# Traits common to all human cultures? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 2, 2003, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/traits-common-to-all-human-cultures/172652 "2003-05-02T16:06:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![AZCowboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/97f17d/32.png) [@AZCowboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AZCowboy)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2003, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/traits-common-to-all-human-cultures/172652/41 "2003-05-05T16:49:07Z")
> [@](#): > > _ **chula** wrote:_ > Interestingly, the difference in size between the male and the female in primates (or was it just apes?) indicates the degree of monogamy. Male and female chimps are very close in size and are pretty monogamous, while male gorillas are much larger than females and are less monogamous. Actually, I don’t think this is quite right, although it was commonly accepted. It seems that more recent research indicates that sexual dimorphism (difference in size between the sexes within a species) is more correlated with male-male competition in access to breeding females, but this should not be confused directly with monogamy. It is well established that early humans split from chimpanzees. Later, another group of chimps, bonobos, split from chimpanzees as well. Bonobos share many characteristics with humans that chimpanzees don’t. For example, bonobos are the only primate species besides humans that tend to have sexual activity unrelated to procreation (for pleasure, perhaps, but at least for bonding and agression/tension reduction). Bonobos are also the only other primate to mate “face-to-face” (missionary position). Bonobos are closest to humans in sexual dimorphism among primates (where males are about 1.1 to 1.2 times the size of females). Also, like humans, bonobo females do not show obvious physical signs when they enter estrus, unlike chimpanzees, and tend to have a sex drive throughout their fertility cycle. But [bonobos](http://songweaver.com/info/bonobos.html) are anything but monogamous. Their sexual practices encompass an enormous range, including oral sex and bisexuality. Their societies are predominately matriarchal, but pair bonding is not the norm. Unlike chimpanzees, bonobos are a very peaceful species, and appear to replace aggression in their societies with sexual activity. And btw, this research tends to refute **edwino’s** (or Robert Wright’s) assertion that males avoid being cuckolded, at least within our “closest primate cousins”. The topic of “sperm selection” and relative testes size among primates offers support here, as well as the more recent “killer sperm” research. And interestingly, this seems to also relate to infanticide: > [@](#): > > _[ORGANISING HUMAN SOCIETIES: HUMAN MATING SYSTEMS](http://evolution.massey.ac.nz/lecture3/lect300.htm)_ > [Regarding the prevention of infanticide] Whereas one might expect that females would be choosy about whom they picked to sire the offspring that they would carry through pregnancy and invest so much parental care in, Hrdy found that female langur monkeys mate indiscriminately with the males. Hrdy argued that there was something wrong with our expectation, not with the females. > > Her argument is quite powerful. Her conclusion is that female monkeys and apes adopt particular strategies of mating behaviour - the details of which vary depending on the nature of the food supplies they rely on to rear their young and sustain themselves through the vicissitudes of motherhood - in order to lessen the chances of males killing their infants. Hence, in some circumstances, it could be a ‘good thing’ to have the protection of a dominant male who would deter any attacks on her infant. In other circumstances, it could be a good thing if no male in the group had any knowledge of an infant’s paternity, since this would deter each male from attacking any infant, since he could be its father. > > Does this argument hold for humans? Daly and Wilson (1988) reviewed much of the relevant data, and found that stepchildren are 65 times more likely to die than children living with their natural parents. This fits with what might be expected from the primate data, and it leads to another angle on how humans might have resolved their mating systems to deal with it. That is, in preventing potential infanticide, the female either has to act to ensure that the child’s father is sure he is the father, so that he will protect the infant from threats from other men; or she has to have acted so that the male has been subject to selection that increases his chances of being the father of any children around, particularly hers. Later on this same page, and relevent to the topic of cuckoldery in humans: [quote] [ol][li]If when making love a woman has no orgasm, or has one more than a minute before the man ejaculates, then very little of his sperm remains in her vagina. [/li][li]If her orgasm was less than one minute before or up to 45 minutes later than his ejaculation, then most of his sperm stays in. [/li][li]In addition, the longer it was since she had previously had an orgasm, then the more sperm she retains. [/li][li]Finally, the amount the man ejaculated related to whether the couple had been together during the day or apart. If they had been together, the amount was less than if they had been apart.[/ol]All very interesting, but so what? Well, Baker and Bellis also asked the couples in their study about their extramarital affairs. In faithful women, about 55% of orgasms were high retention. In unfaithful women, 40% were, with their regular partner, but 70% were with their lover. In addition, the extramarital intercourse generally occurred at the woman’s most fertile period. The result is that a woman in their study could have intercourse twice as often with her partner as with her lover, but still be more likely to conceive a child by her lover. Even though the women did not have access to this information, these are the consequences of their actions.