Evolutionary Basis of Marriage

What Anthropology says about marriage, and how when compared to today’s perception of marriage its all quite hilarious.

Its easy to find yourself married and never have any idea why. Know this: Your marriage stems from a prehistorical homo sapien tradition at the heart of which is not surprisingly what is still at the heart of marriages today: Men provide resources in exchange for sex, while women raise children and, well, grant access.

But HOW did this all begin? It all has to do with our big skulls.

Prior to our fortuitous evolution from apes, we had, as pictured, smaller skulls. Science agrees that the long process of evolutionary change eventually brought about a significant enlargement in our skull size that began rapidly killing our female human ancestors. The new, cruel birthing process nearly wiped out our female population due to these large and bizarre head of ours. Luckily our species exists today because certain females ensured our survival through the rare miracle of pre-mature birth (pre-mature compared to before). 

Our baby’s premature skulls were not as fully formed as they used to be. After all baby’s heads are somewhat “mushy,” for those who know babies. And of course this mushy-ness, to dumb down science and more quickly get to the point, means that we have to spend much more time and put much more intensive effort into raising human babies than we do for ape babies. These “pre-mature births” means serious assistance is needed. Baby chimps are born and ready to go (comparatively), while baby humans are utterly dependent.

A dependent human baby taking a taxi

 Because of this difference in dependency, ape mothers, while spending years selflessly protecting and nurturing their children (as well documented by Jane Goodall) nonetheless don’t need much outside assistance to raise the baby ape. By contrast, human mothers have a lot of difficulty. The efforts required in child rearing and also in securing food, shelter, and other basics would be impossible for one mother. Mothers needed someone else to help her and her child survive this period of infancy, and she needs the same person, one who she can depend on. That’s where “fatherhood” comes in. Ultimately it becomes a loose contract. I, the male, will provide for you to assist the raising of this child, and you, the female will provide an outlet for my natural sexual urges. (Wedding bells tolling in the distance).

In contrast to human society, apes don’t have purposely recurring partners. Why would they? Research shows that most apes don’t know who their father is, and most females have no clue who it was that one drunken night in the tree. They follow estrus-rut cycles after all, which doesn’t leave a lot of choice in the sexual process. But we are different. We have “fathers,” and it is all because of sex.

A young chimp wondering who his father is. 

Again, sex: Unlike Chimps, but exactly like Bonobo Monkey’s (also our close relative), we humans have sex for pleasure (or male validation). How does it not make sense that men are deeply perhaps only interested in sex? No other species has any comparable institution of fatherhood because no other species has young which require so much care, i.e. no other species has “fathers” which innately, or naturally, want to or need to care for the young. And anthropologists suggest that men had as many “wives” as they could adequately provide resources for, and why would they not? More partners, more sex.  

Crudely:     (Premature babies)  +  (higher maintenance)  +  (Sex and men)  =  The basis for holy matrimony

Obviously cultures throughout time have helped us look at marriage differently. But in order to keep our humanness in the context of our 2 million year old people, we ought to remember the basis of marriage as rooted in men’s sexuality and women’s child needs, and then after perceiving this clearly, don’t say “I do,” say “ooh-ooh.”