Compare and contrast social and biological approaches to the study of kinship

(and eventual reproduction) of others who share at least some of the same genes namely, close relatives such as brothers, sisters, nephews, and nieces. Thus Hamilton argued that the concept of fitness should be inclusive of the capacity for altruistic behaviours that favour kin. Later researchers have used the term kin selection to refer to the process by which natural selection acts on inclusive fitness. In essence, kin selection theory proposes a biological base for kin-favouring behaviour. Altruistic behaviours in animals usually occur between relatives, but they can also occur between members of groups. These kinds of behaviours have also been observed in humans. Socio-biologists also try to account for marriage patterns such as monogamy and polygamy and from their point of view it is not likely that they require special genes or genotypes for their transmission. What is important is whether one or the other were better adapted to prevailing environmental circumstances during historical time, where ‘by being better adapted’ means that the individuals whose actions result in the prevailing patterns are able to rear their offspring more successfully to maturity and transmit their ideas to them. This means that socio-biologists believe that kinship patterns are adapted to environmental circumstances.

Marriage patterns, which are not the properties of individuals but of groups, have been argued by socio-biologists to relate closely to environmental conditions. An example is resource-based polygyny. In any social group what matters is the distribution of scarce resources among males. If all the males in a group have more or less equal territory size and ownership of resources, then females will be best off pairing individually with individual males; each female thus obtains for herself an opportunity for successful reproduction. However, if as a result of competition, some males have few or no resources whereas others have very plentiful resources, then it will benefit any reproducing female to share a successful male with other females rather than practise monogamy with an unsuccessful male. Resource-based polygyny does in indeed seem to be the norm. among the Australians described by Meggitt (1962) men were sometimes quite old by the time they had accumulated enough resources to marry a second, often much younger girl. In many Moslem countries today, it is only the wealthy who can marry more than one wife. Sociobiologists have been criticised for being biological determinists as they place a lot of emphasis on the kinship patterns as being adapted to the environment and therefore

3

do not allow variation caused by cultural differences. They also ignore the fact that so much of human behaviour is learned rather than genetically "wired in," or they disregard the force of human culture. These outcries fuelled the "nature versus nurture" debate in the study of human behaviour.

The larger idea of interpreting all primate behaviours as end points in evolutionary adaptation has also been questioned and it has been pointed out that many primate behaviours are far more complex, varied, and context-dependent than sociobiological theory suggests. The concepts of fitness and kin selection are central tenets of evolutionary ecology, a field devoted to the study of how evolutionary processes influence social behaviour. Evolutionary ecologists maintain that social behaviour, including that in humans, is influenced by natural selection. However, most of them veer away from the hard-line genetic determinism of earlier sociobiologists and discount the earlier socio-biological statements regarding human gender patterns. The notion of natural selection was first proposed by Darwin in 1859 and later refined through developments in genetics. Natural selection refers to differential reproduction, or the tendency of certain individuals in a particular environment to be more likely to produce more fertile offspring than other individuals. Those who reproduce the most have the highest fitness (defined as reproductive success), such that their genes are passed on to the next generation with the greatest frequency. Those traits (or, on another level, those genes) that favour fitness in a certain environment will be positively selected. Over time, then, natural selection operates on the basis of genetic variation (brought about by mutation and recombination), ultimately bringing about evolutionary change. In this case researchers compare nonhuman primates with humans and they also try to analyse fossil records to look at group or even kinship patterns. Barbara Smuts (1995) has advanced some very interesting ideas on the evolutionary origins of patriarchy, or male dominance. She argues that nonhuman and human primates seek to maximize their fitness and that males and females have different reproductive strategies. In short, males go for "mate quantity" whereas females pursue "mate quality". Not seeing human behaviour as "genetically programmed"; rather, she argues that "natural selection has favoured in humans the potential to develop and express any one of a wide range of reproductive strategies, depending on environmental conditions".

4

Fox maintained that a uniquely human innovation was to combine "alliance" with "descent" in one system. He suggests that the birth of full human kinship is simultaneously the birth of female subordination. Going back to hominid evolution, Fox places the "hunting transition" at around the time that Australopithecus was becoming H. babilis; certainly it was well under way by early H. erectus. They began to hunt with tools and they also began to develop a division of labour by sex. Each sex specialized in what it was physically best able to do: Men went for hunting, women for gathering. Before this time, presumably everyone foraged for him or herself and there was occasional hunting of small mammals and some food sharing, as among chimps now. But the transition to sex-specialized hunting and gathering capitalized upon and intensified an arrangement that was already present in the hominid social repertoire (and exists among nonhuman primates today)namely, coalitions of kin. This new order required heightened cooperation, which was provided by groups of kin. With the new sexual division of labour came a trade in food between male and female, and this trade changed their relations with each other. Before this time there were all-male associations and all-female (with young) associations, but adult males and females had little to do with one another except for interactions involving sex and male protection of females. With the sexual division of labour, however, men and women needed one another in a new way: for food, for the trade of vegetables and meat. This means that kinship ties became more important and this includes ties with non-biologically related individuals. Older dominant males (in a male hierarchy) seek to acquire many females; they are still more or less headed for polygyny, or perhaps some groups were polygynously mating before anyway. This situation induces not only competition among the older males but a shortage of females for the younger males. Tensions mount. But males can’t just fight it out anymore; they need each other too much for the cooperative hunt and, later, for the exchange of other specialized services. Some way of regulating mating and access to the women (with their vegetables) has to emerge. And it does: Older males get to be in charge of allocating females as mates. Younger males eventually get women, but only by obeying a set of rules (which become marriage rules) that place the power of allocation of women in the hands of the older males. Among humans, young males become dependent on older males for mates (now brides). In a sense, women became even more valuable to males. As though their sex and veggies were

5