Most cited article - PubMed ID 32811302
Harsh environments promote alloparental care across human societies
OBJECTIVES: Human childrearing is cooperative, with women often able to achieve relatively high fertility through help from many individuals. Previous work has documented tremendous socioecological variation in who supports women in childrearing, but less is known about the intracultural correlates of variation in allomaternal support. In the highly religious, high-fertility setting of The Gambia, we studied whether religious mothers have more children and receive more support with their children. METHODS: We randomly sampled 395 mothers and 745 focal children enrolled in the Kiang West (The Gambia) Longitudinal Population Study cohort. Structured interviews asked mothers who and how often people invest in their children, and about their religious practices. Data were collected at participants' homes on electronic tablet-based long-form surveys and analyzed using the Bayesian hierarchical models. RESULTS: Religiosity was weakly associated with women's higher age-adjusted fertility. Maternal religiosity was negatively related to maternal investment in focal children, but positively associated with total allomaternal support. Specifically, a woman's religiosity was positively associated with allomaternal support from matrilineal kin, other offspring, and affinal kin, but unrelated to paternal, patrilineal, and non-kin investment. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that higher fertility among religious mothers may be supported by high levels of investment from biological and affinal kin. Matrilineal kin, other siblings, and affinal kin seem to be the most responsive to a woman's religiosity. Our findings cast doubt on interpretations of women's religious behaviors as signals of fidelity, and instead suggest they may be part of strategies to enable collective allomaternal resources and higher relative fertility.
- Keywords
- Alloparenting, The Gambia, fertility, parental investment, religion,
- MeSH
- Adult MeSH
- Fertility * MeSH
- Humans MeSH
- Longitudinal Studies MeSH
- Mothers * statistics & numerical data psychology MeSH
- Adolescent MeSH
- Young Adult MeSH
- Religion MeSH
- Child, Preschool MeSH
- Parenting MeSH
- Check Tag
- Adult MeSH
- Humans MeSH
- Adolescent MeSH
- Young Adult MeSH
- Male MeSH
- Child, Preschool MeSH
- Female MeSH
- Publication type
- Journal Article MeSH
- Geographicals
- Gambia MeSH
Genital mutilation/cutting is costly in terms of health, survival and reproduction, and the long-term maintenance of these practices is an evolutionary conundrum. Previous studies have suggested a mate-guarding function or various signalling functions of genital mutilation/cutting. Here we use phylogenetic comparative methods and two global ethnographic samples to study the origins and socio-ecological correlates of major types of female and male genital mutilation/cutting. Male genital mutilation/cutting probably originated in polygynous societies with separate residence of co-wives, supporting a mate-guarding function. Female genital mutilation/cutting originated subsequently and almost exclusively in societies already practising male genital mutilation/cutting, where it may have become a signal of chastity. Both have originated multiple times, some as early as in the mid-Holocene (5,000-7,000 years ago), considerably predating the earliest archaeological evidence and written records. Genital mutilation/cutting co-evolves with and may help maintain fundamental social structures, hindering efforts to change these cultural practices.
