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- Matt Ridley, in The Red Queen [Continued from last week] But... why? Taken from another perspective, the far greater puzzle is why people aren't reproducing, or at least nowhere near as much as they could. If there is one thing we can be sure about all our ancestors, it is that they were pretty decent at reproducing! [N.B. The following discussion draws freely from evo-psych sources such as The Red Queen (which candidly admits, 348 pages in, and likely after the time limit for a refund has passed, that "Half the ideas in this book are probably wrong") and Sperm Wars. Keeping firmly in mind that much of it is unproven (and perhaps even unprovable), it remains the most convincing narrative on this topic that I have come across] A straightforward answer, drawing upon ecology, would be the r/K selection theory. Basically, it states that there is a tradeoff between the quantity and quality of offspring - one can have many children, but run the risk of them being malnourished, undereducated or otherwise disadvantaged and unable to find a mate due to lack of resources, or have a few (or the one), and lavish care on them, accepting that a stray tiger (in olden days) or runaway truck (in modern times) could wipe their entire investment out in a single fell stroke. This brings us to a Dr. Gordon Tan bringing up the hoary chestnut of polygamy in no less than The Straits Times, where he reasoned that achieving financial security takes so long nowadays, that it often may be the case that the wife is too old to procreate when the couple can finally actually afford to have a baby. Well, a couple of points here - firstly, it may be argued that, as with many things in life, having kids is a tradeoff; being "unable to afford a baby" shouldn't be confused with "unable to afford a baby while retaining our previous standard of living, and budgeting for all sorts of pricey preschools and enrichment classes of uncertain effectiveness". Secondly, it is slightly surprising that there has, as yet, been precious little outrage expressed at Dr. Tan's suggestion. Perhaps it may be that those opposing his stance feel that it is self-evidently ludicrous (there has been one response in kind, which asks if wives should be entitled to seek another male if it turns out that the husband is infertile; whether this is a symmetric situation is worth some debate). Or it may be that they recognize that polygamy has always been with us, anyway; even if a person isn't of the correct religion to practise it openly, the sufficiently rich and powerful have never had trouble attracting mistresses, or perhaps just very good friends - though it can catch up with them. As for the less-advantaged, serial polygamy a.k.a divorce (though it can get horribly expensive nowadays) and remarriage is still available, as previously discussed.  Awarded for outstanding contributions to marriage (Source: parsha.blogspot.com) Counterbalancing traditional male polygamy is traditional female hypergamy, which is the tendency for girls to "marry up" (otherwise, where could all those extra wives have come from? Some of them, surely, were not completely unwilling). This probably explains why graduate women, and men with less education, have the highest singlehood rates here - and by some distance, I would add. While this is at best a tendency, since I'm sure numerous counterexamples exist, it remains cause for concern at the aggregate level - knowing a female doctor happily married to a male nurse would be of cold comfort to the graduate ladies and less-educated guys left over after graduate men hooked up with less-educated gals. Happily, the trend seems to be correcting itself, as people are adaptive creatures after all, though the wait can be long. Continuing on with this line of thinking, the bumper birth rates in developing countries both today and in the past can partially be explained by the relatively higher status held by males as a group, and perhaps more directly because females found it much tougher, if even possible, to support themselves. These factors encouraging traditional roles were further reinforced by (organized) religion, and it must be said that one of popular religions' greatest successes appears to be in encouraging marriage and children ("be fruitful and multiply") - one could hardly accuse them of liking kids too much! So it seems that, while many of the specific assertions of religions are questionable, they are doing quite well in propagating themselves, thank you. Indeed, having a mate who professes a compatible religious belief is actually an entirely rational act by women (who are more likely to attend services), not least because it means that he is amenable to some degree of social control/support in his behaviour, which should be guided by ancient values regarding fidelity - except, of course, for the well-documented bits about patriarchs with multiple wives, and barren wives gifting handmaidens... So it seems that certain progressive and liberal mores may carry within themselves the seeds of their own demise, or at a mimimum, limitation. And another status-based explanation: These days, it just looks bad to have kids while still young. A twenty-year old couple with a baby screams (rightly or wrongly) "we didn't have anything better to do with our lives"; unfortunately, the early twenties are biologically the prime childbearing years for females, whatever society dictates, with anything after the mid-thirties being far riskier. There is at least one quick-fix solution that conveniently fixes multiple issues at once: do a Kidman and employ a "gestational carrier", or surrogate mum. Whether it will "capture psyches", however, remains to be seen. Still, the bad news is that all these behavioural explanations suggest that the dearth of babies may not be fixable, without drastic upheaval in our present society. People, and women in particular, have found that there are more worthwhile pursuits than having young. Should we change that? Can we? However, seen from another angle, the current environment presents an incredible opportunity for those disposed towards making babies. At no other time in history has it been possible for the average (or below-average) couple (in a mostly-developed country) to have and support, through some combination of scientific advancement and welfare, just about any number of issue, if they were of a mind to. Where once mothers were lost to childbirth and toddlers to various diseases, these scourges are rare in the modern world; if one is prepared to forego luxuries, paychecks can stretch quite far, and in the worst case the state becomes the provider of last resort - the children may be hungry, but assuredly not starve, unlike just about the rest of recorded history. r/K is out of whack. The reproductive market is badly mispriced, my friends; there is an inverse bubble, so to speak. And those who play it well will inherit the earth, more than any of the the amateurs who concentrate on the financial side and exit rich, but a dead-end. Next: Off My Back
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