Consider that human evolution unfolds in a fashion not dissimilar to the way an accordion player produces melody and harmony while inflating and deflating his instrument over time.  The accordion player may observe his audience and modify cadence or change the tune depending on whether folks are dancing, how fast they’re dancing or whether they are paying attention at all.  The instrumentalist’s environment informs the tune he plays and how he plays it.

Human communities are composed of many types of folks.  Not just the individuals in communities are molded by evolutionary processes, but the communities themselves behave like selected targets with those communities that exhibit a variety of useful features that encourage a thriving population surviving and procreating.  This has been called a balanced polymorphism.  A wide variety of human types can contribute to a healthy, balanced polymorphism and a healthy community.

For example, in contemporary society, we observe the artists, caregivers and athletes performing and serving while exhibiting strengths peculiar to their particular neurology, psychology and physical proclivities.  Politicians and business people do what they do best, stoking the economy and growing opportunities.  Aesthetics and usefulness combine to create a satisfying social experience and a balanced society.

It…

A superb 25-year study in the UK by Marian Annett ending in the 1990s seemed to prove that in that part of the UK, left-handedness was not increasing over time. It’s been a difficult issue to parse out, what with left-handedness being repressed before WW II. When conventional wisdom declared that forcing children to switch hands would encourage stuttering, schools withdrew from demanding all children use the right hand. A result has been that though it looks like the number of left-handers has been increasing over the decades, it is obvious that institutions stopping the repression of left-handers has skewed the numbers.

A similar effect is seen in Asia. Society has strongly encouraged that the left hand not be used. The rates of left-handedness in many parts of Asia are 2% and lower. It’s difficult to determine the true handedness percentages.

The same effect comes into play with autism. Though it seems there have been dramatic rises in autism over the last twenty years, many believe we just have more refined evaluation protocols with more attention being placed upon those individuals exhibiting unconventional behaviors.

The thesis presented in this work makes several predictions regarding handedness and autism, two issues that…

Last night was one of those nights when I could not easily fall asleep.  I’m conducting an experiment.  I’m feeling compelled to sleep on my back to see if over six months my left-side, 12-13 mm quasi-fusiform carotid artery cerebral aneurysm diminishes in size.  I’ve slept on my right side my whole life.  It’s not likely, based on what the surgeons have suggested, that sleeping on my back can have an effect.  Still, I feel like there is something I can do to make a difference.  The night I came to this conclusion was the night that the four-pole thesis began to form.

So I sleep light instead of my customary deep.  Mortality feels not particularly far away.  Often my mind starts wrestling with the principles discussed in this blog.  On nights like last night, I move the concepts around a 4-D space, looking for new relationships.  A couple things came to mind last night.

In the four-pole hypothesis….

F te/M TE        Conventional Patrifocal
F tE/M Te        Warrior Patrifocal
F Te/M tE        Contemporary Matrifocal
F TE/M te        Classic Matrifocal

….  I’d anticipate that representatives of all four pairings, all eight individual prototypes,…

Why are specific diseases, disorders and conditions emerging with specific populations at this specific time?  Can the principles that we have recently focused on involving estrogen and social structure lead to clearer answers than those we’ve received until now?

The foundation of this theory I’m calling my “Theory of Waves,” formerly called Shift Theory, is built from social theorist Riane Eisler’s focus on matristic society, Marxist anthropologist Chris Knight’s human evolution theory based on female choice, evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller’s theorizing on sexual selection, Charles Darwin’s work on sexual selection (and Lamarckian selection), Stephen J.  Gould’s addressing heterochronic theory and neoteny, Norman Geschwind’s Cerebral Lateralization conjectures and Marian Annett’s research on random-handedness.  Simon Baron-Cohen’s recent personal encouragement that this theory is significant has provided me the confidence to begin contacting researchers and academics as I seek support and criticism of the Theory of Waves.  I am an amateur theorist with no institutional support.  The concepts herein have not been exposed to peer review.  I am not a scientist.

I view this creation as a work of art.  I pay attention to what seems interesting.  I let myself be guided by what draws me.  I am constantly sifting through patterns, feeling…

I’m starting to muddle through the implications of the four-pole hypothesis of four prototype pairings, with eight prototype human beings, four in each sex. (Proceed to the essays “Estrogen Ascendant” and “Estrogen Play” for more background on the concepts addressed in this essay.)

