These two graphs show the number of men (left) and women (right) who reproduced throughout human history.Chart: Monika Karmin et al./Genome Research
These two graphs show the number of men (left) and women (right) who reproduced throughout human history.Chart: Monika Karmin et al./Genome Research
But were they all married?
It could be that there was one guy in every group that pretended to be injured and stayed home while the hunting party went out.
Simultaneous anomaly in widely scattered populations.
In first with ALIENS!
It’s called “Beachmaster.”
Sounds like a social structure organized like a pride of lions where only the top males are allowed to reproduce.
IIRC, today it’s about 2:1.
The wrinkle in this soup is anatomically correct humans go back 300,000 years according to other DNA studies, not 65,000 or so. Unless they can account for all those missing millennia, I would not put much stock in this study.
Today (in the US) our welfare system has a lot to do with a more equal reproductive balance. Good and bad consequences to that.
Many urbanite (and fewer rural) males are selling drugs and Getting welfare from either the government or through the baby momma. MANY women are getting welfare from the government, often these “strong single mothers” wouldn’t be as successful without AFDC. Take drugs and welfare away and many of these men would be dead or complete losers. The women then are going to be attracted to men who can actually produce and provide. Thugs usually just got their necks stretched 150 years ago and time forgotten before that, not much reproducing when your neck is stretched.
I actually also see this in an apparent drop of May-December romances. The older men in my family (most passed) often told stories about older guys getting young women as wives. Their own wives often dying young from childbirth, disease whatever. Now it’s rare and I think welfare explains a lot of that as well. Why do young women need an old guy with a farm or some kind of little business when all she has to do is take her brat to the welfare office and pick up a check? Young men back in the day (depression era say) often would travel for work or had little as they started as assistants etc. My grandpa talked about being a young man and working all day for a buck—sure a buck bought more than now but still young guys often struggled. Successful guys sometimes raised two complete families, one early and one later in life.
Also laugh if you like but there are more than a few women who do video cams, these women often just 30 years ago struggled and would have been more likely to seek the successful male either in marriage or otherwise.
Now don’t get me wrong, I realize there are some real disadvantages to having a harem-like reproductive system. Society doesn’t do well when many children have no close connection to a father (although often they don’t with the welfare system either), also it must be shockingly disheartening to be a low achieving male in such a society.
Sorry for the rambling length and yes I realize there are plenty of exceptions , leaving many factors out like education.
Now that ratio just happens in the hood.
Thou shalt not mess with the king’s deer or dears.
The good old days.
Harems in societies where the top guys monopolized the womenfolk and warfare that killed off much of the population of young men before they could reproduce.
so...
domestication -> agriculture -> fiefdoms -> wars -> kings/harems-slaves
(-> bronze trade?)
“Seventeen Girls For Every Boy!”
17? Here I thought I was greedy wanting just 3...
