Feminists
Related: About this forumIs Biology Woman’s Destiny?
Evelyn Reed wrote some of the best anthropological studies on women in prehistory and how family relationships evolved over time. I recommend her book, Womans Evolution: From Matriarchal Clan to Patriarchal Family, which is meticulously researched and blows evo psych out of the water. She's a Marxist scientist, but even if that isn't your cup of tea, you will get a lot out of this book.
Anyway, here is a selection from from another of her works, Is Biology Women's Destiny? since Evo Psych has reared its head again on DU.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/reed-evelyn/1971/biology-destiny.htm
<snip>
There are a number of primitive communities scattered around the world where old matriarchal practices and customs survive to a greater or lesser extent. These are usually called matrilineal communities because the line of kinship and descent is still traced through the mothers alone. But the matter goes deeper than this. In such regions the father-family is still poorly developed. A man may be recognized as the husband of the mother and yet not be recognized as the father of her children or, if recognized, has only an extremely tenuous connection with them. As this is usually expressed, the children belong to the mother and her kin.
This means that the children belong not only to the mothers but also to the brothers of such a matrilineal community. In other words, the mothers brothers, or maternal uncles, still perform the functions of fatherhood for their clan sisters children that in patriarchal societies have been taken over by the father for his wifes children. For this reason such a community is sometimes called the avunculate. The term avunculate refers to the mothers brother as the term patriarch refers to the father.
These matrilineal communities are survivals from the matriarchal epoch and, however much they have been altered since the patriarchal takeover, testify to the priority of the earlier social system. In fact, by the time anthropology began in the last century, most primitive clans had already become altered in their composition to a certain degree. Pairing couples, or what Morgan called pairing families, had made their appearance in communities that had formerly been composed solely of clan mothers and brothers (or sisters and brothers).
But the pairing family, which was still a part of the collectivism maternal clan system, was a totally different kind of family than the patriarchal family which came in with class society. A new man from outside the clan was added to the maternal group-the husband of the woman who became his wife. However, while the husbands participated in providing for their wives and children, so long as the clan system prevailed the husbands remained subordinate and even incidental to the mothers brothers. The mothers brothers remained the basic economic partners of their clan sisters and guardians of their sisters children.
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This concept of woman having a biological imperative for mating with a provider for her children is bunk. That's not how families were structured, and this is observed in contemporary tribal cultures.
JEFF9K
(1,935 posts)Starry Messenger
(32,375 posts)LeftyMom
(49,212 posts)I bet his reply is going to be sweet enough to stitch onto a sampler.
JEFF9K
(1,935 posts)I stated a fact. Men tend to be more attracted to younger women and women tend to be more attracted to wealthy men.
Men have no monopoly on shallowness.
You have evidence to the contrary?
LeftyMom
(49,212 posts)JEFF9K
(1,935 posts)Parade Magazine's resident genius, Marilyn vos Savant. And she's a woman!
LeftyMom
(49,212 posts)This has got to be a social experiment of some sort.
Starry Messenger
(32,375 posts)You're in the Feminist Group, not GD. We have a statement of purpose, I suggest you read it.
Since this is, I believe, your first time posting in here, this is a warning that this is a safe haven group.
Postings that violate the purpose of this group are grounds for blocking from posting in this group.
JustAnotherGen
(33,286 posts)Putting this book on my reading list.
Starry Messenger
(32,375 posts)I was just talking with another friend last night who had read it, hopefully we can all spark a revival.
De Leonist
(225 posts)Nothing I've read on Evolutionary Psychology seems to suggest Biological Determinism to me.
I mean certainly yes there are plenty of things to be critical of but the idea that how our species' psychology is not in some way impacted by our evolutionary past seems highly unlikely to me. We are after all animals just like a any other.