[/li][/quote] Within primates, large sexual dimorphism tends to result in polygynous societies, but even in these cases, females are not necessarily pair bonded with dominant males. In the animal kingdom generally, it was first thought that sexual dimorphism was directly correlated with monogamy/polygyny. A prime example was birds, which have very little sexual dimorphism, and many species were thought to be monogamous. More recent studies using DNA fingerprinting have shown that birds may tend to be “socially monogamous”, but sexually polygynous in practice. Suffice it to say, the topic is more complex than initially thought. And **pravnik** , one may be safe when defining “marriage” so broadly, but I was under the impression that there were numerous human societies where “pair-bonded” marriage simply did not apply (in either monogamous or polygamous models), but where the “family unit” was more tribal in nature. This mating system is described as “promiscuous”. At least in one case, marriage and mating were not directly related. For example, the Nayar tribe of southern India: > [@](#): > > _[Human Mating Systems and Sexual Selection](http://www.lifesciences.napier.ac.uk/courses/modules/BI22201/L14.HTM)_ > Married women were freely allowed as many lovers as they desired so the males had no confidence in paternity. However, married men lived with their sisters and raised their offspring with whom they were certainly related. This way of life was persecuted by religeous bigots and has now died out. Promiscuous socities are referenced in this link. > [@](#): > > _[Early Culture (Post Diaspora Upper Paleolithic)](http://www.humanevolution.net/a/paleolithic.html)_ > There were tribes of savages and even of barbarians known to the Greeks and Romans who are represented as living in promiscuity. Among them were the Auseans of North Africa, mentioned by Herodotus, the Garamantes of Aethiopia, mentioned by Pliny, and the Celts of Ireland, mentioned by Strabo. On the nature/nurture topic, didn’t Gould put forward that our biology puts forth our various potentials, but that our environment determines which potentials are realized? That theory tends to have significant explanatory power - in this mating system topic, for example, in that humans are genetically capable of many different mating systems, and the environment determines which system actualizes. Also, culture can subvert the expected actualization based strictly on an analysis of the more primitive environment constraints. ---
**Author:** ![Fang](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/96bed5/32.png) [@Fang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fang)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2003, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/traits-common-to-all-human-cultures/172652/42 "2003-05-05T17:05:25Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by pravnik \* > **Laughter when amused, tears when sad.** I don’t think this could be classified as a cultural universal - it seems more like a natural instinctual response. \*\* > [@](#): > > Incest taboo. It existed even in Egypt when brother married sister, it was just thought that the pharoahs were above such rules. \*\* I don’t believe incest is taboo in _every_ culture. For instance, in this recent [Times feature](http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/01/international/middleeast/01GENE.html?ei=1&en=e67652bfa7a05148&ex=1052796768&pagewanted=all&position=) on inbreeding, the claim is made that > [@](#): > > Across the Arab world today an average of 45 percent of married couples are related, according to Dr. Nadia Sakati, a pediatrician and senior consultant for the genetics research center at King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Riyadh. In a society where nearly half the marital relationships are incestuous, I don’t think one could argue that incest is taboo. I’d have to do more research, but I’m certain there are other cultures where incestuous relationships are commonplace. ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2003, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/traits-common-to-all-human-cultures/172652/43 "2003-05-05T17:18:01Z")
Last time the incest taboo came up I seem to remember someone citing that when the citation was investigated, there was a lot of cross-referencing claims but that there was no meat behind it. Anthropological Urban Legend? I’ll see if I can find it. ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2003, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/traits-common-to-all-human-cultures/172652/44 "2003-05-05T17:29:11Z")
It depends on how you define “related.” For example, in our own culture, marriage of first cousins is not done, while in others, it’s practically the norm. Likewise, in some cultures, your mother’s sister wouldn’t be considered your relative at all. The incest taboo merely states that that all cultures have rules regarding who one may acceptably marry and/or have sexual relations with based on culturally defined rules of relationship. Those rules are not necessarily strictly correlative with genetic relationship, and they aren’t the same from culture to culture. I’m not giving marriage any special definition, just it’s generally accepted anthropological one: a sexual and economic union between men and women. The systems of marriage vary greatly from society to society, as do rates and acceptability of promiscuity in and out of marriage, but to my knowledge all societies have something approximating a system of marriage. ---
**Author:** ![Nichol\_storm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Nichol\_storm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nichol_storm)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2003, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/traits-common-to-all-human-cultures/172652/45 "2003-05-05T18:10:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Fang \* > \*\*I don’t think this could be classified as a cultural universal - it seems more like a natural instinctual response. > > \*\* > I don’t believe incest is taboo in _every_ culture. For instance, in this recent [Times feature](http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/01/international/middleeast/01GENE.html?ei=1&en=e67652bfa7a05148&ex=1052796768&pagewanted=all&position=) on inbreeding, the claim is made that In a society where nearly half the marital relationships are incestuous, I don’t think one could argue that incest is taboo. I’d have to do more research, but I’m certain there are other cultures where incestuous relationships are commonplace. \*\* Incest is taboo in all cultures – but the _definition_ of incest varies from culture to culture. In the modern-day United States, first-cousin marriages are looked upon by the majority of the population as incestuous. In the Middle East, that’s not the case. Some countries permit uncle/niece marriages; others do not. Even in ancient Egypt, some pairing were allowable, while others were not. What is considered incest is variable. .:Nichol:. