Pregnancy, giving birth, breastfeeding. The bonds formed during these times would mean mothers to be more likely to safeguard the child than assault an aggressor with reckless abandon.
I don’t really buy any of the hunter gatherer stuff, but in this idea a man can’t breatfeed a child, so given a threat the man should go out, and the mother stay with the child. Either could do the defending, but only one can do the mothering.
Good question.
It’s a thing that evolved among humans over millions of years. Men evolved bigger stronger muscles, because women are more vulnerable during pregnancy, and infants need their mother to survive.
Making men more available for the more dangerous task of protection and hunting.
So by the numbers, we evolved those roles, because it improved chances of survival for the group.
Males are more aggressive, because it actually help the group to survive short term attacks and hunting for food, and women are on average more cautious because that helps infants and the group survive long term.
It all boils down to survival of our ancestors.
If they are vulnerable during pregnancy, why wouldn’t the woman evolve stronger muscles? Then they could also make the men care for infants. I guess suckling would still be a woman thing but that doesn’t take the whole day right.
Being pregnant takes lots of caloric energy, and is an inherently vulnerable time.
Not saying women are less, just saying calories are being spent, energy is being focused. Many pregnant women have accomplished insane thing and overcome incredible hardship during their term.
Women were functionally disabled by having children, spending a significant amount of time either pregnant, or breastfeeding. This makes them the natural parent to focus on raising children. Also, in nature, losing 1 parent has a relatively minor drop in survival chances compared to losing 2.
This ends up with men being more “disposable” than women. If 1 group needs to flee with the children, while the other holds off an attack, it’s most sensible for the men to defend. The women would provide a final line of defence.
I would like to add that it is beneficial for us as a species to lose men over women. Losing all but a few woman can mean the death of that society, whereas that’s not true for men, as men have a much higher capacity to generate multiple offspring. I.E. If you have 50 men and 2 women the capacity to bulk the population is greatly limited, if it were 50 women and 2 men, you could effectively double the population within a year. This means it makes way more sense to let men die off over women from a species survival standpoint.
This also massively effects the risk/reward balance. Ultimately, a woman’s ability to have children is limited by her biology. The limit on men is FAR higher.
For women, once they hit the resource requirements to support 2 dozen children, there was relatively little real gain. A successful man could (in theory) have hundreds of children. Genghis khan being the most egregious example. Taking large risks for large gains makes sense for men, in a way that just doesn’t for women.
In your third option, why would the men protect the group and the woman protect the children?
Pregnancy, giving birth, breastfeeding. The bonds formed during these times would mean mothers to be more likely to safeguard the child than assault an aggressor with reckless abandon.
Wouldn’t safeguarding mean they still need to attack an aggressor?
I don’t really buy any of the hunter gatherer stuff, but in this idea a man can’t breatfeed a child, so given a threat the man should go out, and the mother stay with the child. Either could do the defending, but only one can do the mothering.
You are 100% right, the downvote must be some creationist.
Good question.
It’s a thing that evolved among humans over millions of years. Men evolved bigger stronger muscles, because women are more vulnerable during pregnancy, and infants need their mother to survive.
Making men more available for the more dangerous task of protection and hunting.
So by the numbers, we evolved those roles, because it improved chances of survival for the group.
Males are more aggressive, because it actually help the group to survive short term attacks and hunting for food, and women are on average more cautious because that helps infants and the group survive long term.
It all boils down to survival of our ancestors.
If they are vulnerable during pregnancy, why wouldn’t the woman evolve stronger muscles? Then they could also make the men care for infants. I guess suckling would still be a woman thing but that doesn’t take the whole day right.
Being pregnant takes lots of caloric energy, and is an inherently vulnerable time.
Not saying women are less, just saying calories are being spent, energy is being focused. Many pregnant women have accomplished insane thing and overcome incredible hardship during their term.
Women were functionally disabled by having children, spending a significant amount of time either pregnant, or breastfeeding. This makes them the natural parent to focus on raising children. Also, in nature, losing 1 parent has a relatively minor drop in survival chances compared to losing 2.
This ends up with men being more “disposable” than women. If 1 group needs to flee with the children, while the other holds off an attack, it’s most sensible for the men to defend. The women would provide a final line of defence.
I would like to add that it is beneficial for us as a species to lose men over women. Losing all but a few woman can mean the death of that society, whereas that’s not true for men, as men have a much higher capacity to generate multiple offspring. I.E. If you have 50 men and 2 women the capacity to bulk the population is greatly limited, if it were 50 women and 2 men, you could effectively double the population within a year. This means it makes way more sense to let men die off over women from a species survival standpoint.
This also massively effects the risk/reward balance. Ultimately, a woman’s ability to have children is limited by her biology. The limit on men is FAR higher.
For women, once they hit the resource requirements to support 2 dozen children, there was relatively little real gain. A successful man could (in theory) have hundreds of children. Genghis khan being the most egregious example. Taking large risks for large gains makes sense for men, in a way that just doesn’t for women.