The evolution of fatherhood

© 2010 – 2022 Gwen Dewar, Ph.D., all rights reserved

In popular accounts of evolutionary psychology, men are cads.

Males–the story goes–maximize their reproductive success by mating with equally many females as possible.

If they can't get extra mating opportunities, and so males might make the best of a "bad" situation by supporting their kids–assuming they tin can be certain of paternity.

But, as a rule, males are expected to invest more in mating than in parenting. Past spending "too much" of their resource on kids, males lose opportunities to spread their genes far and wide.

Cynical? Silly? It isn't complete nonsense.

It's true that females—especially female person mammals—invest more free energy in parental care.

Information technology's true that female reproductive success is less limited by the number of partners a female has and more express by the amount of nutrient she tin can larn.

It'south also true that females have footling trouble identifying their own offspring, and that males are more likely to offering parental care when they tin can be confident of paternity.

But the pop psychology account of fatherhood –i.e., that males are designed by nature to avoid fatherly responsibilities—is simplistic and wrong.

Human fatherhood is extremely variable. In some societies, men provide very trivial parental care. Remove them altogether and piffling changes in the lives of their children.

In other societies, good fathers play a crucial part. Their economic back up makes a big difference. Their emotional support tin can, also.

Furthermore, these men really want to support their children. And, not surprisingly, opens in a new window men who similar children are more attractive to women.

Are these human being males an abnormality of nature? Hardly.

Ninety percentage of bird species are monogamous. In most of these species, males share as in providing food and protection to their nestlings. Take these males away and the offspring commonly suffer. The chicks are less probable to survive, and if they do survive, they don't grow as large (Wolf et al 1988).

Paternal care among mammals is far less widespread. The weirdest, nearly newsworthy discovery is that some male fruit bats lactate. Do they actually feed infants? Information technology's plausible, but still unconfirmed (Kunz and Hosken 2008).

What's not controversial is that helpful fathers are relatively common amid certain groups of mammals. Among the primates and the carnivores, up to twoscore% of genera testify some course of paternal care (Kleiman and Malcolm 1981).

In wolves, foxes, and wild dogs, this paternal intendance is straight and crucial. Fathers share with mothers the tasks of hunting, feeding, cleaning, and protecting the cubs. They play with their cubs, also (Malcolm 1985).

And amidst some monogamous New World monkeys, fathers perform similarly important roles. Marmoset and tamarin fathers carry their immature on their backs and share food. Owl monkeys, titi monkeys, and Goeldi's monkeys do the same (Shradin et al 2003).

Other cases of paternal care are less dramatic, but still notable.

Male Coquerel's sifakas, fabricated famous past the preschool TV show "Zooboomafoo," accept been observed grooming and holding infants (Bastian and Brockman 2007). In other lemur species, fathers guard and babysit their immature (Vasey 2007; Fietz and Dausmann 2003).

Even amid opens in a new windowcapuchin monkeys –who aren't known for paternal care–fathers may protect infants from attack by other, infanticidal males.

Onetime Earth monkeys provide these protective services as well. And in 1 group of savannah baboons, researchers establish that males were more probable to support youngsters involved in daily squabbles if they were the genetic fathers of those juveniles (Buchan et al 2003).

What about our closest living relatives–the African apes? Gorilla fathers are protective and playful with their offspring, but that'due south as far as it goes. Chimpanzee and bonobo males are uninvolved.

And that underscores an important lesson for understanding the evolution of fatherhood in humans:

When we wait for comparative data about behavior, we don't necessarily find the most instructive parallels amongst our closest living relatives.

Behavior evolves quickly, so that 2 closely-related species may show dramatic differences in behavior. And quite distantly-related species may show remarkable behavioral similarities—if they run into similar ecological conditions.

So when it comes to paternal care, the devoted dad who feeds his kids and walks them to school each twenty-four hours has more in common with a wolf than a chimpanzee.

Perhaps even more importantly, individuals can respond flexibly to local atmospheric condition. Some situations make it easier or more than rewarding for men to support their children.

By studying different local environmental conditions, we may improve understand why some men act similar fatherly wolves and others human activity more like aloof chimpanzees.

This is the work of behavioral ecologists and biological anthropologists, and you can read most it in a new volume by Peter Gray and Kermyt Anderson.

Fatherhood: Evolution and Human being Paternal Behavior

In opens in a new windowFatherhood: Evolution and Human Paternal Behavior, Grayness and Anderson review paternal behavior effectually the world and consider the patterns that emerge.

They brainstorm with a cursory overview of fatherhood in nonhuman primates and a discussion of how anthropologists are reconstructing the family life of our ancestors.

