Jul 21 2008
The Payoff for Dominance
Particularly in the interactions of males with males and males with females, humans are prone to dominate and prone to submit.
- Christopher Boehm (38)
If the drive to dominate could be boiled down to the work of one gene we might be justified in calling it a selfish gene. Progeny is the payoff for male dominance – offspring that are likely to share the gene. The selective advantage over generations would be the distal cause of the drive to dominate. If we envision the drive as a virus – more active in some individuals (its environment), less active in others – we could predict that those “infected” with it leave more likewise infected offspring. And thus the virus, the drive, would persist and possibly thrive.
In terms of causation, what we identify as the proximal cause often reveals more of the “how” to some phenomenon. In the case of dominance, testosterone is likely key. What we identify as the distal or ultimate cause addresses the “why.” For instance, if we ask, “Why do we get tired at night?” an explanation that focused on the proximal might include melatonin and work of the pineal gland. Rather than exposing a true why, the proximal explanation frequently covers the how. A distal explanation would require more work and making inferences requiring larger leaps — leaps that cover greater spans of time. A quick conjecture about the distal cause of night-time sleep would likely include something about the advantage a diurnal biorhythm afforded our predecessors.
The drawback of attempting to infer distal causes is that we bog down in an area of high speculation and low testability. A distal explanation is often little more than an educated guess. In the least, the guess should be based upon a moderate amount of converging information. That caveat disclosed, let us venture into the realm of the distal reason for dominance.
The payoff for male dominance — what today we might identify as “leadership aspirations” — is access to and control of resources: females (and thus number of offspring), food, territory and even relationships. An alliance, whether based on friendship or fear or something else altogether, is what you might call a secondary resource. Access to resources and control of these makes an individual more fit across changing ecological environments.
Certainly, in modern human societies the drive to dominate can be checked, and frequently is, by egalitarian countermeasures. (I will be addressing this topic in the upcoming chapters, “Nurture and the Swiss-Army Knife of Human Nature,” and “The Egalitarian Ape: All for All and None for One”). Nonetheless, one can observe the drive in everything from the schoolyard roughhousing of boys to the status-oriented antics on display in political campaigns. In presidential debates, for instance, the candidates’ handlers are conscious of many subtle and not-so-subtle influences on voters, including who is taller, who looks more virile (i.e., tanned, in shape), who talks tougher, who seems to be driven and in control, etc.
The tangible result of the drive to dominate is an elevation of one’s position in a social hierarchy and perhaps even the attainment of a leadership position. What does a leader do but exert control. In a primitive form, the push is physical and threat-based, in more refined forms it shows up as personal charm and deft social skills, at least in part.
It is no coincidence that the majority of primate troops are lead by males.(39) Being a primate, the same is true for humans. While there have been a number of arguments made about female-dominated societies in human history, these are in the extreme minority, if true. As Paul Ehrlich has written, “There are no reliable historical accounts of matriarchal societies.” (40)
The typical plight of sons and daughters in primate groups can shed light on the innate orientation of males and females as it pertains to leadership, both earthly and mythical. Due to the risk of in-breeding and a weakening of the gene-pool, in smaller social groups one sex must migrate upon reaching sexual maturity. Additionally, adding new members to a group will infuse greater genetic variability into its gene pool.
In matrilineal hierarchies, such as that of rhesus monkeys, the males migrate to new groups.(41) In the much more common patriarchal hierarchies, females migrate. This is true for our closest genetic kin, the chimpanzee. And what about among human beings? Do we see males or females moving into new families? The common occurrence of a bride carrying a cost, to the giver or receiver, reflects the idea that it is human females that typically leave their families, at least symbolically. The father “gives her away.” He sometimes pays for his freedom from obligation, via a dowry and/or bearing the cost of the celebration. Other times the groom’s family must pay a bride price to attain her. The common element is that the bride is a traded commodity. “In the vast majority of cultures, if a newly married couple settles in or near an extended family, it is the husband’s….Primatologists have yet a different view. Female gorillas, chimps, and bonobos, all our nearest relations, pick themselves up at adolescence, and sometimes again later in life, and trek off to join a new and interesting bunch of males.”(42)
For groups that acquire females it is possible for closely related males to form and maintain close working relations. In an altruistic fashion — though ultimately selfish on the genetic level — males working for the good of a group will benefit the genetic makeup they likely share with other males.
A significant component to male dominance is the blatant and/or disguised effort to control over females. And what we are really referring to is a male’s control of the wombs of females, for that is the more distal yet ultimate issue. Certainly, this male writer, like the majority of men, does not consciously view women as walking wombs, as potential deliverers of offspring. But perhaps in deeper brain regions the orientation and urge still resides. Yet if we focus on the proximal, our understanding gets stuck in the superficial. A “lady’s man,” we are told, is a man who loves ladies. Which is proximally true. His genes, however, love access to wombs and the progeny this can bring. Similarly, how many males experience a feeling of arousal upon viewing a naked female? The most arousing females, the most likely to incite a man’s libido, are those that show signs of fertility and health. Even better are those that appear to be untouched by others (virgins and/or simply young) so they are less likely to be secretly carrying the “seed” of another.
Within the Bible there are numerous passages that reflect the theme of male possession of females. In Leviticus 18:8, King James Version, we read, The nakedness of thy father’s wife shalt thou not uncover: it is thy father’s nakedness. In the New International Version the passage is translated this way: Do not have sexual relations with your father’s wife; that would dishonor your father (this likely means one of his other wives, thus step-mothers). Why should you abstain from sex with your father’s wife? Because you will tarnish his resource, possibly diminishing the number of genes he leaves.
In Biblical dogma, women are secondary to men. 1 Corinthians 11:4-9 claims that women were created for men and must show submission to them. If you are submissive you can be owned and someone else controls your reproductive life. This is genetically advantageous males, less so to females. In other Biblie verses, such as Deuteronomy 20:14, women are taken as plunder, under the a god’s instruction to his men. In Isaiah 13:16, the men are commanded to band together to defeat the enemy and then to ravish (i.e., rape) their women. From the vantage of 21st century morality, the sad truth is that rape is a human universal, found in virtually all cultures. In a sense it is a cheater’s way of sowing his seed.
In previous generations feminists argued that rape is not an act of sex but of violence. Unfortunately, it is both. Although I might describe it as an act of aggressive sexual domination. Blame testosterone and those selfish genes.
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(38) Boehm, C., Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA., 1999, p.147
(39) Morris, D. (ed.) Primate Ethology, Aldine, Chicago, 1967, p.161
(40) Ehrlich, P. R., Human Natures: Genes, Cultures, and the Human Prospect, Island Press, Washington, D.C., 2000, p.175
(41) de Waal, F. Peacemaking Among Primates, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1989
(42) Jolly, A. Lucy’s Legacy, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1999,
p.177
[July hiatus automated re-post. First appeared here: http://almightyalpha.blogspot.com/2007/12/payoff-for-dominance.html]
