the evolving mind

Male pride, the source of many a conflict, is reasonably seen as a mental equivalent of broad shoulders. Pride is another legacy of sexual selection.
- Wrangham, R. & Peterson, D (19)

Why would a god consider pride a deadly sin? We feel pride when we have skills, powers, and possessions that other people recognize as worthwhile. Pride, you might say, is the feeling a person gets when moving one rung up a ladder of status. A hierarchically-concerned agent would thus naturally condemn pride to protect his own status.

Pride is important to humans, whether it goes by that name or not. Hurt pride has caused many a violent clash. “How could you disrespect my possessions, power and/or skills . . . how could you endeavor to take me down a rung?!”

Relationships are accomplishments: they can add to a person’s power and status. With sexual intercourse comes the real possibility of adding to one’s power and status. Children are valued for many reasons, both historically and currently. Do your children reflect upon you favorably, do they nudge you up one rung on the perceived ladder of social status? Or perhaps you have a child that drags you down. What do the neighbors think?

Today we are conscious of the ways in which children in past and/or foreign cultures added to a man’s status. Having many sons was a blessing: they helped in the fields; they added to the homefront protection militia. Psalms 127:4-5 reads, “Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one’s youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their enemies in the gate.” (20) What is shame but the reverse of pride?

For the above and other reasons, human males are possessive about their children. For one, they do not want to unknowingly put resources into the offspring of another. If you are going to enter into an alliance with an individual, better that person carry some of you genes. It’s a selfish thing. Among chimpanzees, females will conceal their sexual activities, such as hiding behind a bush at the edge of camp, when mating with a subordinate male. (21) Why hide? What would either consenting party care? It is the more dominant members of the group they are concerned with—those that would view their act with jealousy and injured pride.

Most cultures view female adultery as the more serious matter. In terms of “selfish genes” this makes sense. The male who has been cheated on risks greater harm. The harm to the female: that the male might be spending time and resources on a womb and/or children that are not hers. For the female it is a question of support after conception, for him of conception itself.

Certainly, human males are capable of being loyal and loving fathers. But I wouldn’t boast about it. In modern society, males are capable of nurturing infants they have adopted into their family. But that may be a recent cultural innovation and/or last resort.

Much like human males, Jane Goodall has observed male chimpanzees reach out tenderly toward infant chimps. They will pat, tickle and hug babies. (22) Are they running for office or seeking access to an orifice? Beyond that glib remark, we should remember that the distal cause of a behavior is frequently less flattering than the proximal rationalizations we use to explain it.

As a reminder and example, consider this: “Across primate species, there is a rough correlation between a male’s kindness to youngsters and the chances that he is their father.” (23) Human males are primates and it is no coincidence that step-fathers are far more likely to abuse “their” children than biological fathers. (24) Male gorillas will practice outright infanticide: the killing of a mate’s children they did not father. New alphas tend to engage in this practice the most. Alpha lions do the same. They take over a harem and promptly kill the children that carry the genes of their predecessor. Interestingly, the alpha lion rules over a ‘pride’ of mates and children.

Among human beings, creatures with an allegedly divine soul, infanticide has and does occur. In a number of cultures/groups, infanticide is considered a reasonable response to a mate’s infidelity. (25)

When not countered by a confluence of female alliances and/or overt cultural condemnation and/or lack of opportunity, human males can behave like long-maned lions lording over their pride. Without the confluence, we would plainly see that human beings have not fallen far from the tree of the great creator they imagine. For he, too, is a primate extremely concerned with issues of paternity. As we shall see in future posts.

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(19) Wrangham, R. & Peterson, D. Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence, Houghton Mifflin, NY, 1996, p. 192
(20) New International Version
(21) Jolly, A. Lucy’s Legacy, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1999, p. 208
(22) Power, M. The Egalitarians: Human and Chimpanzee, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1991. p.85
(23) Wright, R., The Moral Animal: Evolutionary Psychology and Everyday Life, Vintage, NY, 1995. p.68
(24) Ehrlich, P. R., Human Natures: Genes, Cultures, and the Human Prospect, Island Press, Washington, D.C., 2000. p.71
(25) Wright, R., 1995, p.69

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[First posted here.]

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