F te/M TE Conventional Patrifocal
F tE/M Te Warrior Patrifocal
F Te/M tE Contemporary Matrifocal
F TE/M te Classic Matrifocal

F te/M TE means low-testosterone & estrogen female, high-testosterone & estrogen male. Domineering, caring, discriminating men choosing cooperative women.

F tE/M Te means low-testosterone, high-estrogen female, high-testosterone, low-estrogen male. Domineering men choosing cooperative, caring, discriminating women.

F Te/M tE means high-testosterone, low-estrogen female, low-testosterone, high-estrogen male. Commanding women choosing creative, cooperative, caring, discriminating men.

F TE/M te means high-testosterone & estrogen female, low-testosterone & estrogen male. Commanding, caring, discriminating women choosing creative, cooperative, aloof men.

We have noted that Marian Annett observed a balanced polymorphism of gradations between random-handed and strong right-handed individuals within a society. We might conclude that just as there is a hypothesized random-handed prototype human and a strong right-handed prototype human, with some people fitting those exact prototypes, most folks in our four-pole hypothesis…

I’ve noted a couple times over the months that there is a five-step evolution continuum that begins with natural selection and then moves to step two where sexual selection focuses on a specific pattern when one (usually the female) chooses a mate.  Step three begins with human sexual selection, where adept practitioners of novel pattern creation (dance, song and later language) are selected as partners (usually by females with sensitivity to these subtle differences).  The fourth step is taken when novelty itself becomes desirable outside the partner-selection process, and society is compelled to embrace in its productions the infinite nuances of the new and less familiar.  In the fifth stage, awareness of evolution’s stages, attended by an awareness of the awareness that accompanies evolution, provides an identification with the five-stage creation continuum.

1)    natural selection
2)    sexual selection (selecting for pattern when seeking a mate)
3)    human sexual selection (selection for novel pattern when seeking a mate)
4)    art & culture (selecting for novel pattern outside of mate selection)
5)    awareness of the selection or creative process

It is a convention in our society to observe the effects of testosterone, concluding that it is the will…

For the last two nights while I’ve been dreaming, my mind has been wrestling with an integration of testosterone and estrogen in the model that’s come together the last three weeks. Dreams, metaphors and thoughts combine to synthesize the variables and data. This morning I awoke aware that there’s been a piece that is seeking understanding.

Marian Annett has pioneered new understandings of handedness, generating a host of clues as to how humans evolved and order themselves in society. Annett hypothesizes that one might be random-handed or right-handed, with a continuum of tendencies revealing that it’s not as easy as being one or the other. With our tentative model of evolution and society formation, repeating an earlier posting…..

—

We are playing with the concept of four prototype pairings, with eight prototype human beings, four in each sex. We are estimating that because the mother, at six weeks before birth, sets her children’s testosterone levels based upon her own testosterone levels (mother with high testosterone T creates low t males and high T females while a mother with low t creates low t females and high T males) that estrogen will run a similar dynamic. The result will be natural…

We are playing with the concept of four prototype pairings, with eight prototype human beings. We are estimating that because the mother, at six weeks before birth, sets her children’s testosterone levels based upon her own testosterone levels (mother with high testosterone T creates a low t male and a high T female while a mother with low t creates a low t female and a high T male) that estrogen will run a similar dynamic. The result will be natural mated pairings resulting in across-sex matchings of testosterone and estrogen that will be complementary opposites. We are hypothesizing that there will be exceptions, but they will not be the convention in that society.

F te/M TE Conventional Patrifocal
F tE/M Te Warrior Patrifocal
F Te/M tE Contemporary Matrifocal
F TE/M te Classic Matrifocal

F te/M TE means low-testosterone & estrogen females, high-testosterone & estrogen male. Domineering, caring, discriminating men choosing cooperative women.

F tE/M Te means low-testosterone, high-estrogen female, high-testosterone, low-estrogen male. Domineering men choosing cooperative, caring, discriminating women.

F Te/M tE means high-testosterone, low-estrogen female, low-testosterone, high-estrogen male. Commanding women choosing creative, cooperative, caring, discriminating men.

F TE/M te means high-testosterone & estrogen female, low-testosterone…

Geschwind and Galaburda in their 1987 Cerebral Lateralization noted a number of patterns across studies that seemed to support a relationship between lateralization, handedness and a number of diseases and conditions. Follow-up studies often led to results that were ambiguous. Still, the work of Simon Baron-Cohen and his colleagues have come to conclusions that have suggested connections that Geschwind and Galaburda alluded to. Specifically, mother’s testosterone levels inform conditions characterized by male maturational delay. Marian Annett continues to pioneer an understanding of a paradigm characterized by random-handedness balanced by conventional handedness that she calls Right Shift Theory.

