sperm competition by providing men with sufficient confidence
of genetic relatedness for them to invest in their mate's offspring.
A nd so we come to sperm competition, a difficult topic in many
ways. It is difficult to study, difficult to arrive at firm conclusions
about, and emotionally difficult because it challenges some of the
deepest and most anxiety-ridden undercurrents of our emotional lives.
Especially the lives of men. (As we shall see, women may or may not set up
conditions for sperm competition; if they do, then men-knowingly or
not-have to participate.)
The big question is this: Is sperm competition a significant factor for
human beings? Recall that sperm competition takes place when the sperm
from more than one male compete to fertilize the eggs of a female. For
sperm competition to be important among human beings, during the course
of human evolution-possibly continuing into modern times as wellwomen must have frequently had successive episodes of sexual intercourse
with more than one man during a brief time span; that is, while they were
fertile. Strictly monogamous women could not promote sperm competition.
Women who are polyandrous, promiscuous, prostitutes, rape victims, or
socially monogamous but also prone to EPCs could.
The most ardent advocates of the importance of human sperm competition are two British biologists, Robin Baker and Mark Bellis. Their work is
controversial, accused by critics of being inadequately supported by the data
162 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
and sometimes verging on shallow sensationalism, while lauded by supporters as being bold, innovative, and path�breaking. The jury is still out,
while the evidence is just starting to dribble in.
It appears that the average mating interval for moderately young,
healthy heterosexual couples is three days. Whether coincidental or not,
such a frequency of IPCs-intra-pair copulations--:maintains an almost
continuous supply of sperm within the female's reproductive tract. EPCs, by
definition, tend to lead to sperm competition (except, of course, when the
female has not been having sexual intercourse with her spouse and she has
only one EPC partner). Not surprisingly, it is very difficult to say how frequent human EPCs are and, more specifically, how frequently a woman will
mix sperm from more than one man. To carry around a mix of sperm, a
woman would have to have sex with two different men within about a fiveday interval.
IPCs are pretty much evenly divided throughout a woman's reproductive cycle, if anything somewhat more frequent during the postovulation
phase, when fertility is substantially reduced. By contrast, Baker and Bellis report that EPCs are actually more frequent when women are most fertile! According to the two researchers, "at some time in their lives the
majority of males in western societies place their sperm in competition
with sperm from another male and the majority of females contain live
sperm from two or more different males." They estimate that in Great
Britain 4 to 12 percent of children are conceived by "sperm that has prevailed in competition with sperm from another male. " This is consistent
with standard estimates of "paternal discrepancy" among human beings
generally: about 10 percent, which, if accurate, is enough to bespeak genuine sperm competition.
Mixed fatherhood is most dramatic in certain cases of nonidentical
twins, for example, when one infant turns out to be Caucasian and one
Asian, and so forth. The most famous "twins," Castor and Poilu�, were
said to have had two fathers, one being Zeus and the other, their mother's
mortal husband. In a survey of qearly 4,000 sexually experienced women
(having had at least 500 copulations), 1 in 200 claimed to have had sexual
intercourse with two different men within 30 minutes of each other on at
least one occasion; within 24 hours, the number jumped to nearly 30 percent. If these data are reliable, they, too, suggest plenty of opportunity for
sperm competition.
Most insects .and birds have a "last male advantage," which means that
the last male to mate with a female is likely to fertilif:e the lion's share of her
eggs. In the case of mammals, however, the situation is much less clear. It is
completely unknown whether, among primates in general or human beings
WHAT ARE HUMAN BEINGS, "NATURALLY" ? 163
in particular, the first male, the last, or anyone in between has any advantage. The probability of genetic fatherhood among human beings may simply be determined by having the most sperm in play, the reproductive equivalent of the old military adage of being "firstest with the mostest. " Regular
and frequent IPCs can be seen, therefore, as a means of "topping off" a
woman's reproductive tract, replacing sperm likely to have died or become
disabled since the last coitus and thereby maintaining a more or less constant and optimal level of sperm population. This would be adaptive under
any circumstances, simply to maximize the chances of fertilization. But it
would be especially appropriate in an environment of sperm competition;
that is, when the woman might copulate with other men as well.
Baker and Bellis point out that both men and women have numerous
ways-nearly all of them unconscious-of influencing the outcome of sperm
competition. Women first.
Women are not merely passive vessels within which men and their sperm
carry out a series of competitive events. They can, and do, exert substantial
choice, evaluating men by numerous criteria-emotional, physical, intellectual, financial-in a search for appropriate qualities as a parent, protector,
friend, colleague, lover. And like other living things, there is no reason why
women could not find themselves socially mated to one male but inclined to
engage in EPCs with another. It is noteworthy that many female primates
give loud calls during copulation. Among free-living baboons, these calls are
most frequent when their sexual swelling is most intense: Females called in
97 percent of copulations. Such calls are longest when ejaculation takes
place (which, for baboons, is only about one-third of the time). This suggests that females call to encourage other males and, thus, to promote sperm
competition among them.
Human women are no less likely to be concerned about the overall
quality of the males who fertilize their eggs, although there is no evidence
for anything quite as immediate and explicit as the baboon syst�m of
mobilizing competition. The internal reproductive tract of women produces its own barriers as well, including antisperm antibodies that can
interfere with fertilization by immobilizing or even destroying sperm and
impairing their ability to penetrate the egg, while other antibodies act
against the egg's membrane, preventing early egg cleavage and development. A key point is that these antibodies do not necessarily reduce
absolute fertility; rather, they diminish the fertility of particular male-female
pairs. A woman caught in this biochemical fertility trap may enhance her
reproductive success-whether she consciously realizes it or not-by seeking a different reproductive partner while perhaps still retaining her social,
marital partner.
164 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
Aside from the array of behavioral strategies ofwhich women are capable, it seems likely that they also manipulate sperm directly ... although,
again, not consciously. Especially prominent among these sperm manipulations is "flowback." Up to one-third of the seminal fluid deposited within
the vagina leaks out within a few minutes of intercourse. Semen is also discharged when urinating, at which time it is expelled with substantial force,
as compared to dribbling out after coitus when a woman stands up-or
even if she remains lying down. About 12 percent of the time, this flowback
results in the expulsion of essentially all sperm deposited inside a woman's
reproductive tract. So, at this level alone, women are capable of exercising
substantial control over sperm (recall the Atalanta solution, discussed earlier for other species).
Baker and Bellis surveyed women who were either married or otherwise
involved in a serious one-to-one heterosexual relationship and evidently
obtained the cooperation of many, who were remarkably open about some
of the most private aspects of their lives. They report that women are especially likely to engage in EPCs when they are fertile, suggesting an unconscious strategy of choosing more desirable males, via EPCs, as potential
fathers for their offspring ... even if such a strategy is intentionally
thwarted by use of birth control. Baker and Bellis also somehow convinced
a number of women to capture flowback after both EPCs and IPCs; the
results show a lower level of sperm retention associated with sexual intercourse with their main partner. In other words, not only are women more
likely to engage in EPCs when they are more fertile, but they also retain
more semen after such encounters. (According to Baker and Bellis, women
achieve higher sperm retention during EPCs by reducing their frequency of
noncopulatory orgasms via masturbation; in other words, they claim that
contractions during female orgasm actually push out semen and that by
masturbating less and thus having fewer orgasms, women end up retaining
more EPC sperm.)
It has long been known that insects and birds have '
sperm storage organs,
whereas mammals, it was claimed, lack anything comparable. Nonetheless,
the argument has been · made that sperm are stored by the millions in socalled cervical crypts, tiny cavities lining a woman's cervix. From here, they
could be released over a period of hours, even days, after intercourse, with
peak release over a period of 2 to 24 hours. This is important for our purposes because the ability of women to store sperm from successive copulations sets the stage for sperm competition among successive males.
There is also debate about how much time can elapse between two successive copulations with different men in order for sperin competition to
occur. A key question is how long after ejaculation sperm can remain viable
WHAT ARE HUMAN BEINGS, ''NATURALLY" ? 165
and, therefore, capable of duking it out for the privilege of fertilizing a
woman's egg. Minimum estimates are two to three days; the maximum
seems to be seven to ten. A reasonable n,umber may be five to six. What this
means is that if a woman has sex with someone within five or six days of
having had sex with someone else, the sperm from these two men could be
in direct competition.
How does one "win" ? For women, it means making the best choice; that
is, having the opportunity of choosing among more than one sperm provider
(hence, copulating with more than one man), as well as being able to make
a "good" choice among the available sperm, perhaps by setting up a competitive situation. For men, winning means having one's sperm succeed. We
turn to them next.
Among men, sperm strategies might include simply making lots of the
little pollywogs, assuming that fertilization is a kind of lottery. Buy more
tickets and you're more likely to hit the lottery jackpot. Make more sperm,
and deliver them to the right place, and you're more likely to hit the fertilization jackpot. Even in this case, however, different tactics present themselves. For example, biologists have asked, "What is the optimum strategy
for males, in terms of partitioning their sperm in IPCs versus EPCs?" Geoffrey Parker concluded from a detailed mathematical model that alreadymated males should generally ejaculate more sperm during EPCs than IPCs,
assuming that such males are normally able to maintain an adequate sperm
level within their in-pair mate. The only exception would be when a male
has determined that his female has engaged in one or more EPCs, in which
case he should increase his sperm numbers during IPCs. It remains to be seen
whether such adjustments actually occur.
But what if fertilization is less a lottery than a race? Then it would be
important to make sperm that move quickly. Or maybe it's a war, in which
sperm from different men literally do battle with each other.
Baker and Bellis have accordingly proposed their "kamikaze sperm
hypothesis." It suggests that only a very small proportion of human sperm
are intended to function as "egg-getters." All sperm, they claim, are not created equal, nor are they created to do the same thing; namely, to fertilize
eggs. Thus, sperm are not homogeneous little packages of DNA, each
pruned down to the minimum size · needed to achieve fertilization. The
smallest sperm in a single humari ejaculate, for example, can have merely
14 percent the volume of the largest. There is more variation within a single human ejaculate than in the mean sizes of sperm from all the different primates. In short, a normal human male produces a remarkable
range of different types of sperm: amorphous, pin-sized, weirdly shaped,
double-headed ( "bicephalous" ), crook-necked, double-tailed, short-tailed,
lfifi THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
coiled-tailed. Previously, this sperm diversity was thought to be simple
pathology: Easily 30 percent of human sperm were acknowledged to be
defective in some way. (Indeed, this high rate of "bad sperm" has long been
thought to be one of the reasons why men make so many of them.) But if
selection had simply acted on males to produce egg-getters, why should so
many be defective, slow, lame, and seemingly deformed? In most other conte:xts-:-even those that seem comparatively more trivial-natural selection
does a much more efficient job.
Baker and Bellis argue that semen should be seen as another human
organ, comparable to the liver, the kidneys, or-more to the point-the
immune system. As such, it is composed of many different kinds of highly
specialized cells, all of which together contribute to getting an important job
accomplished, one of which is doing battle on behalf of the rest of the body.
Among rats, sperm that form copulatory plugs are those with smaller heads,
which are more likely to become decapitated. Rat sperm from one copulation thus get in the way of sperm from the next. It is not impossiblealthough as yet unproved-that something similar happens among human
beings, too. We don't produce copulatory plugs, but the sperm from one
man could nonetheless interfere with those of another; indeed, there could
be an evolutionary payoff to men whose sperm are especially nasty to anyone else's.
Baker and Bellis maintain that the majority of human sperm are, in
effect, kamikazes, on a suicide mission whose goal is simply to block the
sperm of other males. In addition to these "blockers"-sperm with coiled
and kinky tails-there are others that go out on "search-and-destroy" missions. These seem especially prone to chemical warfare, via specialized structures, known as acrosomes, that adorn their tips.
Baker and Bellis claim that when sperm from two different men are
mixed, many are disabled or killed, whereas this does not happen when
ejaculate from one man is separated, then .recombined. This suggests that
something like an immune response-a form of chemical competitiongoes on between sperm produced by different men. If so, it is possible that
older sperll} become blockers, since this requires less energy and vitality,
while younger ones are designated to carry the ball ... and, if they are
especially fortunate, to "score." (Indeed, whereas newly minted sperm have
a low proportion of coiled tails, the older the .sperm, the greater the proportion of coiling.)
Further evidence of male adaptations to sperm competition comes from
assessing the detailed makeup of the male ejaculate. Human ejaculation
takes place in a series of three to nine spurts, closely linked together in time.
Herculean efforts by researchers (and their subjects) have enabled exami-
WHAT ARE HUMAN BEINGS, "NATURALLY" ? 167
nation of so-called split ejaculates, obtained by capturing a few squirts of
semen from various stages of ejaculation. The results: Early and late spurts
are different. The final pulses actually contain a spermicidal substance,
which might well be instrumental in ambushing those of the next male
likely to ejaculate in the same female! At the same time, chemicals present
in the first half of the human ejaculate contribute to some protection of
sperm against those chemicals present in the second half ... and thus, also,
possibly, against any chemicals deposited by the final spurts of any preceding male.
It is well known that men produce larger ejaculations when their sex
lives have been interrupted, and then resumed. By itself, this appears to be
a simple physical consequence of whether or not seminal fluid has had a
chance to accumulate over time; with regular emptying, the volume of any
one ejaculation is necessarily less. It is not surprising, therefore, that Baker
and Bellis found that when a man spends time away from his female partner, he produces more sperm per ejaculation once sexual relations are
resumed. More remarkable is their discovery-by analyzing the condom
contents of some extraordinarily cooperative subjects-that sperm concentration is higher when such men actually engage in sexual intercourse than
when they masturbate. (A sperm-competition perspective, incidentally, also
suggests that masturbation may be a way of ensuring that the sperm available to be ejaculated in sexual intercourse have a relatively long "shelf .
life"-by getting rid of older sperm, thus ensuring that what's left is fresh.
The likelihood is that younger sperm are better able to compete, especially
more able to penetrate the cervical mucus. Baker and Bellis also suggest that
older sperm may serve a secondary role, as blockers, guarders, kamikazes,
troublemakers, troubleshooters, and so forth.)
,
In addition, during copulation, the amount of sperm transferred seems
to be further adjusted according to the risk of spe�m competition, especially
how long it has been since the last copulation with the same woman, and
even how much time the two have spent together during the previous few
days. As Baker and Bellis put it, "Males may not look very sophisticated in
the moments leading up to and during ejaculation but ... some very sophisticated adjustments are taking place."
There· is yet more.
Consistent with their courageous-or foolhardy-willingness to probe
some of Homo sapiens' most intimate secrets, Baker and Bellis have also
looked at the human penis. Although not remarkable by mammalian standards generally, the human penis is the largest among all primates, and
Baker and Bellis suggest that its size and shape may also have been
sculpted by sperm competition. They point out that in less than a minute
168 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
after ejaculation, semen forms a soft, spongy coagulate, a mass that is vulnerable to being removed by a subsequent sexual partner, assuming that
he encounters the woman quickly enough and that he is adequately
equipped to do the job.
There is nothing unique, by the way, about penises being designed to
compete with other males. In Chapter 2, we encountered the remarkable,
competition-oriented penises of damselflies and sharks. Human beings
clearly have nothing directly comparable; indeed, the penis of Homo sapiens is notably unadorned as such organs go. Nonetheless, the long-standing
male obsession with penis size and shape may in itself suggest an accurate,
if unconscious, recognition that this organ may actually be about as consequential as the most ardent Freudian or locker-room comparator has generally assumed.
For Baker and Bellis, the length of the penis as well as its enlarged bulbous tip suggest its role as a "suction piston" for sperm removal, a kind of
natural "plumber's helper," designed to break up and possibly even remove
coagulated sperm deposited by a: previous male. This effect would be
enhanced by the often vigorous thrusting that characterizes sexual intercourse and ejaculation among humans ... and which is surprisingly difficult
to explain or justify otherwise.
