Steven Pinker -- How the Mind Works - Hampshire High Italian ...

476 | HOW THE MIND WORKSother desires are stronger or because tactics of self-control (see Chapter6) have been put into effect. Men's sexual tastes can be calibrated andoverruled depending on the man's attractiveness, the availability of partners,and his assessment of the costs of a dalliance.HUSBANDS AND WIVESIn evolutionary terms, a man who has a short-term liaison is betting thathis illegitimate child will survive without his help or is counting on acuckolded husband to bring it up as his own. For the man who can affordit, a surer way to maximize progeny is to seek several wives and invest inall their children. Men should want many wives, not just many sex partners.And in fact, men in power have allowed polygyny in more thaneighty percent of human cultures. Jews practiced it until Christian timesand outlawed it only in the tenth century. Mormons encouraged it untilit was outlawed by the U.S. government in the late nineteenth century,and even today there are thought to be tens of thousands of clandestinepolygynous marriages in Utah and other western states. Whenever polygynyis allowed, men seek additional wives and the means to attract them.Wealthy and prestigious men have more than one wife; ne'er-do-wellshave none. Typically a man who has been married for some time seeks ayounger wife. The senior wife remains his confidante and partner andruns the household; the junior one becomes his sexual interest.In foraging societies wealth cannot accumulate, but a few fierce men,skilled leaders, and good hunters may have two to ten wives. With theinvention of agriculture and massive inequality, polygyny can reach ridiculousproportions. Laura Betzig has documented that in civilization aftercivilization, despotic men have implemented the ultimate male fantasy: aharem of hundreds of nubile women, closely guarded (often by eunuchs)so no other man can touch them. Similar arrangements have popped upin India, China, the Islamic world, sub-Saharan Africa, and the Americas.King Solomon had a thousand concubines. Boman emperors called themslaves, and medieval European kings called them serving maids.Polyandry, by comparison, is vanishingly rare. Men occasionally sharea wife in environments so harsh that a man cannot survive without awoman, but the arrangement collapses when conditions improve. Eskimoshave sporadically had polyandrous marriages, but the co-husbands