In other essays on this website (i.e., Evolutionary Theory, Neuropsychology and Autism), I have described the integral connection between heterochronic theory and the neuropsychological patterns observed by Geschwind and Galaburda, developed by Annett and Baron-Cohen. Heterochronic theory describes how species evolve when influenced by changes in the rate of timing of maturation and development. Neoteny is one of six heterochronic patterns, the prolongation or lifting of infant or embryonic features from ancient ancestors into the features of adult descendants, resulting in the slowing down of maturation, with features of early ontogeny appearing later in ontogeny over generations. One does not…

Two interlocking models or paradigms describe how humans evolve.

In the first explanatory paradigm we are now looking at a modification of our model.  We now have two complementing dynamics.

Mother’s testosterone levels > progeny maturation rate > social structure proclivity > evolutionary trajectory.

Mother’s estrogen levels > progeny ability to exercise aesthetic discrimination and caring behavior > social structure proclivity > evolutionary trajectory.

I hypothesize two feedback loops.  Mother’s testosterone level > progeny maturation rate > social structure proclivity > mother’s testosterone level.  Mother’s estrogen level > progeny ability to exercise aesthetic discrimination and caring behavior > social structure proclivity > Mother’s estrogen level.  The environment can intervene at all three levels of both loops by influencing maturation rates and timing (via testosterone) or by influencing mate selection criteria (via estrogen), thus modifying the trajectory of human evolution.

The second explanatory paradigm involves a five-step continuum beginning with natural selection and then moving to sexual selection, with animals focusing on particular patterns when they choose a mate.  Step three begins with a bridging over to human sexual selection, where adept practitioners of novel pattern creation are selected as procreation partners by mates with sensitivity to these nuances.  This is…

Ten days ago we waded into what little information we have on estrogen to estimate if we know enough to inform an understanding on the influence of estrogen on human evolution and current societal formations. Eight days ago we came up with the following matrix of relationships…

Patri Female low T, low e Male high T, high e Asian
Patri Female low T, low e Male high T, low e
Hybrid Female low T, low e Male low T, high e Scandinavian?
Hybrid Female low T, low e Male low T, low e Scandinavian?

Patri Female low T, high e Male high T, high e
Patri Female low T, high e Male high T, low e
Hybrid Female low T, high e Male low T, high e Scandinavian?
Hybrid Female low T, high e Male low T, low e Scandinavian?

Hybrid Female high T, low e Male high T, high e
Hybrid Female high T, low e Male high T, low e
Matri Female high T, low e Male low T, high e
Matri Female high T, low e Male low T, low e

Hybrid Female high T, high e Male…

We’ve established in earlier entries the following evolutionary paradigm:  Mother’s testosterone levels > progeny maturation rate > social structure proclivity > evolutionary trajectory.

Now, let’s consider a complementary addition.

Continuing yesterday’s discussion, let’s assume Scandinavian female Te, male tE where…..

T = high testosterone
t = low testosterone
E = high estrogen
e = low estrogen

If it is the case that in Scandinavia both sexes evolved the biological, neurological and societal features of neoteny over 5,000 years, then it would seem anomalous according to a foundation hypothesis of this blog and the Theory of Waves.  I am estimating that over the course of human evolution we tended toward matrifocal social structure (females TE, males te) or patrifocal social structure (females te, males TE).

We’ve discussed how Asian patrifocal cultures manifest neoteny in both sexes by encouraging female te and male TE by shifting all hormonal thresholds downward, allowing cooperation within a patrifocal context.  You’d also get a highly aesthetic society with male high E embedding refined discrimination, a matrifocal female attribute, with the male.

It seems possible that low female estrogen might be a powerful determinant of neoteny in females.  This might be the case biologically,…

If Scandinavians are highly neotenous based upon mutual sexual selection (Miller, 2000), with both sexes choosing mates exhibiting those blue-eyed, blond-haired, pale skin markers of a person able to thrive off dairy and sunlight (Harris, 1989), then one would also expect to see larger brains (Tobias, 1970) and a cooperative, care-based society (Eisler, 2007).  Long arms and legs can also go with a low-testosterone neotenous constellation.