Let's further develop this admittedly homey metaphor: A plumber's
helper is used to push blockage farther down the system, which, in our context, would seem counterproductive, actually facilitating fertilization by the
earlier male's sperm. Except that the femaie reproductive tract is essentially
· a dead end, so the "suction piston" hypothesis might have some validity
after all. Another potential problem: If sperm competition has been so
important in producing men's anatomy, especially the seemingly oversized
penis, why do men have proportionately smaller testicles than chimps? Possible answer: Maybe sperm competition is even more important for chimps,
since however important EPCs may have been for humans, they are even
more prominent among Pan troglodytes. But then, why don't chimps also
have large, competitive penises? No one knows. (Nor, to our knowledge,
has anyone asked. )
For obvious reasons, vagina and penis are closely matched in all species,
not unlike a lock and key. So human penis size may have been largely determined by the size of the vagina, rather than by the dictates of sperm competition among males. Vagina size, in turn, seems to have been determined
by the size of the infant-specifically, its head diameter-that must pass
· . through in childbirth. As human head size increased during human evolution to favor large brains, so, presumably, did the size of the vagina. And
this may in turn have generated pressure for the evolution of larger, more
competitive penises as well.
WHAT ARE HUMAN BEINGS, "NATURALLY"? 169
R obin Baker and Mark Bellis are fervent proponents of the role of
sperm competition among human beings. And they · may well be
onto something. But as the great nineteenth-century statesman
Talleyrand suggested for his diplomats: "Pas trop de zele" ( "Not too much
zeal"). In science, too, zeal can be troublesome, especially when it leads to
the temptation to sensationalize, to overgeneralize, to ignore contrary evidence. Even though Baker and Bellis's arguments are so convivial to the
thrust of the present book that we have presented them at length, it must
be noted that nearly all of their conjectures are still that, far from proven.
The dirty little secret of science is that it is not done by omniscient deities
or computer-driven robots but by scientists, who are fallible human
beings. Although we seek ultimately to unravel genuine external truths
about the natural world, not simply to validate our own preconceptions,
one of those truths is that we are readily seduced by our own ideas and
just as reluctant to give up on them-even in the face of contrary evidence-as anyone else.
Thus, it may be that sperm competition itself is less important than this
book, or Baker and Bellis, has suggested. A study of chimpanzees in which
1,137 copulations were observed found that more than 70 percent involved
multiple matings; that is, females mating with more than one male. Only
2 percent took place during isolated one male-one female consortships. So
far, so "good," at least insofar as the case for sperm competition is concerned. Yet most conceptions occur during these essentially monogamous
consortships (which take place during maximum tUmescence and, thus,
peak fertility). Such findings urge caution: Even behavior such as promiscuous chimpanzee sexuality, which screams "sperm competition," might actually involve less than meets the ear, no matter how favorably attuned.
Human beings, moreover, are less prone to EPCs than are chimps. As
evidence, human sperm concentration diminishes more rapidly with repeated copulations, suggesting that men are less adapted than male chimps
to competing with the sperm of other men. As with other species, human
sperm are cheap, but not free. In one intriguing experiment, men engaged in
a " 10-day depletion experience," averaging 2.4 ejaculations per day. Afterward, their sperm output remained below their earlier, predepletion levels
for more than five months! By contrast, male chimps-who have to deal
with polyandrous, EPC-inclined females-can ejaculate every hour for five
hours, after which their sperm count is only halved, with very rapid recovery. So whatever the importance of sperm competition for Homo sapiens, it
is likely not as pronounced as it could be.
Others, notably biologist Alexander Harcourt, have criticized specific
aspects of Baker and Bellis's work more directly, pointing out that mammals
are unlikely to produce designated, nonfertilizing sperm for several reasons:
170 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
given a high natural loss, males may well be unable to afford production of
sperm that are guaranteed not to be potential .fertilizers and whose supposed
aggressive/defensive activities may never even be called for. Moreover, secretions from the accessory gland of males seem sufficient by themselves to
coagulate semen and generate copulatory plugs, at least in other animals; a
male who used these secretions for such a purpose and continued to produce
fertilizing sperm instead of diluting his ejaculate with kamikazes would be
at an evolutionary advantage.
Most impressive, however, is this finding: Males of polyandrous species
are under more intense sperm competition than in monandrous species
(whether monogamous or polygynous) in which females mate with only one
male. And yet a review of research findings shows that polyandrous species
do not produce a greater number, or even a higher proportion, of deformed
(and, presumably, nonfertilizing) sperm. Nor do they produce more slowswimmers, which might be expected if such kamikazes were specialized to
stay behind and duke it out with a competitor's sperm. Harcourt concludes
that sperm competition-at least in mammals-occurs via what ecologists
call "scramble competition," in which contestants struggle individually
toward a goal, irrespective of their fellows, .as opposed to "contest competition," in which individual contestants would seek to best their fellows
mana a mana (rather, spermo a spermo).
The male penchant for producing vast numbers of sperm may therefore
exist because fertilization is a simple "raffle," rather than a direct competitive struggl�. (Even a raffle would still involve sperrri competition, but one
in which the contestants compete by buying as many tickets as possible
rather than by tearing up each other's entries.) Or maybe males make lots of
sperm sinlply because, considering their very high mortality-even without
sperm competition-it behooves males to make lots of little wigglers if fertilization is to occur at all. After all, the low pH of the vaginal environment
is as hard on human sperm as it is on other vertebrates, phagocytes roam
through every woman's reproductive tract, many sperm end up being helplessly absorbed into the uterine wall, and they do have a long way to swim,
not to mention the fact that fully one-half can be expected to swim up the
wrong side of the uterus, ending up perhaps at the right (wrong) fallopian
tube when a fertile egg is waiting at the left, and vice versa. In short, the
importance of sperm competition may simply be overblown.
· But we doubt it.
Any concept comes across as all the more powerful when it sheds new
potential light on old facts. For example, take pornography. It, too, could
be related to sperm competition, as follows. Earlier, we mentioned the case
of Grevy's zebras, in which stallions adjust their sexual performance de-
WHAT ARE HUMAN BEINGS, "NATURALLY"? 171
pending on the predilections of the mares, mating more-in a sense, being
more sexually aroused-when associating with females who are prone to a
higher level of sexual activity. A similar pattern is found in bighorn sheep:
Dominant males mate females immediately after subordinate males have
done so. And it is interesting to note that male great apes, too, mate more
often when their females are polyandrous. Often they are stimulated by any
indications of sexual intercourse, a connection that makes sense given the
presumed payoff of introducing one's own sperm to compete with those of
a possible competitor.
There is little doubt that, in our own species, men are agitated and often
infuriated by indications of their mates' EPCs. It is unclear whether they are
sexually aroused as well, although anectodal evidence suggests that this is
not uncommon. Where does pornography fit in? Pa,rt: of the excitement of
pornography-especially for men-may be that it conveys the basic message
that "sexual activity is going on nearby," which in turn is converted (among
males especially) into competitive sexual arousal. On a primitive, biological
level, pornographic images may activate the same system that prehistorically
enabled men to respond to the dictates of sperm competition: If "your"
woman may recently have been having sex with someone else, you would
be well advised to have sex with her, too, and right away!
There is recent evidence that sperm competition is pronounced in both
human beings and chimpanzees, compared to the situation in gorillas, for
example. (This makes sense, since unlike chimps or human beings, gorillas
live in rigidly controlled polygynous harems, in which a given female mates
only with the dominant silverback male; as a result, male gorillas need to
concern themselves with whatever it takes to obtain and keep control of a
harem-that is, with competition at the level of bodies rather than sperm.)
Researchers at the University of Chicago have found that three different
genes controlling sperm function have been evolving at an especially rapid
rate in human beings and also in chimps, suggesting that these two species
have been experiencing substantial sperm competition, which in turn has
been leading to rapid evolutionary change. By contrast, the same system has
been evolving more slowly in gorillas, which makes sense given that a male
gorilla pretty much monopolizes sexual access to his females, whereas this
is emphatically not the case for chimps or-evidently-human beings.
But, in the interest of full disclosure, these findings could mean something very different. For example, women (like other mammals) have
evolved various defenses to protect their uteruses from bacterial and other
infection, and these chemical defenses-such as low pH-turn out to be
harmful to sperm. So rapid evolutionary change among chimp and human
sperm might not indicate competition among sperrri at all, but rather the
172 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
need for sperm to evolve defenses against the uterus's efforts to further its
own self-defense! The question would then become whether chimp and
human females are evolving reproductive tract self-defense more rapidly
than are gorilla females and, if so, why. And one answer might be that insofar as the former are more likely to copulate with multiple males, they are
exposed to more risks, thereby necessitating more defenses. Everything, it
seems, is connected!
"
T
he majority of women (happily for them) are not much troubled
with sexual feelings of any kind. " So wrote a prominent
nineteenth-century physician in an influential medical textbook of
the Victorian era. Happily for us all, he was wrong. Female sexual feelings,
although somewhat different from those of men, are no less vigorous.
Female sexuality is, however, less "up front" than its male counterpart. "We
and our fantasies are the fruit of evolution," writes Natalie Angier in her
esteemed book, Woman. "And we are waiting to be known. "
For startet:s, there are two great mysteries of female sexuality: concealed
ovulation and orgasm. The question, in both cases, is: Why? Why, for
instance, are human beings so secretive about when they ovulate? We send
all sorts of signals indicating our internal state: blushing when embarrassed,
crying when sad, even-in some cases....:....Conveying information we might
just as soon keep private, such as the state of our gastrointestinal system
when we belch or fart. By contrast, the exact (or even approximate) time of
ovulation is a closely guarded female secret. There must be a reason.
Similarly, why do women have orgasms? Men's orgasm-a highly pleasurable sensation associated with ejaculation-makes obvious sense, but
women have no comparable need for such a pronourtced reaction to sexual
stimulation. Here again, there must be a reason ..
In the case of concealed ovulation, let's first note that human beings,
although unusual in this respect, are not the only species to be so secretive.
Others include black-and-white colobus monkeys of the African rain forest,
pigmy marmosets and lion tamarins of South and Central America, blue
monkeys, orangutans, woolly and spider monkeys, vervets and langurs.
Nonetheless, an explanation is needed, given that our closest relatives, the
chimpanzees, make a dramatic public show of their reproductive state.
Human beings, for all their vaunted self-knowledge, are remarkably ignorant about their own ovulation, whereas if we were chimps, we'd have no
doubt: Even a casual zoo visitor notices the vastly enlarged and gaudy pink
rear end of a fertile, female chimp, whereas a woman must use an accurate
thermometer or careful analysis of cervical mucus to obtain comparable
information about her own body.
WHAT ARE HUMAN BEINGS, "NATURALLY" ? 173
Why such secrecy? There are several possibilities, all of them involving
EPCs. Thus, evidence is now accumulating that human females are more
likely to engage in extra-pair copulations at the midpoint of their menstrual
cycle, precisely when they are most fertile. This does not necessarily bespeak
a conscious desire to reproduce as a result of these EPCs. It may simply be
that women feel somewhat more sexually inclined when they are at midcycle. But this does not preclude our asking why such feelings are especially
likely to involve an EPC rather than an IPC.
One might expect women to be, if anything, somewhat reluctant to have
affarrs when they are most fertile, insofar as they are aware of possibly getting pregnant. Counterbalancing this, however, might be an even greater '
reluctance to have sex-especially in ·a new and exciting relationship-when
they are most infertile; that is, when menstruating. So, avoidance of "messy
sex" might lead to a tendency for women to have extramarital sexual
encounters when they are more likely to conceive ... even if they don't plan
it that way and might, in fact, prefer it otherwise.
Robin Baker and Mark Bellis argue that women have a fully evolved
unconscious preference for EPCs precisely when their fertility is highest, for
much the same reasons that other species often engage in similar activities:
to be inseminated by the best males and to encourage sperm competition
among sexual partners. They point to the suggestive finding that women
having a primary sexual partner are likely to walk farther during their
monthly time of peak fertility, whereas females without a primary sexual
partner show a tendency for reduced midcycle walking. This is consistent
with the notion that paired women are more restless at midcycle, as a result
of which they are more likely to encounter one or more new partners,
whereas unpaired women are inclined to avoid midcycle contacts. Of
course, the fact that something "is consistent" with a particular hypothesis
is very different from saying that it "proves" anything.
In any event, there is increasingly strong evidence that women feel sexiest when they are at midcycle; that is, when they are fertile. For example,
levels of estradiol (a female hormone) have been found to correlate with the
kind of clothing women wear at a nightclub: Women at peak fertility wear
tighter clothing, and less of it. They expose more skin than women who are
not fertile.
Concealed ovulation is generally most common in primates among
whom females have multiple sexual partners. A review of the scientific lite,rature concluded that concealed ovulation evolved at most once among
monogamous species, but between 8 and 11 times in cases of nonmonogamy. Why? Probably because it permits females to obtain additional
matings. After all, if a socially monogamous female clearly advertised her
fertility, "her" male would guard her with particular care during that brief
17 4 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
time ... and since the rest of the time she would be infertile, her reproductive options would be limited to her social mate. (Another possibility cannot be excluded, however: that concealed ovulation led to monogamy,
instead of vice versa. Maybe males were more likely to affiliate with a specific female if her time of maximum fertility was not identified, as a way of
ensuring at lease some chance of fertilizing her, assuming they were willing
to devote themselves full time to mate-guarding.)
Either way, the likelihood is that once ovulation is hidden, male guarding is less intense, if only because it has to be spread over a female's entire
cycle instead of being concentrated during a few hours or days. The result
appears to be that by concealing their ovulation, . females grant themselves
enhanced opportunity to mate with more than one male. As already
described, they may also be granting themselves-or, rather, their offspring-enhanced opportunity of obtaining assistance from one or more
would-be fathers. Or, at least, reduced risk of infanticide.
In at least one primate species, females clearly use sex as an inducement
for males to act paternally. A field study has found that female saddlebacked tamarins (small primates of the New World rain forests), if given thy
opportunity, will mate with more than one adult male. Mrs. Tamarin will
then give birth to twins, and a different male will proceed to assist her in
caring for each infant. By spreading the breeding and giving each male an
interest in her babies, the tamarin mother-to-be appears to spread the subsequent child-care duties among willing males.
For most females, genetic partners are easy to come by. Behavioral partners are a different story. Males are typically more than willing to contribute
some sq�irts of sperm in return for a chance at reproductive success. Harder
to come by are males willing to be behavioral fathers, not just genetic beneficiaries. The optimum female strategy-as in many other species-would
be to get the best of each: Mate with genetically promising males and gain
other benefits from wealthy, paternally inclined individuals. If all this can
obtained from just one individual, so much the better. If not, then a bit of
deception may be worthwhile. And concealed ovulation seems to be a useful ticket, offering the opportunity for females to present the appearances of
monogamy (and, hence, to get paternal investment from their in-pair mates)
while also gaining genetic benefits from out-of-pair copulations.
Of course, concealed ovulation could also be a device permitting women
to engage in sperm competition while deceiving each man into thinking that
he is the father. Thus, when ovulation is hidden, so is the identity of the
father. The payoff, for the mother, is that she can obtain sperm from more
than one male, then "choose" which to use to fertilize her egg(s). This has
been called "cryptic polyandry," and, as noted, it is all the rage among birds.
0
WHAT ARE HUMAN BEINGS, "NATURALLY"? 175
Female blue tits paired to high-quality males-quality measured by anatomical traits such as longer tarsal bones, which correlate with higher survivorship and the likelihood of producing more successful young-remain sexually faithful. And females paired with low-quality males? They are inclined
to be socially monogamous, but they also visit the territories of the more
desirable males-and mate with them, thereby getting assistance from their
in-pair mates but genes from among the best available specimens.
Another thing. Along with concealed ovulation come restraints on
estrus. A woman, even at midcycle, is nothing like a bitch in heat. (If she
were, then her ovulation wouldn't be concealed!) Concealed ovulation thus
offers a new perspective on "reproductive choice," referring not only to a
woman's choosing whether, when, or how to terminate her pregnancy, but
also whether, when, and with whom to initiate it.
According to primatologist Sarah Hrdy, a female langur monkey
"exhibits no visible sign when she is in estrus other than to present to a male
and to shudder her head." Wh(;!n she encounters strange males, a female langur has the capacity to shift from cyclical receptivity (that is, a spontaneous
bout of heat every 28 days) to a state of semicontinuous receptivity that can ·
last for weeks. This gives .females the opportunity to achieve sexual relationships with males other than the harem-keeper, at their own choosing,
rather than being captive of automatic estrous cycles-for example, if a new
and enticing male joins the troop, if a female happens to leave her troop to
travel temporarily with an all-male band, or if, in Hrdy's words, "a female
for reasons unknown to any one, simply takes a shine to the resident male
of a neighboring troop." Other primates have a similar capacity, including
several different species of guenons, vervets, and gelada baboons.
