The Red Queen_ Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature - Matt Ridley [102]
In pre-agricultural societies, violence may well have been a route to sexual success especially in times of turmoil. In many different cultures, the captives taken in war have tended to be women rather than men. But echoes linger into modern times. Armies have often been motivated as much by the opportunities victory would present for rape as they have been by patriotism or fear. Generals, recognizing this, turned blind eyes to the excesses of their troops and were sure to provide camp followers. Even in this century access to prostitutes has been a more or less recognized purpose of short leave in navies. And rape accompanies war still. In East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), during a nine-month occupation by West Pakistani troops in 1971, up to four hundred thousand women may have been raped by soldiers.53 In Bosnia in 1992, the reports of organized rape camps for Serbian soldiers became too frequent to ignore. Don Brown, an anthropologist at Santa Barbara, recalls his days in the army: ‘Men talked about sex night and day; they never talked about power.’54
Monogamous Democrats
The nature of the human male, then, is to take opportunities, if they are granted him, for polygamous mating, and to use wealth, power and violence as means to sexual ends in the competition with other men – though usually not at the expense of sacrificing a secure monogamous relationship. It is not an especially flattering picture, and it depicts a nature that is very much at odds with modern ethical preferences: preferences for monogamy, fidelity, equality, justice and freedom from violence. But my task is description, not prescription. And there is nothing inevitable about human nature. Katharine Hepburn, in The African Queen, addressed Humphrey Bogart thus: ‘Nature, Mr Allnutt, is what we are put in this world to rise above.’
Besides, the long interlude of human polygamy, which began in Babylon nearly four thousand years ago, has largely come to an end in the west. Official concubines became unofficial mistresses, mistresses became secrets kept from wives. In 1988, political power, far from being a ticket to polygamy, was jeopardized by any suggestion of infidelity. Whereas the Chinese emperor Fei-ti once kept ten thousand women in his harem, Gary Hart, running for the presidency of the most powerful nation on earth, could not get away with two.
What happened? Christianity? Hardly. It coexisted with polygamy for centuries and its strictures were as cynically self-interested as any layman’s. Women’s rights? They came too late. A Victorian woman had as much and as little say in her husband’s affairs as a medieval one. No historian can yet explain what changed, but guesses include the idea that kings came to need internal allies enough that they had to surrender despotic power. Democracy, of a sort, was born. Once monogamous men had a chance to vote against polygamists (and who does not want to tear down a competitor, however much he might also like to emulate him?), their fate was sealed.
Despotic power, which came with civilization, has faded again. It looks increasingly like an aberration in the history of humanity. Before ‘civilization’ and since democracy, men have been unable to accumulate the sort of power that enabled the most successful of them to be promiscuous despots. The best they could hope for in the Pleistocene was one or two faithful wives and a few affairs if their hunting or political skills were especially great. The best they can hope for now is a good-looking younger mistress and a devoted wife who is traded in every decade or so. We’re back to square one.
This chapter has kept its focus resolutely on the male. In doing so it may