Evolutionary history of hunter-gatherer marriage practices
- PMID: 21556360
- PMCID: PMC3083418
- DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0019066
Evolutionary history of hunter-gatherer marriage practices
Abstract
Background: The universality of marriage in human societies around the world suggests a deep evolutionary history of institutionalized pair-bonding that stems back at least to early modern humans. However, marriage practices vary considerably from culture to culture, ranging from strict prescriptions and arranged marriages in some societies to mostly unregulated courtship in others, presence to absence of brideservice and brideprice, and polyandrous to polygynous unions. The ancestral state of early human marriage is not well known given the lack of conclusive archaeological evidence.
Methodology: Comparative phylogenetic analyses using data from contemporary hunter-gatherers around the world may allow for the reconstruction of ancestral human cultural traits. We attempt to reconstruct ancestral marriage practices using hunter-gatherer phylogenies based on mitochondrial DNA sequences.
Results: Arranged marriages are inferred to go back at least to first modern human migrations out of Africa. Reconstructions are equivocal on whether or not earlier human marriages were arranged because several African hunter-gatherers have courtship marriages. Phylogenetic reconstructions suggest that marriages in early ancestral human societies probably had low levels of polygyny (low reproductive skew) and reciprocal exchanges between the families of marital partners (i.e., brideservice or brideprice).
Discussion: Phylogenetic results suggest a deep history of regulated exchange of mates and resources among lineages that enhanced the complexity of human meta-group social structure with coalitions and alliances spanning across multiple residential communities.
Conflict of interest statement
Figures
![Figure 1](https://cdn.statically.io/img/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/instance/3083418/bin/pone.0019066.g001.gif)
![Figure 2](https://cdn.statically.io/img/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/instance/3083418/bin/pone.0019066.g002.gif)
Similar articles
-
Polygyny without wealth: popularity in gift games predicts polygyny in BaYaka Pygmies.R Soc Open Sci. 2015 May 6;2(5):150054. doi: 10.1098/rsos.150054. eCollection 2015 May. R Soc Open Sci. 2015. PMID: 26064662 Free PMC article.
-
Marrying kin in small-scale societies.Am J Hum Biol. 2014 May-Jun;26(3):384-8. doi: 10.1002/ajhb.22527. Epub 2014 Feb 23. Am J Hum Biol. 2014. PMID: 24677264
-
Hunter-Gatherers and the Origins of Religion.Hum Nat. 2016 Sep;27(3):261-82. doi: 10.1007/s12110-016-9260-0. Hum Nat. 2016. PMID: 27154194 Free PMC article.
-
Marriage: an evolutionary perspective.Neuro Endocrinol Lett. 2002 Dec;23 Suppl 4:47-54. Neuro Endocrinol Lett. 2002. PMID: 12496735 Review.
-
Where innovations flourish: an ethnographic and archaeological overview of hunter-gatherer learning contexts.Evol Hum Sci. 2020 Jun 17;2:e31. doi: 10.1017/ehs.2020.35. eCollection 2020. Evol Hum Sci. 2020. PMID: 37588392 Free PMC article. Review.
Cited by
-
Evidence from personal ornaments suggest nine distinct cultural groups between 34,000 and 24,000 years ago in Europe.Nat Hum Behav. 2024 Mar;8(3):431-444. doi: 10.1038/s41562-023-01803-6. Epub 2024 Jan 29. Nat Hum Behav. 2024. PMID: 38287173
-
When marital institutions break down: Impact and adaptation among the Enga of Papua New Guinea.Evol Hum Sci. 2021 Mar 1;3:e19. doi: 10.1017/ehs.2021.13. eCollection 2021. Evol Hum Sci. 2021. PMID: 37588563 Free PMC article.
-
The impact of market integration on arranged marriages in Matlab, Bangladesh.Evol Hum Sci. 2022 Dec 12;5:e5. doi: 10.1017/ehs.2022.54. eCollection 2023. Evol Hum Sci. 2022. PMID: 37587939 Free PMC article.
-
Norm violations and punishments across human societies.Evol Hum Sci. 2023 Apr 13;5:e11. doi: 10.1017/ehs.2023.7. eCollection 2023. Evol Hum Sci. 2023. PMID: 37587937 Free PMC article.
-
Socioeconomic benefits and limited parent-offspring disagreement in arranged marriages in Nepal.Evol Hum Sci. 2023 Feb 22;5:e7. doi: 10.1017/ehs.2023.3. eCollection 2023. Evol Hum Sci. 2023. PMID: 37587933 Free PMC article.
References
-
- Murdock GP. Social structure. New York: Free Press.; 1949. 258
-
- Chapais B. Primeval kinship: How pair-bonding gave birth to human society. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.; 2008. 368
-
- Chapais B. The deep structure of human society: Primate origins and evolution. In: Kappeler PM, Silk JB, editors. Mind the gap: Tracing the origins of human universals. Heidelberg: Springer; 2010. pp. 19–51.
-
- Tylor EB. On a method of investigating the development of institutions: Applied to laws of marriage and descent. The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. 1889;18:245–272.
-
- Levi-Strauss C. Les structures élémentaires de la parenté. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.; 1949. 591
MeSH terms
Substances
LinkOut - more resources
Full Text Sources