Why should women be any less . endowed and, thereby, empowered?
With their ovulation concealed and their sexual motivation under substantial cognitive control, women can select their reproductive partners far more
easily than if they were victims of their raging hormones ... as is the case,
by contrast, for men!
rgasm is another story, as complex and unresolved as concealed
ovulation. Some, including anthropologist Donald Symons, have
suggested that the female orgasm is biologically meaningless, an
irrelevant but unavoidable side effect of the (clearly adaptive) male orgasm.
If so, it would be analogous to nipples in male mammals-a tag-along trait,
as discussed at the beginning of Chapter 3. Others, like the writer Desmond
Morris, have proposed that orgasm makes fertilization more likely by
encouraging a woman to remain horizontal, thereby making it easier for
176 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
sperm to swim to their goal. The actual effect of female orgasm on fertilization is complex. Certainly, a woman's climax is not needed for conception
to occur. Moreover, orgasm actually increases the volume of flowback, in
part because it results in increased quantities of cervical mucus. There is
also evidence, paradoxically, that too many sperm redu ce the probability
of conception, perhaps because of multiple fertilizations-which are spontaneously aborted-or because of the deleterious effect of chemicals secreted
by exceptionally large numbers of sperm milling about.
Some female orgasms appear to increase the amount of sperm retention,
whereas others are more likely to extrude sperm. Sexual intercourse itself,
on the other hand, has a positive effect on conception, independent of the
actual deposition of sperm; Thus, artificial insemination via a sperm donor
is more likely to be successful if women alsp engage in sexual intercourse
with their partner, even if he is totally sterile. The reason for this effect is
unknown, but it emphasizes that the female sexual experience is somehow
connected to the probability of conception, although the connection apparently is not a simple one.
For a time, it was thought that the capacity for female orgasm made
human beings unique among animals. Not any more. For example, a study
of 240 copulations involving 68 different heterosexual pairs of Japanese
macaques noted that the females showed all the physiological and anatomical signs of orgasm in 80 cases (exactly one time in three). Neitherthe age
of the female nor her dominance rank correlated with orgasm. On the other
hand, the likelihood of orgasm was positively associated with duration of
matings and with how active they were (literally, the number of pelvic
thrusts by the male). When, by a bit of statistical sleight-of-hand, the researchers analyzed their results, taking these various measures of physical
stimulation into account, what emerged was that female orgasm was most
frequent among monkey pairs consisting of high-ranking males and lowranking females, and least frequent among pairs of low-ranking males and
high-ranking females. In short, social considerations are important.
This suggests another possible avenue. What if orgasm is a way in which
a female's body rewards itself for having done something that is in its own
biological interest? Not just mating, but mating with an especially good
partner. The idea is that female orgasm, physiologically unnecessary for conception, is useful as an internal signal by which a woman's body rewards her
brain for a job well done. Something similar may apply to male orgasm, too.
After all, it is not strictly necessary for the pleasurable sensation of ejaculation to exceed that of, say, urinating ... and yet it clearly does. Perhaps the
intensity of orgasm says, in effect, "This is not merely a good thing to do, it
is a very good thing!"
WHAT ARE HUMAN BEINGS; "NATURALLY"? 177
For men, and males generally, sexual intercourse is a biological plus
(especially before the era of AIDS). Hence, a reliable, general-purpose
reinforcing mechanism such as orgasm seems appropriate. For women,
however, and females generally, sex is easily obtainable, but good sexthat is, sex with the right male-is harder to come by. Hence, maybe
female orgasm is a way for women to confirm that their current sexual
partner is especially suitable. Not necessarily as a long-term mate, mind
you, just as a mate. Perhaps an ongoing EPC partner. By a process foreshadowed by the "sexy son hypothesis" among animals, maybe female
orgasm is how a woman's body italicizes that her current sexual partnerdemonstrated to be capable of providing substantial sexual satisfactionmight well produce offspring capable of being similarly gratifying to other
women, and thus likely to be associated with her long-term reproductive
success. (It may also be significant that female orgasm is seen as gratifying
to the man as well, and perhaps not just as a confirmation of his own sexual technique.)
It is worth noting that dominant male animals are typically less rushed
and more deliberate about sexual intercourse, whereas social subordinates
tend to be harried and thus hurried. Thus, we have watched dominant male
grizzly bears copulate with sows in a manner that, if not altogether relaxed,
at least indicates a degree of control, sexual no less than social. By contrast,
subordinate male grizzlies spend much of their copulation time literally
swiveling their heads over their shoulders, worrying about the imminent
approach of dominant boars! There is no evidence that grizzly sows experience orgasm, but if they did, which type of boar would seem most likely to
evoke such a response?
S
exual jealousy is a give-away. Its widespread existence suggests
strongly that EPCs-that is, episodes of infidelity-have long been an
important part of the human evolutionary past. There would be little
reason for such a deep-seated tendency if it were not, to some extent, justified by events.
When a male bighorn sheep is alone with an estrous female, his
courtship is likely to be comparatively slow and gentle; when rival males are
present, the same male is likely to be more aggressive and brusque. Male
rhesus monkeys will routinely attack females caught mating-or just consorting-with lower-ranking male rivals. Sometimes the females are severely
injured. In one case, a female rhesus monkey who repeatedly approached
another male was fatally injured by her top-ranking male consort. A male
hamadryas baboon uses coercion to keep his small harem of females away
178 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
from other males. If one of them happens to stray in the direction of other
males, he threatens her with a conspic]J.ous ·"eyebrow flash. " If the errant
female doesn't immediately mend her ways and approach the male, he will
attack her with a vigorous neck-bite. There have been many other reportsespecially for primates-of males herding their mates away from strange
males, particularly during encounters with other groups.
A study of crab-eating macaques in captivity found that male aggression
toward females occurred at the relatively low rate of once every three or four
hours, so long as the individuals were housed in isolated pairs. When a rival
male was introduced, the frequency increased to more than seven times per
hour! There is a subtle difference of interpretation involved here. In the past,
we assumed that male aggression toward females was simply intended to
keep them away from horny and intrusive males. (The focus was on the behavior of males, whether seeking EPCs or concerned with mate-guarding.)
Now, biologists have begun to see that such aggression is designed to prevent females from involving themselves with these other males. (The focus
is increasingly on the behavior of females seeking EPCs.)
It is prominent among chimps as well: Jane Goodall reports that males
are especially likely to "punish" a female who has been sexually involved
with another male. Moreover, male chimpanzees sometimes use violence to
force a female to follow them; they may spend considerable time herding a
female away from other males, displaying substantial aggression toward her
during that time. One male-Evered by name-spent five hours directing a
female (Winkle) on a forced march, during which time he threatened her '
numerous times and physically attacked her five times, injuring her on two
occasions. As the male increasingly gets his way, and the female is moved far
from other males, he relaxes perceptibly. At the same time, the female- ·
being more dependent on her persecutor/protector-typically becomes more
cooperative and pliable. (The obvious human parallels are worrisome but,
for all that, no less likely to be genuine.)
Regrettably-at least, by human standards-male chimps who are not
s�xually pushy and aggressive are generally less successful in consorting
with females. In Goodall's account, an adult male named Jomeo was a
perfect gentleman, showing the lowest rate of "punitive aggression"
toward females. He was also the least successful when it came to forming
consortsh{ps, and he appears to have been the only adult male who did not
sire any offspring. Goodall speculates that males are often aggressive
toward females in order to facilitate later sexual relationships: To the
extent that a female is readily intimidated by given male, that male is more
likely to obtain her sexual acquiescence in the future. Not a pretty picture,
but one that comes more clearly into focus when we consider the role of
WHAT ARE HUMAN BEINGS, "NATURALLY"? 179
EPCs in predisposing males, in this case, to use aggression and even violence to force themselves upon females who might well have someone else
in mind.
In short, it may be that some of the ugliest human behavior-marital
abuse, wife beating, even homicide-derives at least in part from a widespread biological propensity to depart from monogamy.
T
ime now to summarize. (Easier said than done!) Human beings are
unusual in their mating system. Although for the most part Homo
sapiens is socially mon6gamous, displaying-for a mammal-huge
amounts of paternal care, people also live almost colonially, often in enormous groups. In our social monogamy, we are like gibbons, yet we are also
like chimps in that women interact regularly with other adults, not only
other women but even other men. Sex, in such cases, may well be in the
background, and for the most part that is where it stays. In some ways, we
are more like certain colonial birds: · socially monogamous yet rubbing
shoulders with lots of other adults, every day. In such species, when males
and females spend long periods of time apart from each other-one foraging, for example, while the other is attending the nest-both males and
females have abundant opportunities for EPCs.
The human species is preferentially and biologically polygynous, but
also mostly monogamous and-when conditions are ripe-avidly adulterous ... all at once. There is no simple animal model that encompasses all of
the "natural" human condition. Thus, in some species, males seek EPCs; in
.
others, females do so. Which is the model for humans? Probably both.
Human beings use mate-guarding, frequent copulations,. and also a hefty
dose of social prescription-religious injunctions, cultural conditioning,
legal restraints, eunuchs, chastity belts, female circumcision, and so forthin efforts to impose their will (typically, the desires of powerful men) on
everyone else's inclination. Rousseau speculated centuries ago that primitive
human beings used to be happy, free, and socially independent of one
another, but that most of our misfortune arose when the first people began
identifying things_.:.including sexual access to certaitl individuals-as their
own. Maybe he was more right than most biologists have acknowledged, if
many of the unpleasant aspects of male-male competition (notably, a penchant for violence) evolved because of the evolutionary payoff that comes
with exclusive sexual access to one or more females. And with women
inclined to accept, even seek, EPCs on occasion, conditions were ripe for the
appearance of various increasingly competitive techniques whereby men
tried to achieve sexual monopoly.
180 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
At the same time, it is not simply the churlishness of men or the voluptuous transgressions of women that would have opened the floodgates of
original sin. If women really had no sexual urges beyond their designated
mate, there would be very few EPCs; similarly, if other men were not willing, even eager, gallivanters. Neither men nor women are the primordial
purveyors of EPC sinfulness, if sin it be. It takes two to do the EPC tango.
And human beings love to dance.
CHAPTER SEVEN
so What?
A ccording to Saint Augustine, "The reason humans behave as they do
is because they are not living in their true home." He meant God.
Physical anthropologists mean that they are not living on the Pleistocene savanna! And students of animal mating systems could well mean
that humans are not being permitted to live lives of polygyny or of
monogamy plus EPCs.
But maybe our "true home" isn't such a nice place after all.
Western tradition makes it abundantly clear where it stands on monogamy and on adultery. The Sixth Commandment could hardly be more specific: "Thou shalt not commit adultery. " And for good measure, the Tenth
proclaims: "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife." The Old Testament
is especially harsh on such transgressors; in Leviticus (20: 10) and Deuteronomy (22:22) we learn that an adulteress and her lover are to be stoned.
The New Testament, by contrast, is more forgiving, as evidenced by Jesus
pardoning the woman taken in adultery, enjoining "Let he who is without
sin cast the first stone." (Interesting to note: There are no comparably harsh
penalties for a man, so long as he is not adulterous with another man's wife.
Unmarried women, it seems, are fair game!}
Sigmund Freud once argued that the universality of the incest taboo suggests that incest avoidance is probably not instinctive, because, paradoxically, if it were, we would not need the restriction. We only need to be prohibited, the argument goes, from doing what we might otherwise attempt;
there are no taboos against biting off one's own ears, for example. The persistent and explicit prohibitions against adultery in Western (and many
182 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
other) traditions similarly confirm the biological arguments presented in this
book; namely, that strict monogamy is not automatic. It needs to be
enforced and reinforced. Otherwise, adultery happens.
Christianity is especially exercised about adultery. Jesus even inveighed
against committing it in "one's heart," consistent with the fact that Christianity has historically taken a dim view of sex generally. In fact, sex is
considered so degrading throughout much of the Christian tradition that
marriage was widely acknowledged to be inferior to chastity. Marriage, in
this view, exists only as a way of preventing the greater sin of fornication
(defined as sex among unmarried people). As St. Paul put it, "It is good for
a man not to touch a woman, nevertheless to avoid fornication let each man
have his own wife and let each woman have her husband" (I Corinthians
7: 1-2). According to Bertrand Russell, in Marriage and Morals,
the Christian view that all intercourse outside marriage is immoral
was ... based upon the view that all sexual intercourse even within
marriage is regrettable. A view of this sort which goes against
biological facts can only be regarded by sane people as a morbid
aberration.
According to John of Damascus, wdting in the eighth century, Adam
and Eve were created sexless; their sin in Eden led to the horrors of sexual
reproduction. If only our earliest progenitors had obeyed God, we would be
procreating less sinfully today (although it isn't at all clear how). "Matrimony is always a vice," claimed St. Jerome. "All that can be done is to
excuse it and to sanctify it; therefore it was made a religious sacrament. "
Cleanliness is okay, but for many of the truly devout, celibacy was even
closer to godliness. And sexual impurity was (and still is) dirty indeed.
Christian monks up until the Renaissance complained bitterly of being visited in their sleep by succubi, female demons that gestured and beckoned
lewdly to them, just as novitiate nuns were warned of the nocturnal visitations of their erotically enticing male counterparts, the incubi. For people who considered themselves married to Christ or to the Church, any
sexual temptation-even if it involved nothing more than the occasional
naughty dream or nocturnal ejaculation-was only slightly less sinful than
outright fornication. The spirit may be willing, but the flesh can be adulterously weak.
And, of course, if marriage is fundamentally flawed, acceptable largely
as a way of making sex tolerable (so long as it is within the marriage), then
how much worse is marriage with explicitly prohibited (extramarital) sex
thrown in?
SO WHAT? 183
Biblical tradition, however, was not nearly so uniformly sex-hating as the
writings of early Christians might suggest. Old Testament men commonly
had multiple wives, and some of the most reputable had numerous lovers as
well as courtesans. The Song of Solomon is erotically charged�and so,
apparently, was Solomon himself. Polygyny was widely accepted, and adultery was problematic only when it involved someone's wife or daughter; that
is, a woman who was clearly associated with a man. Adultery was defined as
a crime against a man, either husband or father ... as it still is in much of the
world today, especially regions influenced by Islam. Sexual relations between
a married man and a woman who had neither a husband nor a father was
not considered to violate any dictates,. either of society or of God.
The Tenth Commandrrient does not say "Thou shalt not covet another
woman. " Rather, it is specifically concerned with protecting the rights of
one's neighbor, by keeping gallivanting men away from other men's wives.
We may hear about loyal subjects or faithful servants-rarely about
loyal rulers or faithful kings. "lch dien" (I serve) is the motto of the Prince
of Wales, but let's be honest: The prince is more likely to be s
�
rved. Loyalty
or fidelity is typically something . that the strong demand of the weak. It
may therefore surprise no one that the double standard demands fidelity
from the wife, while typically winking at comparable actions by the husband. In ancient India, sex by a married man with a prostitute or slave
woman wasn't adultery, unless she was someone else's property, in which
case it was an offense against the owner, not against the woman herself, and
certainly not against the Lothario's wife. It is worth noting, incidentally, that
male-oriented sexual ethics of this sort do not necessarily imply a rigid prudishness on the part of society at large: India, · for example, is home of the
world's first and most detailed sex manual, the Kama Sutra, and Indian lore
has long glorified the pleasures of sex, to the point that Shiva and his wife
were sometimes pictured as prolonging intercourse almost to infinity.
Among the ancient Hebrews, at least, there were other reasons for enforcing a double standard. Marriage was especially important as a means of
establishing the property rights of geneological succession. Thus, an adulterous wife disrupted the careful system of biological relatedness upon
which the social network depended.
Generally, Protestantism has been more agitated about adultery than has
Catholicism, probably because the latter prohibits divorce and remarriageat least without an annulment. Thus, when divorce is very difficult to obtain
because of religious reasons, extramarital affairs are less threatening to the
continuation of the marriage. A wife may feel insulted, belittled, and generally furious at her philandering husband, but at least she is less likely
to find her marriage terminated as a result. Her status as wife remains
184 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
relatively unchallenged. (On the other hand, she might want to be relieved
of such a spouse, but reluctant to go through the time and expense involved
in an annulment.) By contrast, the availability of divorce among Protestants
has upped the ante, making it possible that an extramarital affair can have
more serious
·consequences. The American Puritans were especially severe in
their punishment of adultery, which for a time was a capital crime in both
the Massachusetts and Plymouth colonies.
