A sound understanding of evolutionary psychology, while not necessary for Game (the empirical way might just work), is essential for any theorizing, as well as for setting any mid- or long-term goals for men.

One big problem is that what much of what many people believe about the evopsych fundamentals is still based on the early, '70s, sociobiology, which is dated. The grandfather of evolutionary psychology had too much of a political bias towards the Right, to be called strictly scientific. Nevertheless, it initiated a new field of science. Later on, there were Left-wing approaches that bent the stick to the other side. Right now, we thankfully have a situation where things are becoming solid.

The mournful victims of the advances in evolutionary psychology in the past two decades, are the notions of marriage, family and paternity. If you are the type that thinks that a stable family structure, with a mother and a father (even in the context of polygamy, one father with many wives), is the "natural" way to raise children, you will find yourself increasingly challenged to back up your claims in light of the modern understanding.

The basic idea when examining the origins of the human mating system, which in retrospect is apparent, is that early humans did not know that copulation led to pregnancy. Even when the connection between copulation and pregnancy began to emerge, the exact mechanism, the one-sperm one-ovum synergy, remained unknown until very recently. So sexuality was not exclusively linked to reproduction, but had other, social functions as well.

Even today, there remain tribes that have the perception of “partible paternity”. They consider that “a fetus is made of accumulated semen”, so a woman engages in sex with many men. “She’ll solicit “contributions” from the best hunters, the best storytellers, the funniest, the kindest, the best-looking, the strongest, and so on—in the hopes her child will literally absorb the essence of each.” Regarding men’s attitude towards this arrangement, “far from being enraged at having his genetic legacy called into question, a man in these societies is likely to feel gratitude to other men for pitching in to help create and then care for a stronger baby. Far from being blinded by jealousy as the standard narrative predicts, men in these societies find themselves bound to one another by shared paternity for the children they’ve fathered together.”

It is obvious that mothers and their children benefit from having many providers. What is not, but should be, obvious is that partible paternity is an effective way for men to ensure offspring survival. These are hunters we are talking about, and when you run the risk of being eaten by a lion or bitten by a snake, your children are better off having more fathers to care for them. Sure beats the alternative, of their mother needing to become a proper prostitute.

The discussion above quotes Sex at Dawn, the famous left-wing evopsych hit. As such, many might want to dismiss it. That's why I will include another modern view on the fundamentals of human mating, from good-old right-winger Geoffrey Miller, and his book The Mating Mind:

"Many Pleistocene mothers probably had boyfriends. But each woman's boyfriend may not have been the father of any of her offspring. Or he may have been the father only of the most recent baby. Even so, his typical contribution to parenting is debatable. Males may have given some food to females and their offspring, and may have defended them from other men, but as we shall see, anthropologists now view much of this behavior more as courtship effort than paternal investment.

Viewed from the broad sweep of evolution, it is unlikely that male hominids did much direct fathering. In almost all mammals and all primates, females do almost all of the child care, with very little help from males. Males could never be sure which offspring really carried their genes, whereas females could be certain. This uncertainty about paternity leads most male mammals to invest much more in pursuing new sexual opportunities than in taking care of their putative offspring."

So if you thought that those damn hippie charlatans do away with the sacred traditional role of the father by invoking "partible paternity", you see that scientists that are closer to the system might have even less regard for paternity. In fact, G. Miller lets the modern situation in the mating scene get to him, and influence his understanding. Think of modern single mothers, and celibate males, and see how it is echoed in the way his theory continues:

"Like all other primates, the basic social unit among our ancestors was the mother and her children. Women clustered together for mutual help and protection. Male hominids, like males of other primate species, were probably marginal, admitted to the female group only on their forbearance. Herds of young bachelor males probably roamed around living their squalid, sexually frustrated lives, hoping they would eventually grow up enough for some group of women to take them in."

What is interesting in this G. Miller's theory, is that, at the same time, he asserts that "Nature was not red in tooth and claw. Usually, it was really boring.", describing the relaxed, laid-back life of the hunter gatherers. Anyone else here sees any incongruity in describing a generally peaceful life, centered around females, surrounded by "herds of sexually frustrated young bachelors"? That's the cognitive dissonance price you have to pay when you insist on viewing females as the exclusive sexual selectors, even in prehistory.

In this light, the former arrangement of the "pertible paternity", sounds a lot more reasonable and balanced.

Now, I want to get back to the fact that no model even considers marriage, or some long-term pair bond, or even a mid-term pair bond, to be the fundamental mode of human mating. And both recognize that fatherhood has a vastly bigger social component, in contrast to motherhood, which is predominantly biological. I am not talking about any morals here. Nature, whether we agree or not, and given enough time, has a habit of fixating behaviors that are effective into the biology of the species. See then how much better, and more gracefully, these models explain modern women's lack of devotion to a husband, or their tendency to devour their man and greedily channel all his resources and energy to themselves once they acquire exclusivity? They were never built to be attached to a single male in the first place.

One other aspect I want to get back to is the level of sexual opportunities the many-to-many model offers to men. At the cost of sexual exclusivity, it offers sexual variety, which is at a premium for men. You might want to insist that there were prehistoric "alpha" males that got all the women, while most "beta" men remained celibate - but understand that this is a gynocentric view, "we mate only with the best man, you men fight for us, we women select". This description sure suits a gorilla society, but gorillas ended up being under extinction, while homo sapiens thrived.

Conclusion:

Am I attacking paternity with this post? Not at all, quite the opposite. Since women, backed by the system, decided to utterly shit on one of life's most unique miracles, the assumption by the males of the human species of such a great burden and responsibility in order to raise their offspring, the manly thing to do is to change this, not cope with it. And, the situation being so shitty, it is a great opportunity to spare the patchwork, delve into the fundamentals, and question everything. If even fatherhood is being taken away from us, I say we call the bet, and raise the stakes.

Women (along with the elite) decided to rule the world, turning men into second class surfs. Are we going to panicky run and find shelter at the imaginary ideal of a past "Patriarchy" - which was just the previous form of female dominance? For some of us that won't do. We want it all - and although that sometimes we need to compromise in life, we should never compromise our theory.

The ultimate victory is not winning the game. This we need to do "only" in order to sustain ourselves. The ultimate victory is imposing our own game. And while we are not there yet, fearlessly delving into knowledge is the first prerequisite.

-Adam

P.S. Although in this post I focus on some of their limitations, Sex at Dawn and The Mating Mind are excellent books, the top two that I would recommended for a modern understanding of evolutionary psychology.

P.S.2 It should go without saying, that I don't suggest that we can implement lithic-age social practices in the modern world. Once more, I am discussing about understanding the fundamentals, what we do with them is another, longer, discussion.