>>The fact that the idea that "wife-beating is for losers"--that it's something only resorted to by men who *can't* control their wives in other ways--has independently recurred in multiple ultra-patriarchal cultures does seem like evidence that it's universally associated with low male status.
>>The fact that the idea that "wife-beating is for losers"--that it's something only resorted to by men who *can't* control their wives in other ways--has independently recurred in multiple ultra-patriarchal cultures does seem like evidence that it's universally associated with low male status.
Isn't it enough that wife-beating has obvious disadvantages for such a meme to spread? Some people say wife-beating if for losers > they beat their wives less > they get into fewer conflicts with wife's natal kin + become more attractive buyers of wives + they injure their wives and their reproductive capacity less.
>>Among chimpanzees, are low-status males more likely to physically abuse females?
In Demonic Males, Richard Wrangham writes that at least among certain groups of Chimpanzees, all adolescent males batter all adult females of their group, in order to make the females submit. That way, females become the first targets of those males. I have never read that the highest status males avoid beating up females. But since female chimpanzees tend to favor the status quo, the incumbent often has little reason to be violent to them.
Depressingly, it doesn't seem to be the case that wife-beating actually harms a man's reproductive capacity, at least in all societies. Among the Ache, the same study that found it was most common among low-status men also found that men who beat their wives *had more children*, presumably because their wives were too frightened to refuse sex.
The idea of long-term selection in men for willingness to abuse one's wife is a truly frightening idea, and I really hope these results don't hold for other human societies.
(I have to assume they were only seeing how violence affected the number of children a husband had *per wife*. If less-violent higher-status men had more wives, the general rule that high-status men have more children wouldn't have been violated. It also suggests that polygamy may have been a *mitigating* factor, at least in some societies, preventing maximal selection for male abusiveness.)
>>The book about women in Iraq sounds fascinating!
It is a very good book. It is difficult to believe that the protagonists have both died from old age. And Nancy Tapper's book is actually good too. I hope an AI will be able to rewrite it in the future, because it really deserves to be more readable than it is.
>>The idea of long-term selection in men for willingness to abuse one's wife is a truly frightening idea, and I really hope these results don't hold for other human societies.
Nah, why? We already know that we all have many, many shitty ancestors who became our ancestors just because they were shittier than average. Luckily there seems to be an opposite process where more prosocial people were selected. I think it is individual evolution on one side, group selection on the other side, and kin selection somewhere in between.
And let's do our best to contribute through not having children with wife abusers!
>>Among the Ache, the same study that found it was most common among low-status men also found that men who beat their wives *had more children*, presumably because their wives were too frightened to refuse sex.
David Buss reports that partner abuse is much more common among couples where the man is more than ten years older than the woman. The abusers might have chosen younger wives and thereby got more children.
And also, what if the abused wives had sex with their husbands more often because they were masochists?
>>The fact that the idea that "wife-beating is for losers"--that it's something only resorted to by men who *can't* control their wives in other ways--has independently recurred in multiple ultra-patriarchal cultures does seem like evidence that it's universally associated with low male status.
Isn't it enough that wife-beating has obvious disadvantages for such a meme to spread? Some people say wife-beating if for losers > they beat their wives less > they get into fewer conflicts with wife's natal kin + become more attractive buyers of wives + they injure their wives and their reproductive capacity less.
>>Among chimpanzees, are low-status males more likely to physically abuse females?
In Demonic Males, Richard Wrangham writes that at least among certain groups of Chimpanzees, all adolescent males batter all adult females of their group, in order to make the females submit. That way, females become the first targets of those males. I have never read that the highest status males avoid beating up females. But since female chimpanzees tend to favor the status quo, the incumbent often has little reason to be violent to them.
The book about women in Iraq sounds fascinating!
Depressingly, it doesn't seem to be the case that wife-beating actually harms a man's reproductive capacity, at least in all societies. Among the Ache, the same study that found it was most common among low-status men also found that men who beat their wives *had more children*, presumably because their wives were too frightened to refuse sex.
The idea of long-term selection in men for willingness to abuse one's wife is a truly frightening idea, and I really hope these results don't hold for other human societies.
(I have to assume they were only seeing how violence affected the number of children a husband had *per wife*. If less-violent higher-status men had more wives, the general rule that high-status men have more children wouldn't have been violated. It also suggests that polygamy may have been a *mitigating* factor, at least in some societies, preventing maximal selection for male abusiveness.)
>>The book about women in Iraq sounds fascinating!
It is a very good book. It is difficult to believe that the protagonists have both died from old age. And Nancy Tapper's book is actually good too. I hope an AI will be able to rewrite it in the future, because it really deserves to be more readable than it is.
>>The idea of long-term selection in men for willingness to abuse one's wife is a truly frightening idea, and I really hope these results don't hold for other human societies.
Nah, why? We already know that we all have many, many shitty ancestors who became our ancestors just because they were shittier than average. Luckily there seems to be an opposite process where more prosocial people were selected. I think it is individual evolution on one side, group selection on the other side, and kin selection somewhere in between.
And let's do our best to contribute through not having children with wife abusers!
>>Among the Ache, the same study that found it was most common among low-status men also found that men who beat their wives *had more children*, presumably because their wives were too frightened to refuse sex.
David Buss reports that partner abuse is much more common among couples where the man is more than ten years older than the woman. The abusers might have chosen younger wives and thereby got more children.
And also, what if the abused wives had sex with their husbands more often because they were masochists?