It is noteworthy that the usually puritanical Puritans wrote enthusiastically about the erotic joys of marriage, albeit in coded language. For ex�mple, John Milton, in Paradise Lost:
Hail wedded Love, mysterious Law, true source
Of human offspring, sole propertie,
In Paradise of all things common else.
By thee adulterous lust was driv'n from men
Among the bestial herds to range ...
In the Western world, sex and marriage have traditionally been closely
bound-so closely, in fact, that the former was defined by the latter. So we
have premarital sex, marital sex, and extramarital sex. (There are no words
yet, interestingly, for post-divorce sex or even widow or widower sex.
Would a sexually active confirmed bachelor, age 45, be engaging in "premarital" sex?) Sex itself may be in the process of defining itself independent
· of marriage. Whether this is healthy, however, is another question. Presumed
experts have come down hard on both sides of the issue:
Thus, psychologist Havelock Ellis has written:
The man who resides in a large urban area and who never once,
during thirty or more years of married life, is sorely tempted to engage
in adultery for purposes of sexual variety is to be suspected of being
indeed biologically and/or psychologically abnormal; and he who
frequently has such desires and who occasionally and unobtrusively
carries them into practice is well within the normal healthy range.
Alternatively, many marriage counselors and psychotherapists, as well as
classical psychoanalysts, view extramarital affairs as neurotic at best, resulting from narcissism, character disorders, fragmentary superegos, infantile
love-needs, and the like. In their book The Wandering Husband, H. Spotnitz and L. Freeman maintain that· "Infidelity may be statistically normal but
it is also psychologically unhealthy .... It is a sign of emotional health to be
faithful to your husband or wife."
The human being is a complex creature. He and she live within an elab,..
orate framework of cultural prescriptions, biological inclinations, historical
SO WHAT? 185
traditions, psychological processes, and personal experiences. So what if
monogamy is not natural? And if adultery is? Can a�ything human be natural? Can anything human be unnatural? And what difference does it make?
"All tragedies are finish'd by a death," wrote Byron, whereas "All
comedie.s are ended by a marriage." But whether or not monogamous marriage is our "natural" state, the human comedy rarely ends with it; more
often, marriage is only a beginning.
F
orsa
.
�g all othe�
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_
say th� ':
edd�ng vo�
s of almos� every J
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wish o
.
r
Chnsnan denommat1on. Fad m dllS promised forsaking and It can be
very costly, not only in money but in career, peace of mind, one's marriage and family, self-esteem, and the esteem of others. Sometimes extramarital affairs are hushed up, even in high places, as were John F. Kennedy's
many infidelities in the White House. At other times, they become public
and are ruinous, as with the great nineteenth-centllry Irish leader Parnell,
who nearly brought independence to his country, only to be publicly shamed
and politically discredited when his affair with a married woman, Mrs. Kitty
O'Shea, was revealed.
And sometimes extramarital affairs become front-page news, complete
with lurid details, denials, recantings, impeachment; and then, despite the
shame, a degree of exoneration.
.
In Too Far to Go, John Updike wrote that marriage is a ."million mundane moments shared. " Without love, that sharing would presumably not
· be sought in the first place; and out of that sharing, love matures and grows.
However, the sharing of a million mundane moments can also get · pretty
boring. Holy wedlock can become holy deadlock. As an anonymous .Greek
author wrote more than 2,000 years ago:
Once plighted, no men would go awhoring;
They'd stay with the ones they adore,
If women were half as alluring
After the act as before.
According to Denis de Rougemont, there is an "inescapable conflict in
the West between passion and marriage." Our civilization must recognize,
he urges, "that marriage, upon which its social structure stands, is more
serious than the love which it cultivates, and that marriage cannot be
founded on a fine ardor. "
The issue, for historian de Rougemont, is the danger of passion: We adore
passion, and we are fascinated by it. According to de Rougemont, we even
have a perverse desire to achieve unhappiness, to attain tragic proportions:
186 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
Western Man is drawn to what destroys "the happiness of the
married couple" at least as much as to anything that ensures it. Where
does this contradiction come from? If the breakdown of marriage has
been simply due to the attractiveness of the forbidden, it still remains
to be seen why we hanker after unhappiness, and w:hat notion of
love-what secret of our existence, of the human mind, perhaps of our
history-this hankering must hint at.
Maybe some people go outside monogamy precisely so that they will be
caught and punished-and thus achieve access to the romantic, the intense,
and the tragic: "whether in fact or in dreams, in remorse or in terror, in the
delight of revolt or the disquiet of temptation. " In any event, many would
ruefully agree with Alexandre Dumas (the younger) that "the chains of marriage are so heavy that it takes two to bear them, and sometimes three."
A ll the world loves a lover, and the more deeply he or she loves, the
better. Yet we don't normally speak of a passionate marriage. A
good marriage, a happy marriage, a comfortable and compatible
marriage, yes, but only rarely a passionate one. Or at least, not for long.
"They lived happily ever after. " Sure. But "They lived passionately ever
after"? Come on.
If nothing else, it would be exhausting. To live in a state of perpetual passion would be to forgo much of the rest of life, and, in truth, there are other
things. Love can deepen and broaden, provide new areas of connectedness
and new strengths, but it rarely becomes more passionate. Even the simplest
animals, the protozoa, are subject to the most primitive form of learning,
habituation. An animal habituates to something when it stops responding to
it or responds less than it used to. We habituate to smells, to sounds, even
to sights, as when we stop seeing the paintings or photos on our wall. One
way to counter habituation is to change the stimulus: You may have habituated to the sound of the refrigerator motor, but when it turns itsdf off, or
changes pitch, you suddenly notice it again. Some people periodically
rearrange the art on their walls so as to appreciate it afresh. Rearranging our
love lives, however, is a different matter.
Passion is by definition short lived, or at most medium lived. Almost
never is it long-lasting. It flourishes when new and freshly kindled, or
perhaps when it is forbidden, as in the case of Romeo and Juliet and, of
course, adultery. It also gets a shot in the arm from a change, when directed
toward someone new (or, as any experienced-and happily-married couple knows, when the familiar person is experienced in a different way).
SO WHAT? 187
De Rougemont maintains that there are two moralities: one of marriage,
and the other of passion, and that every married person must choose. The
adulterer seeks to have both, but with different partners. In the great French
novel of infidelity, Madame Bovary, Flaubert's heroine became unfaithful
when life with her dull doctor husband became tedious and she found herself wondering if there wasn't more to life than "this."
If marriage is in a sense the cradle of adultery, is it therefore also the
grave of love? Not at all, or, at least, not necessarily. As philosopher
Benedetto Croce puts it (and de Rougemont would doubtless agree), marriage is rather "the grave of savage love." Others, seeking a constantly rekindled savage love, periodically go outside their marriage looking for the tinder of renewed savagery.
As Freud pointed out in An Outline of Psychoanalysis, erotic dreams
rarely involve one's spouse; conscious extramarital sexual imaginings are
pretty much universal. (Recall that even straight-laced presidential candidate Jimmy Carter admitted in a controversial interview with Playboy magazine that he had occasionally committed "lust" in his heart.) But perhaps
it is precisely when-and because-the flesh is weak that the spirit ought to
rise to the occasion. Thus, in Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Freud also suggested that we all experience an ongoing struggle .between the "pleasure
principle," which includes sexual activity in particular and which constantly
seeks gratification, and the "reality principle," expressed by the superego or,
in simple terms, the conscience.
Moreover, although "what comes naturally" is-almost by definitioneasy to do, this doesn't mean that it is right. The crowning glory of Homo
sapiens is its huge brain. This remarkable organ gives people the ability, perhaps unique in the living world, to reflect on their inclinations and decide,
if they choose, to act contrary to them. In Mozart's opera The Marriage of
Figaro, we are advised, "Drink when you are not thirsty, make love when
you don't want to-this is what distinguishes us from the beasts. " What
about not making love when we do want to? There may be no way to affirm
one's humanity as effectively as by saying "no" to sorhe deeply held predispositions, especially when that wonderful brain of ours advises that such
predispositions may be troublesome, for ourselves or others.
Not many people reflect on a spouse's adultery with the comical, cere­
. bral detachment of Leopold Bloom in James Joyce's Ulysses:
As natural as any and every natural act of a nature expressed or
understood executed in natured nature by natural creatures in
accordance with his, her and their natured natures, of dissimilar
similarity. As not as calamitous as a cataclysmic annihilation of the
188 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
planet in consequence of collision with a dark sun. As less
reprehensible than theft, highway robbery, cruelty to children and
animals, obtaining money under false pretenses, forgery, embezzlement,
misappropriation of public money, betrayal of public trust,
malingering, mayhem, corruption of minors, criminal libel, blackmail,
contempt of court, arson, treason, felony, mutiny of the high seas,
trespass, burglary, jailbreaking, practice of unnatural vice, desertion
from armed forces in the field, perjury, poaching, usury, intelligence
with the king's enemies, impersonation, criminal assault, manslaughter,
willful and premeditated murder. As not more abnormal than all other
altered processes of adaptation to altered conditions of existence,
resulting in a reciprocal equilibrium between the bodily organism and
its attendant circumstances, foods, beverages, acquired habits, indulged
inclinations, and significant disease.
But then Mr. Bloom, whose wife had an afternoon rendezvous with her
hot new lover, the aptly named Blazes Boylan, concludes his reverie by noting that Molly's affair is "more than inevitable, irreparable." We have already seen that human beings are not, biologically speaking, monogamous.
But they are also disinclined to tolerate departures from monogamy with the
blithe assurance that because they are "natural," they are okay. At the same
time, Leopold Bloom is wrong: Marital infidelity is not inevitable (nor, one
hopes, necessarily irreparable either).
For human beings, sex has three great functions: procreational, relational, and recreational. The first is obvious. The second speaks to the deep
bonding and connectedness that often develop oetween lovers and thataccording, at least, to Western religious tradition-should precede sexual
relations between people. The third aspect of sex, recreational, is doubtless
the most controversial. But the fact remains that sex is, or can be, great fun
and a powerful recreational urge in its own right.
In Ars Amatoria, the Roman poet Ovid justifies what is perhaps the
most notorious, and ruinous, of all cases of adultery: Helen's affair with
Paris, which precipitated the Trojan War and "launched a thousand ships."
It seems that Helen's husband Menelaus was away at the time:
Afraid of lonely nights, her spouse away
Safe in her guest's warm bosom, Helen lay.
What folly, Menelaus, forth to wend,
Beneath one rooftree leaving wife and friend? ...
Blameless is Helen, and her lover too:
They did what you or anyone would do.
SOWHAT? 189
Adultery is hot stuff, emotionally charged to a degree that must seem
remarkable to anyone not bringing a biological perspective to the human
condition. During the famous Kinsey sex studies, for example, the single
largest cause of people's refusing to participate was a question about extramarital sex.
.
In Civilization and Its Discontents, Freud suggested that civilization is
built on the repression of the instincts. And we now know that one of these
instincts apparently leans toward multiple matings. Civilization is presumably facilitated by controlling antisocial tendencies such as murder, rape, or
robbery. Is there any thing antisocial about multiple matings? Yes-if society
forbids such behavior and if monogamy is contracted for and, hence,
expected by the other spouse. There is much to be said for plain oldfashioned honesty and integrity ; a creature so cerebral as to be able to estab-
. lish elaborate rules and expectations for domestic life (not to mention the
pursuit of science, literature, art, and so forth) should also be capable of
keeping his or her word .
. Civilization is founded not only on the repression of the instincts but
also on the ascendancy of law. (In some way s, the two are synonymous.)
Therefore, once a law or social expectation exists, unless it is grossly unfair
there is a presumption that decency and social order are furthered by obedience to it. Once a monogamous code exists, therefore, perhaps violating
that code is antithetical to higher levels of civilization and of personal development. Notably, however, anthropologists have found no correlation
between extramarital restrictiveness and a society's level of social complexity. (Premarital restrictiveness, on the other hand, tends to be greater in more
complex, although not necessarily "better," societies.)
Many " advanced" civilizations were polygynous, and some simple, nontechnological ones, strictly monogamous. Even if monogamy isn't necessary
for civilization, however, it is clear that public adherence to monogamous
ideals is necessary for success and survival in curre�t Western civilization, i£
only because that is the way we have defined ourselves. It is hard for a public bigamist or adulterer to "get ahead." Ask former presidential candidate
Gary Hart. And even those at the pinnacle of power can be toppled or
severely tarnished. Ask Bill Clinton, or even Newt Gingrich.
As to the . procrustean nature of monogamy inhibiting some of our
deeper inclinations, isn't that what growing up is all about? After all, as we
get older, we are all expected to do what is permitted and inhibit what is forbidden: we learn toilet training, not to hit or bite, to say please and thank
you, and generally to rein ourselves in. Many things are natural but unpleasant: trichinosis, warts, hurricanes. So even if enforced monogamy is in
190 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
some sense "unnatural," this doesn't necessarily mean that it is undesirable.
(It also doesn't have to be unpleasant ... but that is another story, and perhaps another book!) Those animal species that are reliably monogamousa declining list-are sexually faithful because they have no real choice. But
people do. In this regard, our biology is neither overweening nor even a
worthwhile guide. Certainly it is no excuse.
Whatever our natural inclinations, there is no doubt that human beings
are biologically and psychologically capable of having sex with more than
one person, often in fairly rapid succession. The evidence is also overwhelming that many people are capable not only' of "making love to" but
also of loving more than one person at the same time. But we are socially
prohibited from doing either. This social prohibition is a powerful one, and
in the long run, it generally wins, although usually not without a struggle
and often with some short-term defeats. And that struggle-experienced as
occasional brief flings for a night or a weekend, long extramarital relationships over months or years, or just fantasized encounters-may be the
source of some of the most complex, intense, and confusing emotions that
human beings experience.
It has been suggested that the mental health profession often serves as a
social Band-Aid, simply helping people adjust to a sick society and often
siphoning energy and attention from where it is most needed: the reformation of social ills. Perhaps the effort expended in adjusting to monogamy is
like this. Perhaps we should instead adjust our ideals of monogamous matrimony to accord with human inclinations. Maybe instead of taking
monogamy as the norm, and thus being "shocked, shocked" by adulterylike the notorious police captain in the movie Casablanca-we should see
infidelity as the baseline condition, whereupon we might be free to examine
monogamy, dispassionately, for the rarity that it is.
This assumes, however, that there is a better alternative, for example,
that open, unstructured, and nonrestrictive sexual relationships would make
people happier. There is no reason to believe that this is true. Indeed, many
"utopian" social experiments have failed precisely because feelings of interpersonal possessiveness got in the way of the idealized dream of social and
sexual sharing.
Society, with its expectation of monogamy, establishes the boundaries of
who is and who is not an acceptable sexual partner. Marriage, it is assumed,
narrows this field considerably: to just one individual. Some may find this
stultifying, others reassuring, since it generates a haven of surety and confidence, a womb with a view, ideally free of the brawls of sexual competition.
No other marital pattern-polygyny, polyandry, group marriage,
"open" marriage-has been shown to work better. Nonetheless, monogamy
does not work perfectly, and throughout history people have been delighted
SO WHAT? 191
and bedeviled, energized and agonized, by monogamy and by departures
from it. On balance, perhaps monogamy is like Winston Churchill's description of democracy: the worst possible system, except when you consider
the alternatives.
M aybe living things-or, at least, the lucky ones-are somehow
destined to achieve perfect one-to-one relationships; that is, perhaps everyone has a true soul-mate out there somewhere. The
only question is whether these two halves of a potentially perfect whole will
succeed in finding each other, a Ia Plato's tongue-in-cheek version. Don't bet
on it.
This is not to say that monogamy-even happy, fulfilled monogamy-is
impossible, because, in fact, it is altogether within the realm of human possibility. But since it is not natural, it is not easy. Similarly, this is not to say
that monogamy isn't desirable, because there is very little connection, if any,
between what is natural or easy and what is good.
But let us imagine, just for argument's sake, that Plato was factually correct: that for each of us, there exists the perfect mate, the ideal counterpart,
the hand-in-glove Siamese twiri with whom we would be perfectly in love
and eternally happy. There are 6 billion people on our planet, of whom we
meet probably fewer than several thousand in a lifetime. This works out to
about one in a million. Accordingly, for every person we meet, there are
about 999,999 we never do. And of those few we actually do meet, only a
small proportion of those encounters occur for ·
us at ages and in. circumstances in which love and/or marriage-never mind sex-are even feasible.