Asian societies, specifically Chinese peoples, also exhibit neoteny (Montagu, 1989), with perhaps both sexes choosing small-sized mates to manage limited nourishment sources.  Female estrogen levels are low (Diamond, 1986) and left-handedness is low (Dawson, 1974), with the males’ testes size almost half of a Scandinavian population adjusted for size (Diamond, 1986).  These are all patrifocal markers.

Chinese populations mature far faster and reach puberty sooner (Eveleth & Tanner, 1976) than Northwest Europe populations, an acceleration consonant with a patrifocal frame, yet they exhibit neotenous or maturational-delayed features such as relatively larger brains and flat-faced, diminutive features.

I am hypothesizing that Asian populations that require large-scale, multilevel cooperation encourage the societal cooperation bonuses that come with neoteny, while small size and fast maturation are demanded by intense agrarian population concentrations.  In this highly patrifocal context…

Last night was a weird night.  I was not exactly sleeping.  My mind was deep into the pattern-trolling mode.  A part of me feels a certainty that estrogen and testosterone/estrogen constellations in mate selection (see “Estrogen Conjecture Inspired by Asian Neotenous Patrifocal Society”) lead to a deepened understanding of human evolution and the particular physiological/neuropsychological/hormonal/psychological features of the human ethnic spectrum.

At these preinspiration sessions I find myself operating with several presuppositions.  The presuppositions suggest that this process is far more artistic than scientific.  It’s more than an “as if” frame where I make a hypothesis and then follow where the existing data lead.  I’m assuming several things.  One, I assume that I can know the answer.  Two, I assume my unconscious already has the answer.  Three, I assume my unconscious is connected to the larger consciousness.  Four, I assume the solutions are available to me in a form I am schooled to assimilate and not a form beyond my education, such as genetics or higher mathematics.

That is a lot of presuppositions.  What this boils down to is that, feeling blessed, I can allow myself to experience, identify and communicate the patterns just beyond the barriers…

Riane Eisler in her Real Wealth of Nations describes the Scandinavian countries as featuring many of the characteristics of a matristic, or partnership, society vs. the way a domination or patrifocal society operates.  She uses four categories to describe the differences among the paradigms, what I would describe as matrifocal and patrifocal social structures.

A partnership society has a structure that is equitable and horizontal vs. a dominator society that is rigidly hierarchical.  Relations in a partnership society are characterized by mutual respect with little fear, while in a domination system fear, abuse and violence are common.  In a partnership society, the genders are equal, with an emphasis on caring and caregiving, while in a domination society the male gender is ranked over females.  Last, the mythologies differ, with partnership society stories and beliefs emphasizing caring relationships, while domination-based societies idealize violence and control.  Eisler sees structure, relations, gender and beliefs as integral to understanding the differences between these two kinds of societies.

Eisler goes into some detail describing the ways that Scandinavian societies manifest features of a partnership society in a modern economy.  The social net is wide and firm, offering health care, employment security, education, child care, old…

I’d like to consider a counterintuitive conjecture, a hypothesis suggesting that the possible natural hormonal constellation for a matrifocal culture is a high-testosterone/high-estrogen female mating with a low-testosterone/low-estrogen male. The patrifocal complementary opposite would be low-testosterone/low-estrogen females pairing with high-testosterone/high-estrogen males.

It feels counterintuitive for several reasons. First, you’d expect in a matrifocal culture that the males be attentive to the children. As neotenous males, they would be attracted to children. Of course, you could have matrifocal cultures where the convention and the hormonal constellation of the males provide ongoing positive attention to children. But, if there is a natural matrifocal paradigm, I’m not so sure that males with relatively high estrogen necessarily fit. In my mind, I’ve always figured the males were attentive to children. I assumed this partially because in a society featuring females exhibiting female choice, I figured females would pick males that were attentive to the children. I figured that this quality fit in with neotenous males. I’m starting to wonder.

One indication of the counterintuitive perspective is that in matrifocal aboriginal societies, men often live in their own enclaves with relatively little contact with children. In avuncular societies characterized by men not often knowing who…

To suggest I’m out on a limb here would be to understate the situation. This website and its three sister websites (see lower left) outline the details of an alternative theory of evolution based upon all three of Darwin’s theories of evolution integrated with an understanding of the relevance of recent discoveries in neuropsychology. This theory began when I hypothesized that we evolved within matrifocal societies driven by runaway sexual selection choosing cooperative, dancing males, following a neotenous trajectory. In my readings I had discovered that brains have been growing smaller for many thousands of years as we’ve turned patrifocal. I looked for evidence that there are males alive today, males that would be examples of an ancient matrifocal larger brain type with difficulty speaking, having been wired for gesture. I discovered that many autistic males have larger brains.

