Ideological Mate-guarding: Sexual Jealousy and Mating Strategy Predict Support for Female Honor

Feminine honor dictates that women should cultivate a reputation for sexual purity via behaviors such as dressing modestly and maintaining virginity before marriage. The dominant explanation for people's support for feminine honor is that female infidelity threatens male partners' honor. Beyond this, the literature affords little understanding of the evolutionary and psychological origins of feminine honor. We propose that feminine honor functions as an ideological form of mate guarding that is shaped by sexual jealousy and mating strategy. Two correlational studies (N  =  892) revealed support for predictions derived from this ideological mate-guarding account. In Study 1, dispositional jealousy and mating strategy (more monogamous orientation) predicted male participants' support for a mate's (especially a long-term mate's) feminine honor. Moving beyond mate preferences, in Study 2 male and female participants' dispositional jealousy and mating strategy predicted support for feminine honor of women in general. Results applied beyond masculine honor norms, religiosity, political conservativism, and age. These findings enhance the understanding of the origins and maintenance of feminine honor and related norms and ideologies that enable control over women's socio-sexual behavior.

Gendered conflict in the human family

Sexual conflict is a thriving area of animal behaviour research. Yet parallel research in the evolutionary human sciences remains underdeveloped and has become mired by controversy. In this special collection, we aim to invigorate the study of fitness-relevant conflicts between women and men, advocating for three synergistic research priorities. First, we argue that a commitment to diversity is required to innovate the field, achieve ethical research practice, and foster fruitful dialogue with neighbouring social sciences. Accordingly, we have prioritised issues of diversity as editors, aiming to stimulate new connections and perspectives. Second, we call for greater recognition that human sex/gender roles and accompanying conflict behaviours are both subject to natural selection and culturally determined. This motivates our shift in terminology from sexual to gendered conflict when addressing human behaviour, countering stubborn tendencies to essentialise differences between women and men and directing attention to the role of cultural practices, normative sanctions and social learning in structuring conflict battlegrounds. Finally, we draw attention to contemporary policy concerns, including the wellbeing consequences of marriage practices and the gendered implications of market integration. Focus on these themes, combined with attendance to the dangers of ethnocentrism, promises to inform culturally sensitive interventions promoting gender equality worldwide.

Paternity Uncertainty and Parent-Offspring Conflict Explain Restrictions on Female Premarital Sex across Societies

Although norms of premarital sex vary cross-culturally, the sexuality of adolescent girls has been consistently more restricted than that of adolescent boys. Three major theories that attempt to explain restrictions on female premarital sex (FPS) concern male, female, and parental control. These competing theories have not been tested against each other cross-culturally. In this study, we do this using a sample of 128 nonindustrial societies and socioecological predictors capturing extramarital sex, paternal care, female status, sex ratio, parental control over a daughter's mate choice, residence, and marriage transactions, while also controlling for phylogenetic non-independence across societies. We found that multiple parties benefit from restrictions on FPS. Specifically, FPS is more restricted in societies intolerant of extramarital sex and where men transfer property to their children (male control), as well as where marriages are arranged by parents (parental control). Both paternity uncertainty (partitioned among marital fidelity and paternal investment) and parent-offspring conflict (prompting parents to control their daughter's sexuality) were identified as possible mechanisms of FPS restrictions. The evidence for female control is ambiguous, mainly because it can be equally well interpreted as both male control and parental control, and because fathers, rather than mothers, are often the primary decision makers about a daughter's mate choice. Our results also emphasize the importance of social roles, rather than stereotyped sex roles, as a more useful approach to understanding the evolution of FPS restrictions.

Global phylogenetic analysis reveals multiple origins and correlates of genital mutilation/cutting

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.

Attitudes towards female genital cutting among adolescents in rural Burkina Faso: a multilevel analysis

OBJECTIVE

Despite decades of abandonment efforts, female genital cutting (FGC) prevalence rates in Burkina Faso remain high. We present updated prevalence data from rural adolescents and examine factors associated with FGC receipt and attitudes, testing predictions of social convention and modernisation theory regarding the abandonment process.

METHODS

We interviewed 1644 adolescents aged 12-20 years from 10 villages and one sector of Nouna town in the Nouna Health and Demographic Surveillance site in late 2017. Response-weighted prevalence for self-reported FGC receipt, beliefs about religious requirements, and attitudes about abandonment were calculated. We used bivariate regression and two-level hierarchical models to test whether social convention or modernisation theory-related factors predicted current FGC attitudes.

RESULTS

43% of women in our sample reported having undergone FGC; 74% of women and 76% of men believed FGC should be abandoned. The strongest predictors of FGC receipt were religion, ethnicity, the village's FGC rate and mother's education. The strongest predictors of FGC abandonment attitudes were religion, ethnicity, belief that FGC is religiously required, and own FGC status.  Males' attitudes were less determined by community factors than females'; females' attitudes were more strongly influenced by factors linked to modernization, such as maternal education and household wealth.

CONCLUSIONS

FGC continues to be common in rural and small-town Burkina Faso, and our analysis suggests that social conventions play an important role in its continuation. However, modernisation-related factors were stronger predictors of abandonment attitudes than of FGC status, particularly in adolescent women. The changes these relationships suggest may benefit the next generation of girls.

Intergenerational Transmission of Female Genital Cutting: Community and Marriage Dynamics

OBJECTIVE

This study examined how characteristics of households and communities are linked with the intergenerational transmission of gender inequality and particularly female genital cutting (FGC).

BACKGROUND

Human capital perspectives suggest that socioeconomic inequality predicts FGC continuation. This study contributes to discussions of institutional change by examining the association of decisions to forego FGC with household decision-making patterns and community gender norms.

METHOD

Multilevel logistic regression was deployed to analyze a pooled sample (N = 12,144) of six Demographic and Health Surveys from Burkina Faso, Egypt, Guinea, Kenya, Mali and Nigeria. A series of models examined how decision-making styles, both at the household and community levels (2,524 DHS cluster aggregations), and community levels of FGC, correspond with the risk of having a daughter cut.

RESULTS

Results show that daughters are less likely to be cut when parents make key household decisions jointly. Autonomous decision-making by women at the community level was associated with lower odds of daughters being cut. However, at the community level, the impacts of women's household decision-making were attenuated when FGC was more prevalent.

CONCLUSION

The findings suggest that women's decision-making status is an important factor in FGC abandonment although that association is less robust when FGC is highly institutionalized. This study provides new insights into how women, families, and communities can disrupt the intergenerational transmission of behaviors associated with institutionalized gender inequality.