In short, the chances are pretty slim that we will ever meet our perfect other
half, even if he or she exists.
But don't despair! The future is not necessarily bleak, neither for personal happiness nor even for monogamy itself (assuming, of course, that one
is sufficiently committed, at least to the latter). Even though there may be
no perfect other half ideally crafted for each person-just waiting to be
thrown together by fate, some enchanted evening-in the course of a loving
marriage, two people have the opportunity to hone and shape their shared
experiences such that one's partner does in fact become a rather precisely fitting key, uniquely adapted to the other's lock, and vice versa. The perfect fit
of a good monogamous marriage is made, not born. And despite the fact
that much of our biology seems to tug in the opl'osite direction, such marriages can in fact be made. It is an everyday miracle.
The miracle of monogamy comes in all forms; it is not a one-size-fitsall garment. Just as its details are unique to each couple, there is something
unique and wonderful about human monogamy, a lifelong marriage, as it
192 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
were, between love and intellect {two qualities by which human beings are
also extraordinary among animals). Thus, people have the capacity to plan
ahead, to project their imagination-no less than their genes-into the future. The fruits of shared imagination may be beautiful. Monogamy resulted in scientific achievements like Marie and Pierre Curie's discovery of
radium; and literary achievements, such as Will and Ariel Durant's The
Story of Civilization. Monogamous love inspired James Joyce, who saw
his beloved Nora in every beautiful womap. on the beaches of Ireland. Furthermore, it is impossible to account for the lives destroyed and human potential wasted by adulterous rage; think of Sylvia Plath. A marriage that
works, that provides comfort and support for a couple, may be the most
felicitous arrangement for creative productivity.
Homo sapiens is a rather long-lived species, and thus, along with
monogamy's contribution to child-rearing, gene-assuring, resource-sharing,
and predator-protecting, it is possible to glimpse yet another benefit of this
peculiar mating system: By establishing a durable, long-term relationship
with someone who not only cares, but also shares an expanding history,
who understands one's strengths, weaknesses, joys, and despairs, the successful monogamist assures himst!lf and herself a companion for life, long
after the children (if any) have grown, when workis no longer an option,
when even sex may be mostly a memory, at just the time when two devoted
people can keep track of the doctor appointments, change each other's se�
nior diapers, and sit together, watching the sun set. Living long and well is
not "natural" either, as Thomas Hobbes pointed out. The natural condition may be nasty, brutish, and short, in which case quick flings with multiple available partners to obtain maximally opportune genetic pairings
may be the best way to live. However, in a modern society, in which people
may live decades after they are capable or interested in reproduction, the
opportunity to pair with a soul mate who hangs in there lovingly after the
breasts sag, the prostate weakens, and dentures become mandatory is very
sweet.
We close with a vision of one of the authors' octogenarian parents,
playing bridge with their buddies, pouring a little good scotch for a toast
to ripe old age. His heart is bad, and his knee should be replaced. She has
a little seizure disorder, and a neurogenic bladder. They have been together
monogamously for almost 60 years, and so they know all of each other's
bad jokes and bridge strategies. The old man pinches the old lady on the
butt as they head in for the night, and asks, "Shall we?"
Notes
cHAPTER 1 Monogamy for Beginners
2 Marriage is the ultimate sanction: Or, at least, the ultimate interpersonal sin liable
to be experienced by many people; adulterers outnumber murderers by a hefty
margin.
3 On the other hand, there are cases: J.-G. Baer and L. Euzet. 1961. Classe de
Monoge?es. In Traite de Zoologie, Tome IV, ed. P.-P. Grasse. Paris: Masson et Cie.
5 In 1970, in what can truly be called: G.A. Parker. 1970. Sperm competition and
its evolutionary consequences in the insect. Biological Reviews 45: 525-567.
6 Here is an account of sperm competition [subsequent quote]: T. R; Birkhead and
G. A. Parker. 1997. Sperm competition and mating systems. In Behavioural
Ecology: An Evolutionary Approach, ed. J. R. Krebs and N. B. Davies. Oxford:
Blackwell Science.
7 It required the next and most significant breakthrough: A. J. Jeffreys, V. Wilson,
and S. L. Thein. 1985. Hypervariable "minisatellite" regions in human DNA.
Nature 3 14: 67-73.
8 It is presented not to provide [subsequent quote]: J. G. Ewen, D. P. Armstrong,
and D. M. Lambert. 1999. Floater males gain reproductive success through
extrapair fertilizations in the stitdibird. Animal Behaviour 58: 321-328.
10 There is also strong evidence: M. Morris. 1993. Telling tales explains the
discrepancy in sexual partner reports. Nature 365: 437-440.
10 Increasingly, biology journals: To avoid any misunderstanding, note that "tits" are
to British ornithologists what chickadees are to biologists on this side of the Atlantic.
10 We have even had this oxymoronic report: D. E. Gladstone. 1979. The American
Naturalist 1 14: 545-547.
11 And this before having reached: W. B. Quay. 1985. Cloacal sperm in spring
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11 Similarly, there is no guaranteed correlation: H. L. Gibbs, P. J Weatherhead,
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12 Even females of seemingly solitary species: P. S. Rodman and ]. C. Mitani. 1987.
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193
194 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
12 More than 65 percent: R. A. Mulder, P. 0. Dunn, A. Cockburn, K. A. LazenbyCohen, and M. J. Howell. 1994. Helpers liberate female fairy-wrens from
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12 Warblers and tree swallows: P. 0. Dunn and R. J. Robertson. 1993. Extra-pair
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12 Even prior to DNA fingerprinting: J. H. Edwards. 1957. A critical examination
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12 In response to surveys: E. 0. Laumann, J. H. Gagnon, R. T. Michael, and
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13 The numbers for women are a bit lower: A. C. Kinsey, W. B. Pomeroy, C. E ..
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14 So polyandry, which means "many males": Etymological note: The word
polygamy is often used incorrectly when polygyny is more appropriate. Polygamy
literally means "many gametes" and is more precisely either polygyny or polyandry.
People who speak of Mormon polygamy, for example, or polygamy as described in
the Bible or as practiced in current Islamic and some African societies really mean
polygyny, or harem-keeping.
cHAPTER 2 Undermining the Myth: Males
17 At the same time, females: G. C. Williams. 1966. Natural Selection and
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17 An important conceptual breakthrough: R. L. Trivers. 1972. Parental investment
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18 Under the pressure of sperm competition: G. A. Parker. 1982. Why are there so
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21 As to human beings [subsequent quote]: I. Schapera. 1940. Married Life in an
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NOTES 195
21 Indeed the famous team of sex researchers [subsequent quote]: A. C. Kinsey,
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22 In addition, although the Coolidge effect: D. A. Dewsbury. 1981. An exercise in
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23 Also, males having a high reproductive success: H. L. Gibbs, P. J. Weatherhead,
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24 In fact, two of the unpaired floaters: John G. Ewen, D. P. Armstrong, and
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25 But, instead, EPCs: A. P. Meller. 1998. Sperm competition and sexual selection.
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25 In one study involving birds: T. R. Birkhead, F. Fletcher, E. J. Pellatt, and A.
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'
26 So, one possible explanation: M. Kirkpatrick, T. Price, and S. J. Arnold. 1990.
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26 It provides strong evidence: B. C. Sheldon and J. Ellegren. 1999. Sexual selection
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27 There would then be a reproductive payoff: H. Ellegren, L. Gustafsson, and
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27 A typical one: B. Kempenaers, G. R. Verheyen, M. Van den Broeck, T. Burke,
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196 THE MYTH OF MONOGA.¥Y
the opportunity for sexual selection in a socially monogamous bird (Dendroica
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28 It appears that older, more colorful males: H. G. Smith, R. Montgomerie,
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28 Among cattle egrets: M. Fujioka and S. Yamagishi. 1981. Extramarital and pair
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28 Similarly, male secondary sexual traits: G. E. Hill, R. Montgomerie, T. Roeder,
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29 But occasionally the in-pair female: T. H Birkhead, T. Burke, R. Zann, F. M.
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29 Guarding takes about a quarter of an hour: G. A. Parker. 1970. The
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29 If another male dungfly: H. Sigurjonsdottir and G. A. Parker. 1981. Dung fly
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30 Male bank swallows, for example: M. D. Beecher and I. M. Beecher. 1979.
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30 Mate-guarding is also a common male strategy: P. W. Sherman. 1989. Mate
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30 A now-classic anthropological review: G. P. Murdock. 1967. Culture and
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30 In some societies, husbands: R. Benedict. 1934. Patterns of Culture. Boston:
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NOTES 197
30 Such concern may not be ill founded: R. Baker and M. Bellis. 1995. Human
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30 Here is.a description of courtship [subsequent quote]: E. Selous. 1933. Evolution
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31 If there is a continuing arms race: For some of the range of correlationsneutral, positive and negative-see S. B. Meek, R. J. Robertson, and P. T. Boag.
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31 Among a group of insects: G. A Gangrade. 1963. A contribution to the biology
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31 Among barn swallows: A. P. Meller. 1987. Extent and duration of mate
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32 By contrast, when males were removed: D. Currie, A. P. Krupa, T. Burke, and
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34 The possibility arises that adult males: I. U. Reichard. 1995� Extra-pair
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198 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
35 Males that are cuckolded: P. C. Frederick. 1987. Extrapair couplations in the
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35 Several studies have confirmed: B. Kempenaers, G. R. Verheyen, M. Van den
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37 Because of their basic biology: D. Dewsbury. 1982. Ejaculate cost and male
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37 Sure enough, when male rats: R. R. Bellis, M. A. Baker, and M.J. G. Gage.
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37 Plains zebra stallions copulate less: J. R. Ginsberg and D. I. Rubenstein. 1990.
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38 Males are absent: T. Birkhead and C. M. Lessels. 1988. Copulation behaviour of
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NOTES 199
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39 Among nonhuman primates: C. D. Busse and D. Q. Estep. 1984. Sexual arousal
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40 In at least one rat species: D. Q. Estep. 1988. Copulations by other males
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40 The males of such species: A. P. Meller. 1988. Testis size, ejaculate quality, and
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200 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
44 Copulating males use their penis: Jonathan K. Waage. 1979. Dual function of the
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49 For example, male indigo buntings: D. F. Westneat. 1988. Parental care and
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50 Their offspring get short shrift: D. P. Barash. 1975. Ecology of parental behavior
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51 They simply have nothing: R. B. Wagner, M. D. Schug, and E. S. Morton, 1996.
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54 There is in fact: R. Thornhill and C. Palmer. 2000. The Natural History of Rape.
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202 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
8 75-879; F. McKinney and P. Stolen. 1 982. Extra-pair bond courtship and forced
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·
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54 Research conducted at the largest known goose colony: P. 0. Dunn, A. D. Afton,
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CHAPTER 3 Undermining lhe Mylh: Females iChoosing Male Genesl
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59 An interesting idea, this: K . M . Cheng and P. B. Siegel. 1990. Quantitative
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NOTES 203
60 The upshot is that females who copulate: D. W. Pyle and M. H. Gromko.
1978. Repeated mating by female Drosophila melanogaster: the adaptive
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60 This is suggested by the fact: J. Graves, J. Ortega-Ruano, and P. J. B. Slater.
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60 Females consistently have more EPCs: J. Wetton and D. Parkin. 1991. An
association between fertility and cuckoldry in the house sparrow, Passer domesticus.
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60 Among those birds whose females: E. M. Gray. 1997. Do red-winged blackbirds
benefit genetically from seeking copulations with extra-pair males? Animal
Behaviour 53: 605-623.
61 They do not initiate: D. F. Westneat. 1992. Do female red-winged blackbirds
engage in a mixed mating strategy? Ethology 92: 7-28.
61 Extra-pair copulations are frequent: J. H. Wetton and D. T. Parkin. 1991. An
association between fertility and cuckoldry in the house sparrow Passer domesticus.
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61 In addition, litter size is larger: J. L. Hoogland. 1998. Why do Gunnison's prairie
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61 Not all mammals show this pattern: J. 0. Murie. 1996. Mating behavior of
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61 In fact, even in another prairie dog species: J. L. Hoogland. 1995. The BlackTailed Prairie Dog: Social Life of a Burrowing Mammal. Chicago: University of
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61 1n some mammals, there is actually a reduction: K. E. Wynne-Edwards and R. D.
Lisk. 1 984. Djungarian hamsters fail to conceive in the presence of multiple males.
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62 The more males a female adder mates with: T. Madsen, R. Shine, J. Loman, and
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63 DNA fingerprinting has shown: M. Ollson, R. Shine, A. Gullberg, A. Madsen,
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63 By multiple mating, a questing female: J. A. Zeh and D. W. Zeh. 1996. The
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204 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
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63 In a bird species wonderfully called: M. G. Brooker, I. Rowley, M. Adams, and
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63 Interestingly, when female mice: W. K. Potts, C. J. Manning, and E. K.
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63 Female primates, for their part: B. A. Smuts. 1987. Gender, aggression and
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64 For example, in one troop: Y. Takahata. 1982. The socio-sexual behavior of
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64 In one remarkable case: R. Sekulic. 1982. Behavior and ranging patterns of a
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64 A key summary point is that: S. B. Hrdy and P. L. Whitten. 1987. Patterning
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64 In this species, therefore: 0. Ratti, M. Hovi, A. Lundberg, H. Tegelstrom, and
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66 They also vocalize loudly: C. R. Cox and B. J. LeBoeuf. 1 977. Female incitation
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66 Or females can advertise: R. H. Wiley and J. Poston. 1996. Indirect mate choice,
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66 In eight of twelve observed copulations: J. J. Perry-Richardson, C. S. Wilson, and
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66 Interestingly, of ten such forced copulations: R. Thornhill. 1988. The jungle fowl
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66 Once, after he forced such a copulation: T. R. Birkhead and A. P. M0ller. 1992.
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67 For example, a female pied flycatcher: M. Hovi and 0. Ratti. 1994. Mate
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NOTES 205
67 In this situation, most females: C. T. Gabor and T. R. Haliday. 1997. Sequential
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1 62-166.
68 Not only that, but the offspring: P. J. Watson. 1998. Multi-male mating and
female choice increase offspring growth in the spider Neriene litigiosa (Linyphiidae).
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68 For example, among waterfowl: F. McKinney, S. R. Derrickson, and P. Mineau.
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69 This seems to be a way for females: J. A. Zeh, S. D. Newcomer, and D. W. Zeh.
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69 It had already been demonstrated: J. A. Zeh. 1 997. Polyandry and enhanced '
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69 In one type of beetle: M. S. Archer and M.·E. Elgar. 1 999. Female preference for
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69 In some insects, the female deposits: J. A. Zeh, S. D. Newcomer, and D. W. Zeh.
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70 Male house sparrows, for example: A. P. Meller. 1 990. Sexual behaviour is
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70 Among zebra finches: N. Burley and D. Price. 1991. Extra-pair copulation and
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71 This supports the hypothesis: R. Wagner. 1991. The role of extra-pair
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71 As a result of such choice: P. Dunn and A. Cockburn. 1 996. Evolution of male
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72 Incidentally, these helpers: Ibid.
72 Accordingly, females are well advised: Allison Welch, R. Semlitsch, and H. C.
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.
72 It has been suggested that bright coloration: W. D. Hamilton. 1990. Mate choice
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206 1HE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
73 Such a correlaion does not: A. P. Meller. 1997. Immune defence, extra-pair
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73 It is then also revealing: B. Kempenaers, G. R. Verheyen, M. Van den Broeck,
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73 Of the five males that died: Ibid.
73 Among blue tits, for example: Ibid.
74 Dominant male cattle egrets: M. Fujioka and S. Yamagishi. 1981. Extramarital
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74 Not only that, but EPCs: S. M. Smith. 1988. Extra-pair copulations in blackcapped chickadees: the role of the female. Behaviour 107: 15-23.
74 Accordingly, older male red-winged blackbirds: P. ]. Weatherhead and P. T. Boag.
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74 A similar age-related pattern: E. Roskaft. 1983. Male promiscuity and female
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75 In the previous chapter, we encountered: D. Hasselquist, S. Bensch, and T. von
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75 In the case of bilaterally symmetrical creatures: Leigh Van Valen. 1 962. A study
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76 One was titled: A. M0ller. 1992. Female swallow preference for symmetrical
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76 The second study was titled: A. M0ller. 1992. Parasites differentially increase the
degree of fluctuating asymmetry in secondary sexual characteristics. Journal of
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76 It does: More symmetry equals better looking: S. W. Gangestad, R. Thornhill,
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asymmetry. Ethology and Sociobiology 15: 73:-85.