And then, with an accent on Western social club, they comprehend topics similar marriage, fertility, paternity, cantankerous-cultural studies of father involvement, stride-fathering, sexuality, health, and the biochemical changes that babies make to a male parent's brain.

Gray and Anderson note that the old view of the hunter-gatherer family unit—that fathers hunt to provide meat for their kids—has been overturned by recent research on gimmicky foragers.

Men hunt, but their kids don't get any special benefits from it. The hunters share their meat equally with everyone in the camp. And a hunter's motivation has more to do with building a reputation among other adults—and attracting potential mates—than with feeding their families.

Still, hunter-gatherer men are some of the most involved fathers in the world.

During the first year of an infant'southward life, mothers are to the lowest degree able to forage for themselves.

Fathers bring abode extra calories—including meat, honey, and plant foods—and their contributions may be crucial if the mother lacks the help of other shut kin (Marlowe 2005).

Hunter-gatherer men are also relatively involved in child intendance, spending about 5% of their time holding infants.

Overall, hunter-gatherer fathers have more intimate (and less domineering) relationships with their kids than do men from horticultural, agricultural, and herding societies. These latter societies are not likely to encounter with the approval of the modern, sensitive, involved dad. Fathers are distant. Their main roles seem to concern discipline, condition, and providing vocational training to their sons.

They don't always provide much economic support, either.

In one analysis of cross-cultural data, researchers found that in 68% of the societies sampled, the death of a father had no impact on his children'southward survival. In general, grandmothers were more than important (Sear and Mace 2008).

And so what accounts for the differences between hunter-gatherer men and men in other traditional societies?

Cross-cultural assay (e.1000., Katz and Konner 1981; Hewlett 1992; Marlowe 2000) suggests that hunter-gatherer men show higher father involvement because

• Females tend to contribute a big portion of calories to the diet (which among other things means that mothers demand more help with kid care)
• Husbands and wives spend more time together (foraging, sleeping together, eating together, etc.)
• Most marriages are monogamous (non polygynous, then children don't accept to share their fathers with children produced by other wives)
• Men spend less time engaged in warfare (which takes them away from their families and may socialize them in ways that are inconsistent with sensitive, involved fathering)
• Men don't accrue much wealth (when they do, they are more than likely to take multiple wives and engage in warfare to defend their wealth)

Gray and Anderson don't discuss all these factors in depth. Instead, they give considerable attention to these issues:

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Marital status

Men contribute less paternal care when they aren't married to the children'due south mothers. Later on a divorce, some men retreat from their children's lives, but the stereotype of the deadbeat dad is misleading: The aforementioned dads that pass up to pay child support are usually men who provided trivial support before they got divorced.

Confidence of paternity

Contrary to what some studies take suggested, men who are confident about paternity are commonly correct. And not surprisingly, American men who have doubts most paternity are less likely to back up the kids.

What might interest y'all more than is the manner that some cultures take adjusted to the trouble of low paternity confidence. In cultures were men are less likely to exist the genetic fathers of their wives' children, men channel their wealth to their nephews or nieces, not their putative offspring (e.g., Hartung 1985).

Even more remarkable is the tradition of "partible paternity," in which "primary" fathers share paternal responsibility with other, "secondary" fathers (Walker et al 2010).

Hormones

Hormones don't affect mothers simply. Fatherhood is associated with hormonal changes, besides.

Studies advise that men involved with the care of young children experience a driblet in testosterone levels (Gettler et al 2011; Gettler et al 2012).

Men exposed to infants may likewise experience elevated levels of prolactin, the hormone that stimulates parental beliefs in a diversity of birds and mammals. And dads with higher prolactin levels are more responsive to babies (Fleming et al 2002). So information technology seems that in that location is a positive feedback loop. Fathers who alive intimately with children go more biologically prepared and willing to take care of them.

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If hormones intrigue you, you lot'll savour Greyness and Anderson'south chapter on the means that parenthood and infants alter a man'southward brain. And of course the transition to parenting isn't only about happy effects. Gray and Anderson discuss disruptions, as well. Like mothers, fathers may endure from postpartum depression, especially if their spouses are depressed. There is as well prove that living with an infant inhibits a man's sex bulldoze.

More than about the evolution of fatherhood

Gray and Anderson'southward accessible, conversational book volition appeal to readers interested in a broad look at the consequences of fatherhood for both children and men, particularly if your focus is on men living in modern Western societies.

And there's more than skilful stuff to read almost the anthropology and evolution of fatherhood.

Behavioral ecologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy is well-known for her cooperative breeding hypothesis. She is also an outstandingly clear and engaging writer.

In her book, opens in a new windowMothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding, Hrdy presents a compelling statement for the idea that humans evolved in the context of communal kid intendance.