I immersed myself in the neuropsychological literature surrounding these issues. This was ten years ago. Geschwind and Galaburda’s Cerebral Lateralization opened the door. Reading Geschwind and several hundred additional books and papers, I discovered details revolving around that fact that at six weeks before birth, the mother’s testosterone level sets the testosterone levels of her children, establishing their maturation rate for…

At this particular moment, I am feeling attracted to another riddle.  Anomalies can serve to disprove a theory or open doors leading to solutions that draw the theory deeper.  Over the course of these entries, I’ve made a number of predictions.  The predictions that don’t hold true when experiments are conducted will suggest intuitions that have gone awry, threads of theory that need adjusting or hidden insights waiting for integration.

The riddle is as follows.  Nordic culture displays lanky females and males displaying a variety of neotenous features that include blond hair, blue eyes and astonishingly egalitarian societies.  Both sexes display these neotenous features.

In Asian societies, females and males exhibit a completely different assortment of highly neotenous features but are short, black haired and dark eyed.  Societies are not egalitarian but highly patrifocal.

If we assume that features exhibited reflect cultural visual predilections, visually based sexual selection criteria or tendencies, we have an easy answer to the riddle, but that answer feels unsatisfactory to me.  Let’s follow the pathway of pattern to see where pattern leads.

“As I explained earlier, the northern dairying people lived in a mist-shrouded environment and had to bundle up against the cold most of…

Marian Annett (Annett & Manning, 1990; Annett & Kilshaw, 1984) has hypothesized a balanced polymorphism in dyslexia that neatly fits with my theory of biological and societal evolution I am calling a Theory of Waves, formerly Shift Theory.  The Theory of Waves predicts a specific structure of health and disease in humans.  Nineteenth Century heterochronic theory’s descriptions of the operation of relative rate and timing changes of development and maturation are directly transposable to Annett’s (1985) right-shift theory.  It fact, superimposing Gould’s (1977) clock model of heterochronic evolution directly over Annett’s (1985) right-shift graph reveals the relationship among human evolution, the etiology of cerebral asymmetry and neurological disorders such as autism.

Right-shift theory (Annett, 1985) states that there is a gene (+) that predisposes most people for language facility.  Annett noted that there is a difference in the distribution of handedness between human and animal populations characterized by a right-shift in human beings.  This right-shift makes clear that not all humans are equally well disposed to language use.  People with a (- -) genotype (18-19 % of the population) evidence no predilection to specific handedness or cerebral asymmetry and so achieve a left- or right-handedness close to random.  People with…

Female choice and societal innovation are so closely tied as to be indistinguishable.

In Asian cultures characterized by patrifocal frames of reference, with female infanticide, and now female foeticide, ancient hierarchies, deep allegiance to status and a reverence for the warrior, you find little innovation because males are selected for their ability to command and dominate. Creativity is highly valued in the context of supporting an established, conventional, ritualized aesthetic.

Across Asia into India and the Middle East, females exhibit little choice in mate selection. Families, often the father, still decide which males are suitable for their daughters. These societies are often militaristic, caste-based, hierarchical and highly stratified, featuring domineering males. Women’s rights are few and neglected.

Perhaps the first society featuring an integration of matrifocal and patrifocal forces was ancient Greece. Indo-Europeans were not normally disposed to providing the matrifocal peoples that they conquered much influence in the societies that followed. Ancient Greece was an exception to a degree. Females could not vote but could sometimes wield authority, particularly in their choice of a mate. When females are provided the ability to choose, several things happen. Females choose mates that they estimate will enhance their lives, a male that…

Pattern recognition and exhibition form the essence from which we humans have evolved. Sexual selection usually involves a female choosing subtle variations on a pattern theme such as song, movement/dance or visual display. It can occur that males dramatically escalate the details while females exponentially increase their deliberative tendencies. You can get what Fischer called Runaway Sexual Selection.

What probably began the runaway loop were females selecting for superb dancers and sound makers with males responding over time with astonishing feats of endurance and acumen. Females become far more appreciative of the nuances the males could exhibit because females were being selected over time for acute judgmental abilities. Those females with subtle evaluative capacities mated with the most adroit male performers.

Somewhere along the line, females began selecting for males with talents for escalating pattern exhibition unrelated to any particular or specific stimuli trajectory.

Females selected for creativity.