76 Not only that, but symmetrical men: R. Thornhill and S. W. Gangestad. 1994.
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76 Women even report more orgasms: R. Thornhill, S. W. Gangestad, and
R. Comer. 1996. Human female orgasm and mate fluctuating asymmetry. Animal
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NOTES 207
77 So, when it comes to already-paired females: S. W. Gangestad and R. Thornhill.
1 997. The evolutionary psychology of extrapair sex: the role of fluctuating
asymmetry. Evolution and Human Behavior 18: 69-88.
77 The suggestion has even been niade: G. F. Miller. 2000. The Mating Mind. New
York: Doubleday.
78 As a result, a female is well advised: P. J. Weatherhead and R. J. Robertson,
1 979. Offspring quality and the polygyny threshold: "The sexy son hypothesis. "
The American Naturalist 1 13: 201-208.
78 But the offspring of preferred males: T. M. Jones, R. J. Quinnell, and
A. Balmford. 1998. Fisherian flies: the benefits of female choice in a lekking sandfly.
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79 When researchers from the University of Oslo: E. Cunningham and T. Birkhead.
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79 Not only that, but younger females: L. A. Dugatkin and J. Godin. 1992.
Reversal of female mate choice by copying in the guppy (Poecilia reticulata).
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79 Males swallows whose forked tails: A. P. M0ller. 1994. Sexual Selection and the
Barn Swallow. New York: Oxford University Press.
79 At the same time, the number of biological young: N. Saino, C. P. Rimmer,
H. Ellegren, and A. P. M0ller. 1 997. An experimental study of paternity and tail
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79 Males engaging in EPCs: A. P. M0ller. 1988. Badge size in the house sparrow
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80 A comparable finding applies: N. T. Burley, D. A. Enstrom, and L. Chitwood.
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female tactics. Animal Behaviour 48: 1 03 1-1041.
80 Again, red is desirable: N. T. Burley, P. G. Parker, and K. Lundy. 1996. Sexual
selection and extrapair fertilization in a socially monogamous passerine, the zebra
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80 The findings are that: E.g., R. G. Edwards. 1 955. Selective fertilization following
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81 Columbian ground squirrel females: J. 0. Murie. 1995. Mating behavior of
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208 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
81 In another species of ground squirrel: D. E. Boellstorff, D. H. Owings, M. C. T.
Penedo, and M. J. Hersek. 1994. Reproductive behaviour and multiple paternity of
California ground squirrels. Animal Behaviour 47: 1 057-1064.
82 In one study, detailed measurements: A. F. Dixson and N. I. Mundy. 1994.
Sexual behaviour, sexual swelling and penile evolution in chimpanzees (Pan
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82 In an article entitled: T. Birkhead, A. Meller, and W. J. Sutherland. 1993. Why
do females make it so difficult to fertilize their eggs? Journal of Theoretical Biology
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83 It emphasizes, as has been traditional: W. G. Eberhard. 1998. Female roles in
sperm competition. In Sperm Competition and Sexual Selection, ed. T. Birkhead and
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83 But in fact, as Eberhard points out [subsequent quote]: Ibid.
83 William Eberhard, one last time: W. Eberhard. 1 994. Evidence for widespread
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84 Tempting as it is to attribute this: L. W. Simmons, P. Stockley, R. L. Jackson, and
G. A. Parker. 1996. Sperm competition or sperm selection: no evidence for female
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85 According to master myth-recounter Thomas Bulfinch [subsequent quote]:
T. Bulfinch. 1 855/1934. Bulfinch's Mythology. New York: Modern Library.
cHAPTER 4 Undermining the Myth: Females IDiher conslderalionsl
89 In a now-classic and much-cited study: A. J. Bateman. 1948 Intra-sexual
selection in Drosophila. Heredity 2: 349-368.
89 Indian crested porcupines copulate: Z. Sever and J. Mendelssohn. 1988.
Copulation as a possible mechanism to maintain monogamy in porcupines, Hystrix
indica. Animal Behaviour 36: 1541-1542.
90 Newlywed kittiwake gulls copulate: I. W. Chardine, cited in Hunter et al. 1993. ·
Why do females copulate repeatedly with one male? Trends in Ecology and
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91 Red-billed gulls, studied off the coast of New Zealand: J. A. Mills. 1994. Extrapair copulations in the red-billed gull: females with high-quality, attentive males
resist. Behaviour 128: 41-64.
92 The technical article describing this system: L. Wolf. 1 975. Prostitution behavior
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NOTES 209
93 Indeed, only hive-owning males: E. W. Cronin and P. W. Sherman. 1977. A
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93 Although there is little obvious benefit: M. A. Elgar. 1 992. Sexual cannibalism in
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93 Male moths attract females: T. Eisner and J. Meinwald. 1 995. The chemistry of
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94 The results were startling: P. Gagneux, D. S. Woodruff, and C. Boesch. 1997.
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'
95 An ethically troubling discovery: S. B. Hrdy. 1979. The Langurs of Abu.
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96 This may be quite important: T. Nishida and K. Kawanaka. 1 985. Within-group
cannibalism by adult male chimpanzees. Primates 26: 274-284.
96 She has since expanded that no'tion: S. B. Hrdy. 1981. The Woman That Never
Evolved. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
96 It is well documented that among many primates: B. B. Smuts. 1987. Sexual
cmnpetition and mate choice. In Primate Societies, ed. D. Cheney, R. Seyfarth,
B. Smuts, R. Wrangham, and T. Struhsaker. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
96 University of Michigan primatologist Barbara Smuts: B. B. Smuts. 1985. Sex and
Friendship in Baboons. Hawthorne, NY: Aldine.
96 Given that, among primates in particular: D. P. Barash. 2001. Revolutionary
Biology: The new, gene-centered view of life. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.
97 So, if you are a male barn swallow: J. J. Soler, J. S. Cuervo, A. P. Meller, and
F. de Lope. 1998. Nest building is a sexually selected behaviour in the barn swallow.
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97 Female appreciation of males: E. Forsgren. 1997. Female sand gobies prefer
good fathers over dominant males. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London,
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97 Not coincidentally, male dunnocks: N. B. Davies, I. R. Hartley, B. J. Hatchwell,
and N. E. Langmore. 1996. Female control of copulations to maximize male help:
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98 Probably she does this to convince: N. B. Davies. 1983. Polyandry, cloaca
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98 His sperm pass with extraordinary speed: M. Kohda, M. Tanimura, M. KikueNakamura, and S. Yamagishi. 1995. Sperm drinking by female catfishes: a novel
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210 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
98 Most likely, the males were duped: J. 0. Gjershaug, T. Jarvi, and E. Roskaft.
1989. Marriage entrapment by "solitary" mothers: a study on male deception by
female pied flycatchers. The American Naturalist 133: 273-276.
99 But they might nonetheless coerce an EPC: D. F. Westneat. 1992. Do female redwinged blackbirds engage in a mixed mating strategy? Ethology 92: 7-28.
99 The researcher reports [subsequent quote]: P. C. Frederick. 1987. Extrapair
copulations in the mating system of white ibis (Eudocimus albus). Behaviour 100:
170-201.
100 Interestingly, this behavior was not characteristic: Ibid.
100 Only after females finally break down: P. J. Watson. 1993. Foraging advantage
of polyandry for female Sierra dome spiders (Linyphia litigiosa: linyphiidae) and
assessment of alternative direct benefit hypotheses. The American · Naturalist 141:
440-465.
100 With growing awareness of the importance of EPCs: R. E. Ashcroft. 1976.
A function of the pairbond in the common eider. Wildfowl 27: 101-105.
100 No one knows the mechanism involved: E. J. A. Cunningham. 1997. Forced
copulation and sperm competition in the mallard Anas platyrhunchos. Ph.D.
dissertation, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK.
101 "Peahens lay more eggs,": E.g., M. Petrie and A. Williams. 1993. Peahens lay
more eggs for peacocks with larger trains. Proceedings of the Royal Society of
London, Series B 251 : 127-1 31; N. Burley. 1988. The differential allocation
hypothesis: an experimental test. The American Naturalist 132: 61 1-628.
102 Thus, of 11 heterosexual pairs observed: R. Palombit. 1994. Dynamic pair
bonds in hylobatids: implications regarding monogamous social systems. Behaviour
128: 65-101.
102 There are many possible reasons for pairs: S. Choudhury. 1995. Divorce in
birds: a review of the hypotheses. Animal Behaviour 50: 413-429.
102 Thus, a renowned study of cliff-nesting gulls: J. C. Coulson. 1 972. The
significance of the pair-bond in the kittiwake. In Proceedings of the International
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102 An alternative view, recently advanced: B. Ens, U. N. Safriel, and M. P. Harris.
1993. Divorce in the long-lived and monogamous oystercatcher, Haematopus
ostralegus: incompatibility or choosing the better option? Animal Behaviour 45:
1 199-1217; A. A. Dhondt and F. Adriaensen. 1994. Causes and effects of divorce
in the blue tit Parus caeruleus. journal of Animal Ecology 63: 979-987; M. Orell,
S. Rytkonen, and K. Koivula. 1994. Causes of divorce in the monogamous willow
tit, Parus montanus, and consequences for reproductive success. Animal Behaviour
48: 1 143-1 150.
102 A research paper titled: D. Heg, B. Ens, R. T. Burke, L. Jenkins, and J. P. Krujit.
1993. Why does the typically monogamous oystercatcher (Haematopus ostralegus)
engage in extra-pair copulations? Behaviour 126: 247-288.
NOTES 211
102 Assuming that most, if not all: M. S. Sullivan. 1994. Mate choice as an
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102 Similarly, in another bird species: M. A. Colwell and L. W. Oring. 1989. Extrapair mating in the spotted sandpiper: a female mate acquisition tactic. Animal
Behaviour 38: 675-684; R. H. Wagner. 1991. The use of extrapair copulations for
mate appraisal by razorbills, Alca torda. Behavioral Ecology 2: 198-203.
103 They may even be increasing their chances: H. L. Gibbs, P. J. Weatherhead,
P. T. Boag, B. N. White, L. M. Tabak, and K. J. Hoysak. 1990. Realized
reproductive success of polygynous red-winged blackbirds revealed by DNA
markers. Science 250: 1394-1397.
103 It has also been suggested: R. H. Wagner. 1993. The pursuit of extra-pair
copulations by female birds: a new hypothesis of colony formation. Journal of
Theoretical Biology 1 63: 333-346.
103 When eastern bluebirds have already succeeded: P. A. Gowaty and W. C.
Bridges. 1991. Behavioral, demographic, and environmental correlates of extra-pair
fertilizations in eastern bluebirds, Sialia sialis. Behavioral Ecology 2: 339-350.
103 In bird species as diverse: A. D. Afton. 1 985. Forced copulation as a
reproductive strategy of male lesser scaup: a field test of some predictions.
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predominantly monogamous bird: observations of behaviour. Animal Behaviour
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103 Thus, if divorce is more likely: F. Cezily and R. G. Nager. 1995. Comparative
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104 The result was that fewer than half: E. Peterson, T. Jarvi, J. Olsen, J. Mayer,
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105 It seems likely that EPCs: B. C. Sheldon. 1993. Sexually transmitted disease in
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105 That is, in this species: E. M. Gray. 1996. Female control of offspring paternity
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106 Once out of the male's field of vision: Recounted in R. R. Baker and M. A.
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106 One exception is my own research: D. P. Barash. 1976. Male response to
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107 Female barn swallows who "cain't": A. M0ller. 1988. Paternity and paternal
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·
212 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
107 When males reduce paternal care: S. Markman, Y. Yom-Tov, and J. Wright.
1995. Male parental care in the orange-tufted sunbird: behavioural adjustment in
provisioning and nest guarding effort. Animal Behaviour 50: 655-669.
108 In other cases, compensation: N. Saino and A. P. M0ller� 1995. Testosteroneinduced depression of male parental behavior in the barn swallow: female
compensation and effects orr seasonal fitness. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology
36: 151-157.
108 Although eastern bluebirds are normally monogamous: P. A. Gowaty. 1983.
Male parental care and apparent monogamy in eastern bluebirds (Sialia sialis). The
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108 The risk that males may reduce: R. A. Mulder, P. 0. Dunn, A. Cockburn, K. A.
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108 Among these species, EPCs: J. W. Chardine. 1987. Influence of pair-status on
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108 Previous research has shown: A. P. M0ller. 1991. Defence of offspring by male
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their mates. Animal Behaviour 42: 261-267.
108 Not only are resident males zealous: P. J. Weatherhead, R. Montgomerie, H. L.
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109 A study conducted : D. F. Westneat. 1992. Do female red-winged blackbirds
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109 The salient finding of one research effort: A. Dixon, D. Ross, S. L. C. O'Malley,
and T. Burke. 1994. Paternal investment inversely related to degree of extra-pair
paternity in the reed bunting. Nature 371 : 698-700.
109 After an EPC that took place: T. H. Birkhead and J. D. Biggins. 1 987.
Reproductive synchrony and extra-pair copulation in birds. Ethology 74: 320-334.
109 On the other hand, older male purple martins: E. S. Morton, L. Forman, and
M. Braun. 1990. Extrapair fertilizations and the evolution of colonial breeding in
purple martins. Auk 107: 275-283.
1 10 Neither of the extra-pair males helped: Recounted in T. Birkhead and A. P.
M0ller. 1992. Spe;m Competition in Birds. San Diego: Acadeinic Press.
110 This, in turn, might result: D. P. Barash. 2001. Revolutionary Biology: The
New Gene-Centered View of Life. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.
NOTES 213
110 And it has already been found: J. V. Briskie, C. T. Naugler, and S. M. Leech.
1 994. Begging intensity of nestling birds varies with sibling relatedness. Proceedings
of the Royal Society of London, Series B 258: 73-78.
110 For example, male dunnocks shadow: N. B. Davies. 1985. Cooperation and
conflict among dunnocks, Prunella modularis, in a variable mating system. Animal
Behaviour 33: 628-648.
111 There already exists a phrase: M. C. McKitrick. 1 990. Genetic evidence for
multiple parentage in eastern kingbirds (Tyrannus tyrannus). Behavioral Ecology
and Sociobiology 26: 149-155.
111 Since they did not have their own nests: M. I. Sandell and M. Diemer. 1999.
Intraspecific brood parasitism: a strategy for floating females in the European
starling. Animal Behaviour 57: 197-202.
·
111 Among the waterbirds known as coots: B. E. Lyon. 1993. Conspecific brood
parasitism as a flexible female reproductive tactic in American coots. Animal
Behaviour 46: 9 1 1-928.
1 12It appears that younger, weaker females: J. M. Eadie and J. M. Fryxell. 1992.
Density dependence, frequency dependence, and alternative nesting strategies in
goldeneyes. The American Naturalist 140: 621-64.
·
1 12 Although it is relatively uncommon: Y. Yom-Tov, G. M. Dunnett, and A.
Andersson. 1974. Intraspecific nest parasitism in the starling Sturnus vulgaris. Ibis
1 16: 87-90; F. McKinney. 1985. Primary and secondary male reproductrive
strategies of dabbling ducks. In Avian Monogamy, ed. P. A. Gowaty and D. W.
Mock. Washington, DC: American Ornithologists Union.
1 12 One study found that among cliff swallows: C. F. Brown. 1984. Laying eggs in a
neighbor's nest: benefit and cost of colonial nesting in swallows. Science 224: 518-519.
CHAPTER 5 Why Does Monogamy occur At All?
1 14 Among kittiwake gulls: J. C. Coulson. 1966. The influence of the pair-bond
and age on the breeding biology of the kittiwake gull, Rissa tridactyla. Journal of
Animal Ecology 35: 269-279.
1 14 For example, when males perceive themselves: N. T. Burley 1977. Parental
investment, mate choice, and mate quality. Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences 74: 3476-3479.
1 15 In this situation, males: M. Milinski and T. C. M. Bakker. 1992. Costs influence
sequential mate choice in sticklebacks, Gasterosteus aculeatus. Proceedings of the
Royal Society of London, Series B 250: 229-233.