Her chapter "Volition the existent Pleistocene family please pace forward?" is an excellent overview of the variable role of fathers and includes an extended discussion of the physiological furnishings of child intendance on men.

In that location you volition also find a fascinating discussion of "partible paternity" in more than one man claims paternal responsibility for the aforementioned kid. This occurs amid several different peoples of the Amazon basin, in societies where fathers contribute crucial calories to their children and also protect them from loftier rates of intergroup violence. In these situations, it seems, fathers are so important, kids benefit from having more than one (Walker et al 2010).

Anthropologist Barry Hewlett has devoted his career to studying childhood and fatherhood. He discusses partible paternity–and many other topics concerning the evolution of fatherhood–in "Fathers in forager, farmer, and pastoral cultures," a affiliate actualization in the multidisciplinary academic anthology,  The Role of the Father in Kid Development, 4th edition (2004).

I besides highly recommend Hewlett'southward excellent review of the anthropology of father involvement,"Culture, history and sex: Anthropological perspectives on father involvement," opens in a new windowwhich you lot can download by clicking here.opens PDF file

For a curtailed, well-organized overview of male person parental care in nonhuman mammals and dissimilar homo societies, check out Chapter 17 in Melvin Konner'due south opens in a new windowThe Evolution of Childhood: Relationships, Emotion, Mind.

Like Hewlett, Konner is an expert on infancy and child intendance amongst hunter-gatherers.

And if you lot have a background in biology and development—and are seriously interested in the development of parenting in nonhuman animals—Clutton-Brock's 1991 textbook, opens in a new windowThe Development of Parental Care still rates as an essential, comprehensive introduction to the literature.

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References: The evolution of fatherhood

Bastian ML and Brockman DK. 2007. Paternal Care in Propithecus verreauxi coquereli . International Journal of Primatology 28(7): 305-313.

Buchan JC, Alberts SC, Silk JB, and Altmann J. 2003. Truthful paternal care in a multi-male primate lodge. Nature. 425(6954):179-81.

Fietz J and Dausmann KH. 2003. Costs and potential benefits of parental care in the nocturnal fatty-tailed dwarf lemur (Cheirogaleus medius). Folia Primatol (Basel). 2003 74(five-6):246-58.

Gettler LT, McKenna JJ, McDade TW, Agustin SS, and Kuzawa CW. 2012. Does Cosleeping Contribute to Lower Testosterone Levels in Fathers? Prove from the Philippines. PLoS ONE seven (9): e41559 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0041559.

Gettler LT, Feranil AB, McDade TW, and Kuzawa CW. 2011. Longitudinal evidence that fatherhood decreases testosterone in human being males. PNAS 108(29):16194-16199.

Hartung J. 1985. Matrilineal inheritance: New theory and analysis. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 8:661-688.

Hewlett BS 2000. Culture, history and sex: Anthrpological perspectives on male parent involvement. Marriage and Family Review, 29, 324-340.

Kleiman DG and Malcolm JR. 1981. The development of male person parental investment in mammals. In: DJ Gubernick and PH Klopfer (eds), Parental care in mammals, pp. 347-387. Plenum Press: New York.

Kunz Th and Hosken DJ. 2008. Male lactation: why, why not and is it care? Trends in Environmental and Evolution 24(2): 80-85. Malcolm JR. 1985. Paternal care in canids. American Zoologist 25(3):853-856.

Marlowe, F.W. 2005. Who tends Hadza children? In: B. Hewlett and M. Lamb (eds), Hunter-Gatherer Childhoods: Evolutionary, Developmental and Cultural Perspectives. New Brunswick: Transaction, pp 177-190.

Schradin C, Reeder DM, Mendoza SP, and Anzenberger G. 2003. Prolactin and paternal care: comparing of three species of monogamous new globe monkeys (Callicebus cupreus, Callithrix jacchus, and Callimico goeldii). J Comp Psychol. 117(2):166-75. Schradin C. and Anzenberger G. 1999. Prolactin, the Hormone of Paternity News Physiol Sci 14: 223-231.

Sear R and Mace R. 2008. Who keeps children live? A review of the effects of kin on child survival. Development and Human Beliefs 29(1): 1-18.

Walker RS, Flynn MV, and Hill KR. 2010. Evolutionary history of partible paternity in lowland South America. PNAS 107(45):19195-19200.

Wolf LE, Ketterson ED, and Nolan V Jr. 1988. Paternal influence on growth and survival of dark-eyed junco immature: Practise parental males benefit? Animal Behaviour 36: 1601-1618.

Vasey N. 2007. The breeding system of wild scarlet ruffed lemurs (Varecia rubra): a preliminary written report. Primates 48: 41–54.

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