Explain the selective pressures that gave rise to men’s inclinations to treat women like property
- Women are the limiting factor in men’s reproductive success.
- Cuckoldry is also an issue; epc also issue; so he wants to “own” her to protect his access
While human cultures exhibit a great range of variation, many of them include practices that serve to control women and their sexuality. Name and describe two culturally-constituted mateguarding practices (i.e., practices that are recognized, and prescribed, by the members of a given culture).
- Footbinding
* Claustration—when women have to cover themselves, and their sexuality is then hidden
All else being equal, would you expect practices such as those that you described in (b) to be more common among hunter-gatherers or among agriculturalists? Explain your reasoning
- Agriculturalists because they’re living a sedentary lifestyle.
- Proprietariness is favored when you have high male investment and EPC (you don’t want the two—cuckoldry is costly)
Marriage as an institution often reflects men’s inclinations to treat women like property. Describe two common features of marriage practices that fit this pattern (you can describe two features of non-Western marriage practices, or one Western and one non-Western case).
- Women taking the man’s last name
* The father walking the woman down the aisle and giving her over to the husband; “giving her away”
A tendency for spousal proprietariness is not limited only to men. Provide an ultimate
explanation for the presence of this tendency in women, and provide an ultimate explanation for why the level of sexual proprietariness is greater in men than in women.
- Women would want that investment and resources from the male for herself. It benefits her in this way.
- Women are the higher investing sex so they have more to offer