There is no fiction in biology. Natural systems evolve within firm boundaries such as climate, food sources, natural disasters and competing peers. Now humans began operation in an alternative, complementing universe of pattern exhibition and recognition, having crossed a line where what exists, exists, but not in the biological world.

With imagination…

Our uniqueness as a species may have more to do with our choice not to decide upon a specific mating strategy than those many other things that we believe are peculiarly human.

We observe the manifestation of heterochrony in society, neoteny and its reverse, through the two social structures that seem to manifest these two evolutionary trajectories. Neotenous, cooperative males and commanding, accelerating females reveal themselves in matrifocal or matristic social structures. A social structure with commanding, accelerated males and cooperative females inclines toward patriarchy or a patrifocal orientation.

Matrifocal and patrifocal social structures come with either commanding, high-testosterone males mating with cooperative, low-testosterone females or cooperative, low-testosterone males pairing with commanding, high-testosterone females.

Over time, in a matrifocal context, with males focused on artistic exhibition as opposed to hierarchical display, society mirrors the hormonal constellation of the cooperative males and commanding females, revealing a constellation of features characteristic of matrilineal, matristic or partnership societies. Society evolves in particular fashions with the female choosing her mate.

In a patrifocal context, with males striving for hierarchical ascendancy, offering enhanced procreation opportunities, with females cooperating with the winners, society mirrors the hormonal constellation of commanding males and cooperative females manifesting in a…

The work of scientists is not often poetry. But they do reveal patterns that are profound.

“A corollary of our hypothesis is that hormonal effects on the brains of offspring may vary with the time of conception. The activity of the pineal gland changes seasonally with alterations in day length. As a general rule, during the dark winter months the pineal becomes active and suppresses both ovaries and testes, whereas in the summer it is inactive and sex hormone levels are higher. For this reason many animals bear young in the spring, an advantageous situation since temperature and food supplies are more suitable for survival. An example of such seasonal modulation of hormonal effects on the brain is observed in the HVc nucleus of the singing bird (Nottebohm 1981). This description of pineal physiology is, however, somewhat oversimplified. An animal’s sensitivity to light may vary through the year. Gonadal hormones may thus become activated in the spring, but as a result of loss of sensitivity to light over the summer hormone levels may diminish as fall approaches. Despite these facts, day length is a powerful influence. Thus, steers increase their weight more rapidly in the winter when artificial light is…

I noticed in my stats that someone found this site by typing “patrifocal” into Google.  This struck me as strange.  Getting high rankings for single word searches is notoriously difficult.  Then I noticed that the word “patrifocal” has less than 5,000 sites using that word, a tiny number.  “Matrifocal” revealed almost 40,000 sites with that word, still a miniscule number.

How does the academic world discuss issues of social structure and mate selection?  Evidently “matrifocal” and “patrifocal” are not frequently used terms.  It seems to me an important distinction sleeps beneath the notice of most academics studying social change.

Scanning the literature, there doesn’t seem to be a very deep intuition for the relationship between sexual selection and social structure outside discussion of lineality, as in matrilineal or patrilineal frames of reference.  Perhaps this is why fundamental changes in Western society characterized by a dramatic surge in the direction of female choice go mostly unremarked.  Lineality issues are not involved.  Folks mostly know who the father is.  Lineage is traced through the father’s last name regardless of matrifocal or patrifocal proclivities.  There was a brief time in the 60s where hyphenated last names were experimented with, providing matrilinealists the opportunity…

“Edward Westermarck in his early classic A Short History of Marriage (1968: 126-155) discussed consent as a condition for marriage. Females, he noted, most often were married off at the will of some male–father, family elders, uncle. It is to be noted that the male partner in such marriages, also, had little personal choice. However, Westermarck pointed out that females in the simplest hunting and gathering societies could–and did–refuse the assigned mate. Sometimes she could do this directly and in other societies by subtle, indirect action. She lost much of this freedom in technologically more advanced societies. Some of the strongest arguments against male dominant choice of females as sex partners can be found in the statistical, cross-cultural work of George Murdock (1949: 20-21). Out of 241 societies where his criteria could be applied, 163 involved some consideration: bride-price, bride service, or exchange of women. In other words, families made the decisions rather than the individuals involved. Regarding divorce, Murdock (1969: 175-76) found, somewhat surprisingly, that in thirty of forty societies there were no substantial differences in the rights of men and women to terminate a marriage. Only 15 percent actually had the stereotyped view where men controlled the action.…