Anthropology of Marriage: Humans can survive and reproduce without marriage, but saying that does not mean that marriage isn’t advantageous. In fact, because virtually all societies practice female-male marriage as we have defined it, we can assume that the custom is adaptive. But saying that does not specify exactly how it may be adaptive. Several interpretations have traditionally been offered to explain why all human societies have the custom of marriage in Anthropology of Marriage. Each suggests that marriage solves problems found in all societies—how to share the products of a gender division of labor; how to care for infants, who are dependent for a long time; and how to minimize sexual competition. To evaluate the plausibility of these interpretations, we must ask whether marriage provides the best or the only reasonable solution to each problem. After all, we are trying to explain a custom that is virtually universal. The comparative study of other animals, some of which have something like marriage, may help us to evaluate these explanations.
1. Anthropology of Marriage is there a Gender Division of Labor
Females and males in every society known to anthropology perform different economic activities. This gender division of labor has often been cited as a reason for marriage. As long as there is a division of labor by gender, society has to structure a way for women and men to share the products of their labor. Anthropology of Marriage would be one way to solve that problem. But it seems unlikely that marriage is the only possible solution. The hunter-gatherer rule of sharing could be extended to include all the products brought in by both women and men. Or a small group of men and women, such as brothers and sisters, might be pledged to cooperate economically. Thus, although marriage may solve the problem of sharing the fruits of a division of labor, it clearly is not the only possible solution.
2. Prolonged Infant Dependency
In Anthropology of Marriage Humans exhibit the longest period of infant dependency of any primate. The child’s prolonged dependence places the greatest burden on the mother, who is the main child caregiver in most societies. The burden of prolonged child care by human females may limit the kinds of work they can do. They may need the help of a man to do certain types of work, such as hunting, that are incompatible with child care. Because of this prolonged dependency, it has been suggested, marriage is necessary. But here the argument becomes essentially the same as the division-of-labor argument, and it has the same logical weakness. Anthropology of Marriage It is not clear why a group of women and men, such as a hunter-gatherer band, could not cooperate in providing for dependent children without marriage.
3. Sexual Competition
Unlike most other female primates, the human female may engage in intercourse at any time throughout the year. Some scholars have suggested that more or less continuous female sexuality may have created a serious problem: considerable sexual competition between males for females. It is argued that society had to prevent such competition to survive, that it had to develop some way of minimizing the rivalry among males for females to reduce the chance of lethal and destructive conflict.
There are several problems with this argument. First, why should continuous female sexuality make for more sexual competition in the first place? One might argue the other way around. More availability should make for less competition. When there is only a brief breeding season, competition should be greater. Second, males of many animal species, even some in which females are frequently sexually receptive (such as many of our close primate relatives), do not show much aggression over females. Anthropology of Marriage Third, why couldn’t sexual competition, even if it existed, be regulated by cultural rules other than marriage? For instance, society might have adopted a rule whereby men and women circulated among all the opposite-sex members of the group, each person staying a specified length of time with each partner. Such a system presumably would solve the problem of sexual competition. On the other hand, such a system might not work particularly well if individuals came to prefer certain other individuals. Jealousies attending those attachments might give rise to even more competition
A Look at Other Mammals and Birds
None of the theories we have discussed explains convincingly why marriage is the only or the best solution to a particular problem. Anthropology of Marriage In addition, some comparative evidence on mammals and birds casts doubt on those theories. How can evidence from other animals help us evaluate theories about human marriage? If we look at animals that, like humans, exhibit some stable female-male mating, as opposed to those that are completely promiscuous, we can perhaps see what factors may predict male-female bonding in the warm-blooded animal species. Female-male bonding occurs in most species of birds and some mammals, such as wolves and beavers.
Among 40 mammal and bird species, neither division of labor, nor prolonged infant dependency, nor greater female sexuality correlates with male-female bonding in the direction predicted by the theories discussed earlier. The birds and mammals studied have nothing comparable to a humanlike division of labor, but they exhibit female-male unions nevertheless. The two other suggested factors— prolonged infant dependency and female sexuality—relate to male-female bonding in the opposite direction to what was expected. Mammal and bird species that have longer infant dependency periods or more female sexuality are less likely to have male-female bonding.
Does any factor predict male-female bonding among other mammals and birds and thereby also help explain human marriage? It appears that animal species in which females are able to simultaneously feed themselves and A black-browed albatross on the Falkland Islands. Most bird species have male-female bonding. Anthropology of Marriage Their babies after birth (postpartum) tend not to mate stably. On the other hand, species in which postpartum mothers cannot feed themselves and their babies at the same time do typically form male-female bonds. Among the typical bird species, a mother would have difficulty feeding herself and her babies simultaneously. Because her young cannot fly for some time, the mother risks losing them to predators if she leaves the nest untended to search for food. If a male has bonded with her, as males in most bird species do, he can bring food or take his turn watching the nest. Among animal species that have no postpartum feeding problem, babies are able to travel with the mother almost immediately after birth as she moves about to eat (as do such grazers as horses), or the mother can transport the babies as she moves about to eat (as do baboons and kangaroos). We believe the human female has a postpartum feeding problem. When humans lost most of their body hair, babies could not readily travel with the mother by clinging to her fur. And when humans began to depend on certain kinds of food-getting that could be dangerous, such as hunting, mothers could not safely engage in such work with their infants along.
Anthropology of Marriage Research by Frank Marlowe on the Hadza foragers of Tanzania appears to support our view of female-male bonding. Hadza women and men both forage for food, with the women providing more berries and other plant foods while the men provide more meat and honey. Generally, it appears that Hadza women could support themselves and their children without a mate. Married women forage more regularly and contribute more food (in terms of calories) to the family diet, except when they have a nursing infant. Marlowe found that the father of an infant made up for the mother’s lower food contribution while she was nursing. In fact, Hazda fathers with nursing children contributed significantly more food to the household than fathers with older children.
Even if we assume that human mothers have a postpartum feeding problem, we must ask if marriage is the most likely solution to the problem. It may well be, because other conceivable solutions probably would not work as well. If a mother took turns babysitting with another mother, for example, neither might be able to collect enough food for both mothers and the two sets of children dependent on them. Anthropology of Marriage A mother and father share the same set of children, making it easier for them to feed themselves and their children adequately. Another possible solution is males and females living in a promiscuous group.
We believe that a particular mother in that kind of arrangement would probably not be able to count on any male, if he didn’t think he was the father, to watch her baby when she had to go out for food or to bring her food when she had to watch her baby. The need to solve the postpartum feeding problem by itself helps to explain why some animals, including humans, have relatively stable male-female bonds.18 Can research of this kind with other animals be applied to human beings? We believe it can, though not everybody will agree.