Your faith in sex education is naive. There is very little evidence that it works and plentythat it does not. The studythat I mentioned adjusted for SES and cohort differences. The problem with it would more likely be a third variable problem. The research that states with comprehensive education having lower birth rates also have a huge third variable problem and are unreliable as a result.
The article you linked to says a more affirming culture would make hook ups easier for jerks. I am not sure that is evidence that a more affirming culture would be a good thing for anyone else.
I’m not even going to pretend to be an expert at modern hunter-gatherers, but I will say that they’re different from our own ancestors in at least one way: they stayed hunter-gatherers, and we didn’t. That would imply there was something about their circumstances that either allowed them to continue to be hunter-gathers, or prevented them from doing something different.
Either way, I’d still argue that a mom with a partner who is committed to protecting and providing for her and her baby is at an advantage compared to one doesn’t. Especially if you believe that ancient hunter-gatherer societies were resource-constrained, in terms of food, and at least occasionally got into armed conflicts with other groups, and had to move around a lot, just to survive.
Men, on the other hand, at least from a genetic point of view, are better off spending as much time as possible getting laid, and as little time as possible taking care of babies, or their moms. They call men like that dead-beat dads, or “assholes”, for short.
Marriage, at least, isn’t a matter of controlling women’s sexuality. It’s about controlling men’s.
Historically, its about controlling women’s. Men could take mistresses without social shame. Women - generally - could not (there are a few exceptions of women who managed to buck the system - but most didn’t - check out Mary Bruce, Countess of Elgin. Or Goeorgiana, Duchess of Devonshire - who raised her husband’s daughter by his mistress in her own home, but was forced to give up her own daughter by her lover to save her marriage.)
The point is that once a man married, he was responsible for the woman (women) and her children.
It’s a way of preventing what men’s asshole genes would otherwise have us doing - spending as much time as possible having sex with as many women as possible, without spending any time being responsible for the inevitable consequences.
(Our genes are like that, because it’s a much better reproductive strategy for us - albeit a really shitty one for women.)
*BTW, I agree polygamy is unfair. It’s just sort beside the point.
That isn’t controlling their sexuality, its controlling their resources. And it isn’t true. For most of Western history a man has been able to divorce his wife and abandon his children without repercussions. Morevoer, if a man spent his resources - say on drink (very common through much of Western history) his wife and children suffered with no recourse. This is one of the big changes that occurred in the mid-20th century in women’s rights.
While I think that most of what LinusK mentions is just “this story sounds nice” vs “this is something true and here are the genes to back it up”, perhaps it is wise to remember that if such was the importance of marriage (and what he claims about the others not helping out), if most men were like that and didn’t spend time with any woman or taking care of any childen (whether his own or a relative’s), would likely NOT have any good descendants left.
It’s called the tragedy of the commons. (I think there’s a better name for it, but I’m not coming up with it right now.) It’s when “individuals, acting independently and rationally according to each one’s self-interest, behave contrary to the whole group’s long-term best interests.” Of course, if all men acted like that, it’d be bad for everybody. So communities come up with norms or institutions to prevent it. Like marriage.
But that doesn’t mean there aren’t incentives for some men to get around them. From a selfish gene point of view, you’re better off moving on to the next conquest, rather than sticking around. Especially if you can count on a girl’s community or family to take care of the girl and her child. (Of course, it’s not such a great deal for them.)
I disagree. The Catholic Church prohibited (prohibits?) divorce. And it used to be divorce was difficult or impossible to get, depending on the law and custom of the times. And then there’s alimony and child support, which are also repercussions.
Of course, there’s always been drunks, and bums, and rapscallions and lotharios. Just like there’s always been “sluts”.
But all of this is about legitimate and illegitimate kids, not sex. Men and women have always produced kids outside of marriage, but thanks to property laws and traditions specific to a certain social structure, those kids were not entitled to their fathers estate in much of recent history. Divorce was discouraged because it screwed up inherence patterns.
I think this is as far as I can read this thread without head-desking myself into a concussion.
Examples? How about:
“Legitimate rape.” Because a lot of the time you know she really wanted it.
All of the Steubenville debacle. And yes, in that case, the victim’s peers took to social media to say that she’s a slut anyway so what was the big deal that she was gang raped while unconscious? Not to mention the media saying out loud that the ruined lives of the rapists were a far greater tragedy than the ruined life of the victim.
Rush Limbaugh decried Sandra Fluke as nothing but a slut – in so many words – who wants you, the taxpayer, to pay for her fucking, because she publicly advocated for accessible birth control. He did this even though she also covered medical reasons other than reproductive ones why a woman might need access.
Turn on the TV, read a newspaper. It’s ALL OVER. It’s so easily found with Google that there is no excuse, none at all, for not knowing about these and many, many other examples. Hell, for easy access just Google anything that an old conservative white man said about a woman on the public stage. You can start with Rush, Glenn Beck, or any Tea Party Senator.