115 In an earlier publication: M. Milinski and T. C. M. Bakker. 1 990. Female
sticklebacks use male coloration in mate choice and hence avoid parasitized males.
Nature 344: 330-333.
214 THE MYfH OF MONOGAMY
115 They are indicated by the title: S. Lopez. 1999. Parasitized female guppies do
not prefer showy males. Animal Behaviour 57: 1 129�1 134.
1 16 Dorothy Parker put it this way [subsequent quote]: D. Parker. 1936. The
Collected Poetry of Dorothy Parker. New York: Modern Library.
117 Males cannot monopolize: D. W. Tinkle. 1967. Home range, density, dynamics,
and structure of a Texas population of the lizard, Uta stansburiana. In Lizard
Ecology, ed. W. W. Mijstead. Columbia: University of Missouri Press.
117 These animals may also be too aggressive: S. J. Hannon. 1984. Factors limiting
polygyny in the willow ptarmigan. Animal Behaviour 32: 153-161.
117 Similarly, among eastern bluebirds: P. A. Gowaty. 1983.- Male parental care and
apparent monogamy among eastern bluebirds (Sialia sialis). The American
Naturalist 121: 149-157.
118 When this is true: E.g., J. P. Lightbody and P. J. Weatherhead. 1988. Female
settling patterns and polygyny: tests of a neutral mate choice hypothesis. The
American Naturalist 132: 20-33; I. R. Hartley, M. Shepherd, and D. B. A.
Thompson. 1995. Habitat selection and polygyny in breeding corn buntings
Miliaria calartdra. Ibis 137: 508-514.
118 This aggression, incidentally: E. Cunningham and T. Birkhead. 1997. Female
roles in perspective.· Trends in Ecology and Evolution 12: 337-338.
118 In starlings, at least: M. I. Sandell and J. G. Smith. 1996. Already mated
females constrain male mating success in the European starling. Proceedings of the
Royal Society of London, Series B 263: 742-747; M. I. Sandell and J. G. Smith.
1 997. Female aggression in the European starling during the breeding season.
Animal Behaviour 53: 13-23.
118 In another bird species: N. E. Langmore and N. B. Davies. 1997. Female
dunnocks use vocalizations to compete for males. Animal Behaviour 53: 8 8 1-890.
118 Because mated females were aggressive: J. P. Veiga. 1992. Why are house
sparrows predominantly monogamous? A test of hypotheses. Animal Behaviour 43:
361-370.
118 Given that female house sparrows: J. P. Veiga. 1990, Infanticide by male and
female house sparrows. Animal Behaviour 39: 496-502.
118 A growing number of studies: T. Slagsvold, T. Amundsen, S. Dale, and
H. Lampe. 1992. Female-female aggression explains polyterritoriality in male pied
flycatchers. Animal Behaviour 43: 397-407.
119 The feistiness of resident females beavers: H. E. Hodgdon and J. S. Larsen.
1 973. Some sexual differences in behaviour within a colony of marked beavers
( Castor canadensis). Animal Behaviour 21: 147-152.
.
119 Primatologist Barbara Smuts: B. B. Smuts. 1 987. Gender, aggression and
influence. In Primate Societies, ed. D. Cheney, R. Seyfarth, B. Smuts, R. Wrangham,
and T. Struhsaker. Chicago: 'University of Chicago Press.
NOTES 215
119 There are also many cases: L. H. Frame and G. W. Frame. 1976. Female
African wild dogs emigrate. Nature 263: 227-229; L. D. Mech. 1970. The Wolf.
Garden City, NJ: Natural History Press; P. D. Moehlman. 1979. Jackal helpers and
pup survival. Nature 277: 382-383; R. F. Ewer. 1973. The behaviour of the
meerkat, Suricata suricatta. Zeitschrift fur Tierpsychologie 20: 570-607.
1 19 Only if this alpha female: J. M. Packard, U. S. Seal, L. D. Mech, and E. D.
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120 Thus liberated from their jealous wives: A.-K. Eggert and S. I. Sakaluk. 1995.
Female coerced monogamy in burying b�;:etles. Behavioural Ecology and
Sociobiology 37: 147-154.
120 This suggests that what constrains: M. I. Sandell and H. G. Smith. 1996.
Already mated females constrain male mating success in the European starling.
Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B 263: 743-747.
121 Equally interesting: M. Eens and R. Pinxten. 1995. Inter-sexual conflicts over
copulation in the European starling: evidence for the female mate guarding
hypothesis. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 36: 71-8 1; M. Eens and R.
Pinxten. 1 996. Female European starlings increase their copulation solicitation rate
when faced with the risk of polygyny. Animal Behaviour 51: 1 141-1 147.
121 In such cases: M. Petrie. 1 992. Copulation frequency in birds: why do females
copulate more than once with the same male? Animal Behaviour 44: 790�
792.
121 Among blue tits, for example: B. Kempenaers, G. R. Verheyen, M. Van den
Broeck, T. Burke, C. Van Broeckhoven, and A. A. Dhondt. 1992. Extra-pair
paternity results from female preference for high-quality males in the blue tit.
Nature 357: 494-496.
122 By mating repeatedly: M. Petrie et al. 1 992. Multiple mating in a lekking bird:
why do peahens mate with more than one male and with the same male more than
once? Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 31: 349-358.
122 It is notable that female mate-guarding: E. Creighton. 2000. Female mate
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123 The suggestion has been made: M. F. Small. 1988. Female primate sexual
behavior and conception: are there really sperm to spare? Current Anthropology 29:
8 1-100.
123 In such cases, females often: K. Summers. 1990. Parental care and the cost of
polygyny in the green dart-poison frog. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 27:
307-313.
124 The predominant theoretical explanation: G. H. Orians. 1 969. On the
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216 TilE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
125 Male rats, for example: L. Krames and L. A. Mastromatteo. 1973. Role of
olfactory stimuli during copulation in male and female rats. Journal of Comparative
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125 This, in turn, could help: E.g., S. J. Hannon and G. Dobush. 1997. Pairing
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126 Here, without the social and sexual distractions: D. P. Barash. 1975. Ecology of
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127 Whether monogamous or polygynous: D. M. B. Parish and J. C. Coulson.
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127 For a large number of women: See B. Ehrenreich. 1984. The Hearts of Men.
New York: Doubleday.
127 Manucode monogamy: B. Beehler. 1985. Adaptive significance of monogamy
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128 Sometimes, as in the water strider case: N. B. Davies. 1984. Sperm competition
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129 At this point, the male scorpionfly: R. Thornhill and K. P. Sauer. 1991. The
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129 These latter chemicals: T. Chapman, L. F. Liddle, J. M. Kalb, M. F. Wolfner,
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mediated by male accessory gland products. Nature 373: 241-244.
129 After 41 generations: W. R. Rice. 1996. Sexually antagonistic male adaptation
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130 Hence, it may be worth noting: J. L. Koprowski. 1992. Removal of copulatory
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130 Not to be entirely outdone: P. Stockley. 1997. Sexual conflict resulting from
adaptations to sperm competition. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 12: 154-159.
131 Biologist Patricia Gowaty: P. A. Gowaty. 1996. Battles of the sexes and origins
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NOTES 217
132 Recall the scene: L. van Valen. 1 973. A new evolutionary law. Evolutionary
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,
133 Nonetheless, even though paternal care: P. L. Whitten. 1987. Infants and adult
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133 And even in these cases: M. M. West and M. ]. Konner. 1 976. The role of the
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133 On the other hand: K. Hill and H. Kaplan. 1988. Tradeoffs in male and female
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A Darwinian Perspective, ed. L. Betzig, M. Borgerhoff Mulder, and P. Turke.
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134 There can also be fear: M. Daly and M. Wilson. 1988. Homicide. Hawthorne,
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135 According to Hawkes: Reported in Michael Hagmann. 1999. More questions
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137 Western Europe, however: R. D. Alexander. 1 979. Darwinism and Human
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137 According to this view: Alexander especially emphasizes the role of external
threats; for a focus on internal threats, see L. Betzig. 1986. Despotism and
Differential Reproduction. Hawthorne, NY: Aldine de Gruyter.
137 In any event, among Europeans in particular: K. MacDonald. 1995. The
establishment and maintenance of socially imposed monogamy in Western Europe.
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CHAPTER 6 What Are Human Beings, "Naturally"?
141 And the most direct route: D. P. Barash and J. E. Lipton. 1 997. Making Sense
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141 Primates, too: R. D. Alexander, J. L. Hoogland, R. D. Howard, K. M. Noonan,
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141 After four years, both females: S. Biquand, A. Boug, V. Biquand-Guyot, and
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218 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
142 For example, in the primitive, egg-laying: P. D. Rismiller. 1 992. Field
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143 And as time went on: D. M. Buss and D. P. Schmitt. 1993. Sexual strategies
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144 Men said that after just one day: Ibid.
144 Interestingly, among the 25 percent: R. D. Clark and E. Hatfield. 1989. Gender
differences in receptivity to sexual offers. Journal of Psychology and Human
Sexuality 2: 39-55. ·
145 Given this connection: D. Bar-Tal and L. Saxe. 1976. Perceptions of similarly
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145 Willard Espy neatly expressed [subsequent quote]: W. R. Espy. 1998.
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145 Although such standards: D. Buss. 1994. The Evolution of Desire. New York:
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· 146 Some others appear to be monogamous: A. Fuentes. 1999. Re-evaluating
primate monogamy. American Anthropologist 100: 890-907�
146 This view is no longer widely held [subsequent quote]: B. Malinowski. 1927.
Sex and Repression in Savage Society. New York: Harcourt, Brace.
147 Of 1 85 human societies: C. S. Ford and F. Beach.1951. Patterns of Sexual
Behavior. New York: Harper & Row.
147 The renowned anthropologist: G. P. Murdoch. l949. Social Structures. London:
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147 Anthropologist Weston LaBarre [subsequent quote]: W. LaBarre. 1954. The
Human Animal. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
148 "In Inca Peru, as probably everywhere" [subsequent quote]: L. L. Betzig. 1986.
Despotism and Differential Reproduction. New York: Aldine.
149 Here is Twain's Devil [subsequent quote]: M, Twain. 1962. Letters from the
Earth. New York: Harper & Row.
150 According to anthropologist Ruth Benedict [subsequent quote]: R. Benedict.
1934. Patterns of Culture. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
151 As long as the situation is not unpleasant enough [subsequent quote]: Ibid.
151 And for good reason [subsequent quote]: Ibid.
152 After reviewing 1 16 different hlUJ:l.an societies: G. Broude. 1980. Extramarital
sex norms in cross-cultural perspective. Behavioral Science Research 15: 1 8 1-218.
NOTES 219
152 Similarly, Laura Betzig evaluated: L. Betzig. 1989. Causes of conjugal
dissolution: a cross-cultural study. Current Anthropology 30: 654-676.
152 Friedrich Engels, in The Origin of the Family: F. Engels. 1942. The Origin of
the Family, Private Property and the State. New York: International Publishers.
152 In a famous oration: Demosthenes. 1992. Apollodoros Against Neaira.
Westminster, UK: Aris & Phillips.
154 Yet his wife reports [subsequent quote]: I. 0. Reich. 1970. Wilhelm Reich: A
Personal Biography. New York: Avon.
154 In one of his many hundreds of letters: S. Freud, quoted in E. Jones. 1953. The
Life and Work of Sigmund Freud, Vol 1. New York: Basic Books.
155 His interpretation may be more appropriate [subsequent quote]: S. Freud.
1 932. The New Introductory Lectures. London: Hogarth.
156 In her description of the Dionysian inhabitants [subsequent quote]: R. Benedict.
1934. Patterns of Culture. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
158 Perhaps 40 percent of mammalian genera: D. Kleiman and J, Malcom. 1981.
The evolution of male parental investment in mammals. In Parental Care in
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158 A review of 56 different human societies: G. E. Broude and S. J. Greene. 1976.
Cross-cultural codes on twenty sexual attitudes and practices. Ethnology 15:
410-429.
158 According to Kinsey and colleagues: A. C. Kinsey, W. B. Pomeroy, C. E.
Martin, and P. H. Bebhard. 1953. Sexual Behavior in the Human Female.
Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders.
I
159 A different survey found that: L. Wolfe. 1981. The Cosmo Report. New York:
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Books.
159 Interestingly, this was pretty much the optimum: K. Hill and H. Kaplan. 1988.
Tradeoffs in male and female reproductive strategies among the Ache , Part 2. In
Human Reproductive Behavior, ed. L. Betzig, M. Borgerhoff Mulder, and P. Turke,
eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
162 They estimate that in Great Britain: R. R. Baker and M. A. Bellis. 1995.
Human Sperm Competition. London: Chapman & Hall.
162 This is consistent with standard estimates: S. Macintyre and A. Sooman. 1992.
Nonpaternity and prenatal genetic screening. Lancet 338: 839.
162 If these data are reliable: R. R. Baker and M. A. Bellis. 1995. Human Sperm
Competition. London: Chapman & Hall.
163 This suggests that females: S. M. O'Connell and G. Cowlinshaw. 1 994.
Infanticide avoidance, sperm competition and female mate choice: the function of
copulation calls in female baboons. Animal Behaviour 48: 687-694.
220 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
163 The internal reproductive tract: M. Kanada, T. Daitoh, K. Mori, N. Maeda,
K. Hirano, M. Irahara, T. Aono, and T. Mori. 1 992. Etiological implication of
autoantibodies to zona pelluci:da in human female infertility. American Journal of
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165 The only exception would be: G. A. Parker 1990. Sperm competition: sneaks
and extra-pair copulations. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B
242: 127-133.
167 At the same time, chemicals: C. Lindholmer. 1973. Survival of human sperm in
different fractions of split ejaculates. Fertility and Sterility 24: 521-526.
167 As Baker and Bellis put it: R. R. Baker and M. A. Bellis. 1995. Human Sperm
Competition. London: Chapman & Hall.
169 Yet most conceptions occur: C. E. Tutin. 1979. Mating patterns and
reproductive strategies in a community of wild chimpanzees. Behavioral Ecology
and Sociobiology 6: 29-38.
169 Afterward, their sperm output: M. Freund. 1 963. Effect of frequency of
emission. on semen: output and an estimate of daily sperm production in man.
journal of Reproduction and Fertility 6: 269-286.
169 By contrast, male chimps: J. Marson, D. Gervais, S. Meuris, R. W. Cooper, and
P. Jouannet. 1 989. Influence of ejaculation frequency on semen characteristics in
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170 Harcourt concludes that sperm competition: A. H. Harcourt. 1991. Sperm
competition and the evolution of nonfertilizing sperm in mammals. Evolution 45:
314-328.
170 The male penchant for producing: G. A. Parker. 1982. Why are there so many
tiny sperm? Sperm competition and the maintenance of two sexes. journal of
Theoretical Biology 96: 281-294.
171 A similar pattern is found: J. T. Hogg. 1988. Copulatory tactics in relation to
sperm competition in Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep. Behavioral Ecology and
Sociobiology 22: 49-59.
171 And it is inteFesting to note: A. H. Harcourt, P. H. Harvey, S. G. Larsen, and
R. V. Short. 1981. Testis weight, body weight and breeding systems in primates.
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171 Researchers at the University of Chicago: G. J. Wyckoff, W. Wang, and C.-I.
Wu. 2000. Rapid evolution of male reproductive genes in the descent of man.
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172 So wrote a prominent nineteenth-century physician: W. Acton. 1 865. Functions
and Disorders of the Reproductive System, 4th ed. London: Adams, Gold & Burt.
NOTES 221
172 "And we are waiting to be known": N. Angier. 1999. Woman. New York:
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173 Thus, evidence is now accumulating: M. A. Bellis and R. R. Baker. 1990. Do
females promote sperm competition? Data for humans. Animal Behaviour 40:
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173 They point to the suggestive finding: N. M. Morris and J. R. Udry. 1 970.
Variations in pedometer activity during the menstrual cycle. Obstetrics and
Gynecology 35: 1 99-201 .
173 They expose more skin: K. Grammer, J. Dittami, and B. Fischmann. 1993.
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presented at the International Congress of Ethology, Torremolinos, Spain.