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2003, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/traits-common-to-all-human-cultures/172652/46 "2003-05-05T18:18:22Z")
I think it was Wilson who characterized the incest taboo as a sort of inate law that says: “Do not breed with members of the opposite sex with whom you played as a child”. A lot of this was supported by studies of Kibbutz children. The assertion was that even UNRELATED children raised in close quarters tended not to pair up as adolescents. I’m not sure if this has been debunked, but I do remember reading quite a bit about this over the years. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2003, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/traits-common-to-all-human-cultures/172652/47 "2003-05-06T00:22:57Z")
> [@](#): > > Commerce. Most all cultures have developed some sort of mutually agreed upon standard of value that represents something else. Sea shells, beads, gold, whatever. Even completely isolated cultures have some sort of a system of trade within the group. The Tasmanian Aborigines and almost all the Australian Aborigines had absolutely no currency. There was trade based on barter and real value, but no seashells or beads. The closest that developed in Australia was a type of written IOU promising payment of the goods (craftwork, wives etc) when they became available at a future date. I’m sure other societies were equally devoid of any kind of symbolic currency. > [@](#): > > Not eating ones own kind. However, this can be misleading in that one group may not consider another its ‘own kind’. I could name several groups that practiced ritual cannibalism of the dead of immediate family members. We’re not talking huge feasts here, but ritually eating parts of the body. For example at least one New Guinean tribe virtually demanded that husband whos wife has been killed for adultery had to eat some internal organ as a type of reclamation of his fidelity so that he could remarry. > [@](#): > > Incest is taboo in all cultures – but the definition of incest varies from culture to culture. I’ve seen this said a few times in this thread WRT incest, murder and a few other behaviours. It’s taboo in all societies, but the definition changes. That seems less than satisfactory. I’m sure I could argue that homosexuality, interracial marriage or even monogamy are taboo in all societies as well, but that the definitions of those things change. If there are societies that permit brother-sister marriage (and there are), but they do so by declaring the brother and sister no longer related then the society doesn’t prohibit incest no matter whether they consider it incest or not. > [@](#): > > I think it was Wilson who characterized the incest taboo as a sort of innate law that says: “Do not breed with members of the opposite sex with whom you played as a child”. IIRC they didn’t quite say that. They concluded that people favoured mates with whom they didn’t play as children. In other words the mechanism promoted outcrossing, but didn’t actually prevent incest. In theory if a man is given a choice between two identical women, and one of them is a childhood playmate, he will always choose the non-playmate. However if he is given a choice between a playmate with a long list of desirable features, and a non-playmate with less desirable features, he will choose the playmate. In hunter-gatherer societies and early farming villages, completely unknown mates may have been rare and so any instinctive block against mating with anyone else would have been impossible. However when such mates did become available it made sense to pursue them to maximise diversity within the clan/village. ---
**Author:** ![chula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a4c791/32.png) [@chula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chula)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2003, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/traits-common-to-all-human-cultures/172652/48 "2003-05-06T00:45:37Z")
Thanks, **AZ** , for providing for detailed and accurate information. I’m just repeating stuff I read ten years ago. I’m a fan of the bonobos and I can’t believe I didn’t think of them. Maybe the article I read accounted for them somehow. I don’t remember. > [@](#): > > _Originally posted by pravnik_ > I’m not giving marriage any special definition, just it’s generally accepted anthropological one: a sexual and economic union between men and women. The systems of marriage vary greatly from society to society, as do rates and acceptability of promiscuity in and out of marriage, but to my knowledge all societies have something approximating a system of marriage. But the sexual and economic unions do not always correspond. Isn’t that part of your definition? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2003, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/traits-common-to-all-human-cultures/172652/49 "2003-05-06T02:35:25Z")
Ghosts and spirits. ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2003, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/traits-common-to-all-human-cultures/172652/50 "2003-05-06T12:38:19Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by istara \* > \*\*…if one is to look at the animal world (which after all, we are part of). > \*\* Speak for yoyrself, some of us might be couch potatoes! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2003, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/traits-common-to-all-human-cultures/172652/51 "2003-05-06T12:42:57Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Blake \* > \*\* he will choose the playmate. > \*\* well… _Duh!_ sorry about that ---
**Author:** ![rmbnxs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b9e5f3/32.png) [@rmbnxs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rmbnxs)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2003, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/traits-common-to-all-human-cultures/172652/52 "2003-05-09T23:34:59Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Dinsdale \* > **Are there any traits/practices that are common to all human cultures or societies?** Rampant stupidity. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/traits-common-to-all-human-cultures/172652.md?page=2)