174 By spreading the breeding: A. G. Wilson and J. Terborgh. 1998. Cooperative
polyandry and helping behavior in saddle-backed tamarins (Saguinus fuscicollis). In
Proceedings of the IXth Congress of the International Primatological Society.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
175 They are inclined to be socially monogamous: B. Kempenaers, G. R. Verheyen,
M. Van den Broeck, T. Burke, C. Van Broeckhoven, and A. A. Dhoridt. 1992. Extrapair paternity results from female preference for high-quality males in the blue tit.
Nature 357: 494-496.
175 This gives females the opportunity: S. B. Hrdy. 1986. Empathy, polyandry and
the myth of the coy female. In Feminist Approaches to Science, ed. R. Bleier. New
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175 Other primates have a similar capacity: Reviewed in S. B. Hrdy and P. Whitten.
1986. The patterning of sexual activity. In Primate Societies, ed. D. Cheney,
R. Seyfarth, B. Smuts, R. Wrangham; and T. Struhsaker. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
176 The reason for this effect is unknown: E. Kesseru. 1984. Sexual intercourse
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143-145.
176 In short, social considerations: A. Troisi and M. Carosi. 1998. Female orgasm
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177 When a male bighorn sheep: V. Geist. 1971 . Mountain Sheep. Chicago:
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177 In one case, a female rhesus monkey: B. B. Smuts and R. W. Smuts. 1993. Male
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mammals: evidence and theoretical implications. Advances in the Study of Behavior
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178 If the errant female: H. Kummer. 1968. Social Organization of Hamadryas
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222 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
178 When a rival male was introduced: D. Zumpe and R. P. Michael. 1 990. Effects
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178 It is prominent among chimps as well: J. Goodall. 1986. The Chimpanzees of
Combe: Patterns of Behavior. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
CHAPTER 7 SO Wbill?
182 According to Bertrand Russell [subsequent quote]: B. Russell. 1970. Marriage
and Morals. New York: W. W. Norton.
182 Hillary, Bishop of Poitiers. 1 899. St. Hillary of Poitiers, John of Damascus.
New York: Scribner's.
184 Thus psychologist Havelock Ellis [subsequent quote]: H. Ellis. 1977. Sex and
Marriage: Eros in Contemporary Life. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
184 In their book The Wandering Husband: H. Spotnitz and L. Freeman. 1964. The
Wandering Husband. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
185 As an anonymous Greek author [subsequent quote]: From L. Untermeyer.
1956. A Treasury of Ribaldry. New York: Hanover House.
185 According to Denis de Rougement, there is: D. de Rougemont. 1956. Love in
the Western World. New York: Pantheon.
185 According to de Rougement, we even have [subsequent quote]: Ibid.
187 Not many people reflect on a spouse's adultery [subsequent quote]: J. Joyce.
1961. Ulysses. New York: Modern Library.
190 It has been suggested that the mental health profession: F. Riesmann, J. Cohen,
and A. Pearl. 1964. Mental Health of the Poor. New York: Free Press.
Index
Note: Because certain words and concepts, such as adultery, cuckoldry,
extra-pair copulations (EPCs), fidelity, marriage, monogamy, pair-bond,
polygyny, and sex appear throughout, they are not specifically indexed
here; to find them, read the book!
Ache people, 133, 135, 159
adders, multiple mating by, 62
aggression by females, 117-120
alarm calling, 35
allozymes, 7
altruism, 1 10
Angier, Natalie, 172
Androgynes, 140-141
"Apollonian" vs. "Dionysian" cultures,
150-153
Ashcroft, R. E., 100
assortative mating, 1 14
asymmetry and symmetry, 75-78
Atalanta solution, the, 85-86
Augustine, Saint, 181
Austen, Jane, 91
Baker, Robin, 161-170, 173
bank swallows, 31-32
Bari people of South America, 135
barn swallows, 27, 46, 51, 76, 97-98,
107-108
Bateman, A. J., 89
Beach, Frank, 147, 148
Bellis, Mark, 161-170, 173
Benedict, Ruth, 150-151, 156
Bernstein, Carl, 10
Betzig, Laura, 148, 152
bighorn sheep, 171
birds, monogamy in, 125-127
birds of paradise, 127
Birkhead, Tim, 24, 82
black-capped chickadees, 74
black-winged damselflies, 43-44
blood type, 7
blue tits, 73, 109-1 10, 121, 175
body condition, importance of, 33-34
bonobos, 3
bottleneck effect, 80
brown trout, 104
Brownmiller, Susan, 52
Brynner, Yul, 125
Bulfinch, Thomas, 85
burying beetles, 1 19-120
Byron, Lord, 185
Carson, Rachel, 5
Carter, Jimmy, 1 87
Casablanca, 190
Catholicism, 1 83-1 84
cave bat bugs, insemination by proxy
in, 45
cervical crypts, 164
"cheap filler" sperm, 41-42
Chesterton, G. K., 1
chimpanzees, 41, 82, 93-94, 141, 168,
169
Christianity, 134, 137, 1 82
Chukchee people, 150
Churchill, Winston, 191
Cleopatra, 62
cliff swallows, 1 12
Clinton, Bill, 189
cloacal pecking, 44
coercion, social, 134
collared flycatchers, 26-2 7
colony-living as a sexual strategy, 103
concealed ovulation, 172-17 5
confidence of relatedness, 98
conflicts of interest, sexual, 127-132
223
224 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
Congreve, William, 157
Conrad, Joseph, 1 12
conservatives, social, 2
consortships, 96
contest competition for fertilization, 170
Coolidge effect, 20-21, 25
cooperative breeding, 48-49
copulation frequency, 37-38, 48, 61,
89-91, 160
copulatory plugs, 36, 130
crab-eating macaques, 178
Croce, Benedetto, 1 87
cross-cultural data on infidelity, 158
cross-cultural misunderstanding, 15
cross-cultural similarities, 143
cryptic female choice, 36
cultural traditions, 142-143, 152-154
Darwin, Charles, 6, 26, 57
Davies, Nicholas B., 106
Demosthenes, 152
desertion, 45
"Dionysian" vs. "Apollonian" cultures,
150-153
Diplozoon paradoxum, 4
disadvantages of extra-pair
copulations, 104-107
divorce, 45, 101-104, 119
DNA fingerprinting, ?-9, 12, 23, 33,
63, 94
Dobuan people, 151-152, 156
dominance status, sexual attractiveness
of. 74, 100
double standard, 2, 152
Drosophila, giant sperm of, 20
Dryden, John, 155
Dumas, Alexandre, 186
dungflies, mate-guarding by male, 29
dunnock mating systems, 44, 97-98,
106, 1 10
eastern bluebirds, 103, 108
Eberhard, William, 36, 85
Eens, Marcel, 121
egalitarianism, 127-128, 136-138
egg dumping, 110-1 12, 118
ejaculations, multiple, 22
Ellis, Havelock, 1 84
emotional attachment style, 77
Engels, Friedrich, 132, 152
Ephron, Nora, 10
Espy, Willard, 145
estrous swellings, 66
European smooth newts, 67
extemal
.
fertilization, 29
fairy-wrens, 12, 71-72
fathers, genetic vs. purported, 12-13
female-enforced monogamy, 116-1 19
female quality, 115-1 16
female sexuality, theories of, 14
fertility insurance, 59-62
fertilization, effectiveness of, 25
Fisher, R. A., 78
Flaubert, G., 3
"floaters," 24, 111
"flowback" of seminal fluid, 164
Ford, C. S., 147, 148
Freeman, L., 184
Freud, Sigmund, 13, 154-155, 181,
187, 188
"friendship" among baboons, 93
furtive copulations, 105-106
Galapagos hawks, 39
gallivanting, 29-37, 49
game theory, 33
garter snakes, coitus interruptus in, 66
geese, rape among, 54
gene diversification, 65, 69-71
genetic compatibility, 69
giant sperm, 20
gibbons, EPCs among, 25-26, 34,
101-102
goldeneye ducks, 111-1 12
Goldilocks criterion, 64
"good genes," female preference for,
69-86
Goodall, Jane, 41, 178
gorillas, 25-26, 41, 141
Gowaty, Patricia, 131
Gray, Elizabeth, 105
gray tree frogs, 72
great apes, 4, 25-26
group marriage, 149-150
guppies, 1 15-1 16
Hadza people, 135
hamadryas baboons, 141
Harcourt, Alexander, 169-170
Hart, Gary, 1 89
Hawkes, Kristen, 135
Hawthorne, N., 3
Helen of Troy, 188
"helpers at the nest," 47
"helpful coercion" by males, 131
Herrick, Robert, 155
hoary marmots, 32, 50, 126
"home-wreckers," 118-1 19
Homer, 2
Horton Hatches the Egg, 112
house sparrows, 79-80, 118
Hrdy, Sarah, 95-96, 175
hunter-gatherers, 136
Iliad, The, 2
inbreeding, 64
indigo buntings, 49, 99
indirect female choice, 66
Industrial Revolution, 137
infanticide, 95-96, 99, 1 18, 158
intentional childlessness, 157
intruders, sexual appeal of, 38-39
irradiated male technque, 7
jacanas, 20
James, Henry, 3
James, King, 13 9
James, William, 116
Japanese macaques, 1 76
Jerome, Saint, 1 82
Jesus, 2, 1 82
John of Damascus, 1 82
Johnson, Samuel, 1 13
Joyce, James, 187
Kaingang people, 149-150
"kamikazee sperm" hypothesis,
165-166, 169-170
Kempenaers, Bert, 109
Kennedy, John F., 185
kestrels, 8 9
Kgatla tribe, 21
kin selection, 47
Kinsey, Alfred, 21, 158
Kissinger, Henry, 7 4
kittiwake gulls, 102
Knipling, E. F., 5
LaBarre, Weston, 147
Lack, David, 12
lapwings, 127
INDEX 225
"last male advantage," 24, 29, 42, 68,
162
Lawrence, D. H., 3, 90
Lear, King, 139
lekking species, 3, 40
Lepch� people, 150
Lopez, Sylvia, 115
love, 186-192
Lucian, 155-156
major histocompatability complex, 63
male genetic quality, female preference
for, 27-28, 35, 70-86
male-female differences in sexual
preference, 16-23, 143-145
Malino�ski, Bronislaw, 146-147
mallard ducks, 26, 39, 52, 100
mammals, monogamy in, 1 1-12,
124-125, 157-161
manucodes, 127
marmosets, 124
Marx, Karl, 132
masturbation, 167
mate assessment, 90
mate copying, 79
mate-guarding by females, 116-124
mate-guarding by males, 29-37, 49,
125, 174
mate sampling, 102
Mayzie bird ( "lazy bird"), 1 12, 1 19
Mead, Margaret, 1
menstrual synchrony, 123
Merman, Ethel, 139
migrating birds, cloacal sperm in, 11
Mills, J. A., 92
Milton, John, 155, 1 84
"mixed" fatherhood, 162
"mixed" ·reproductive strategy, 15
Meller, Anders, 76, 82
monandry, 88, 108, 141, 170
Morgan, Lewis, 146
226 THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
mountain bluebirds, 48, 106-107
Mozart, Wolfgang A., 187
Murdoch, G. P., 147
nest parasites, 110-111
nest site limitation, 117
New Testament, The, 181
nuptial gifts, 128-129
Odyssey, The, 2
offspring protection, 93-96
Oklahoma, 107
Old Testament, The, 136, 153,
181-183
older males, crafty behavior by, 34-35
orange-rumped honeyguides,
importance of resources
among, 93
orgasm, 164, 172-173, 175-177
ospreys, provisioning among, 38
Othello, 106
outbreeding, 63
Ovid, 188
parasite resistance, 72, 7 6
parental care, 45-51, 96-99, 107-1 10,
124-127, 133, 135, 157-161
parental investment theory, 17-19
Parker, Dorothy, 1 16
Parker, Geoffrey A., 5-7, 15, 165
partible paternity, 135
passion, sexual, 186-1 87
"paternal discrepancy" among human
beings, 162
Paul, Saint, 1 82
penis, role of, 43-45, 82, 167-168
pheromones, 93
pied flycatchers, 64, 98
Pilucten, FUanne, 121
Plato, 140-141, 191
poison-arrow frogs, 123
polyandry, 4, 14, 37-39, 41, 88, 138,
149-155
polygyny threshold model, 124-125
pornography, 171
Pound, Ezra, 2
prairie dogs, 61
primate polygyny, 146-148·
promiscuity, 145
property rights, 132
prostitution behavior in hummingbirds,
92
Protestantism, 183-1 84
Proust, Marcel, 157
provisioning, importance of, 38,
91-93, 127, 135
proximate causation, 22
pseudoestrus, 95, 99
pseudoscorpions, female preference for
new males among, 68-70
Pueblo people, 150
punishment, 45
Puritan guilt, 2
Puritans, 184
purple martins, 34-35, 51, 109
pygmy chimps. See bonobos
raffle competition for fertilization, 170
rape, 39, 45, 51-55
"ratcheting up" as a female strategy,
67-70
red deer, 25
red jungle fowl, 66
Red Queen hypothesis, 131-132
red-billed gulls, fidelity among, 91-92
red-winged blackbirds, EPCs among,
11, 23, 57, 60-61, 74, 105,
108-109
reed warblers, 27
Reich, Wilhelm, 154
reproductive success, apparent vs.
actual, 11
reversed sex roles, 19-20
FUce, William, 129
ring doves, 43
rock ptarmigans, 33
Rougemont, Denis de, 1 85-187
"rough sex," 100
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 179
Russell, Bertrand, 1 82
saddle-backed tamarins, 174
sand lizards, 63
scorpionflies, 128-129
scramble competition for fertilization,
170
screw-worms, 5
secondary sexual traits among males,
26-28, 50-51, 53, 69-80,
100-101
Selous, E., 30
serial monogamy, 134
sexual bimaturism, 142
sexual cannibalism, 9 3
sexual dimorphism, 26, 73, 141-143
sexual harrassment among spiders, 100
sexual interference, 120-124
sexual jealousy, 30, 1 10, 150-157,
177-179
sexual partners, numbers of, 9-10
sexual selection 58-59
sexually transmitted disease, 105
"sexy son" hypothesis, 78, 80, 90,
177
sexual swellings, 9 5
Shakespeare, William, 106, 155
Shaw, G. B., 2
short-beaked echidnas, 142
Siriono people, 148
Smith, Susan, 74
Smuts, Barbara, 96, 119
social stratification, 14 7-148
sociobiology of sex differences, 16-19,
57, 71, 87
song repertoire, sexual importance
of, 75
sperm competition, 5-6, 40-42, 80-86,
125, 161-172
sperm depletion, 169
sperm displacement, 6-7
sperm heteromorphism, 42, 165-166
speri:natheca, 44
spermatophores, 93
Spomitz, H., 184
starlings, 1 18, 120-121
"sterile male technique," 5
stitchbirds, 23-24
stranger, sexual appeal of, 63-64
INDEX 227
Sutherland, W. J., 82
symmetry and asymmetry, 75-78
Symons, Donald, 17 5
Talleyrand, C. M. de, 169
testide size, 40-42
Tolstoy, Leo, 3
traumatic insemination, 44-45
Trivers, Robert L., 17
Twain, Mark, 149
ultimate causation, 59
uniqueness of each species, 3
Updike, John, 3, 1 85
vagina size, 168
vaginal pH, 83-84
van Valen, Leigh, 131
vasectomized birds, 57
Veblen, Thorstein, 132
Veiga, Jose, 118
violence, 55, 99-100, 142, 156-157,
178�179
virginity, 130
vocalization as a sperm competition
tactic, 163
Wales, Prince of, 183
Welch, Allison, 72
Westermarck, Edward, 146
wheatears, 33-34
Whitehead, Alfred North, 87-88
Williams, George C., 17
winter hardiness vs. winter wimpiness,
73
yellow warblers, 66
yellowhammers, the advantage of being
old and colorful among, 28
zebra finches, 24, 70, 80
zebras, 37-38, 170-171
"zipless fuck," 106
Zuni people, 151
About the Authors
DAVID P. BARASH, PH.D., is a zoologist and currently
professor of psychology at the University of Washington
in Seattle. He has written more than a dozen books, including Making Sense of Sex with Judith Lipton, Revolutionary Biology, and The Mammal in the Mirror, as
well as popular articles in Playboy, Psychology Today,
and The New York Times.
jUDITH EvE LIPTON, M.D., a psychiatrist specializing in
women's issues, is the recipient of many honors, including a fellowship in the American Psychiatric Association.
Married s
ince 1977, Barash and Lipton live in Redmond, Washington. Together, they have produced two
wonderful children, and four books.