I suspect this post will get buried in the comments but nevertheless I'm compelled write.

I would have to disagree with the premise of this post. Certainly the 80/20 (or an exaggerated version) rule applied but it had little to do with hypergamy. Considering the social norms at the time I venture to say it was mostly high status men hording women.

I think the surest takeaway from this data is that based on the time period studied, soon thereafter marriage was implemented by society so as to prevent the hording of women by the most high status men to the detriment of the 80% (or apparently 94%).

Its interesting to note that as marriage rates decline in modern society (queue the Marriage 2.0 piece from the sidebar) we are seeing a steady return to the pre-marriage norm of yesteryear. Its an alarming occurrence as it signals some disastrous consequences for society moving forward. The majority of men will be split into two camps: (1) those with soft-harems, and (2) incels. Replacing the family unit will be the single mother family. I'd also postulate there will be a sharp rise in the category two male resorting to raising category one male's unwanted offspring in order to obtain sex from post-wall females who are expelled from the soft-harem.

While I agree that woman (then and now) choose the best males, I wonder if the reason for the dip in reproducing males for several thousand years was because of warfare. Sure it existed before agriculture, but nomadic tribes fighting each other is more skirmish than warfare. Then as agriculture became the norm then need for fighting decreased. But as populations and settlements grew, the need for more land would clash with other settlements.

Now skirmishes between tens of men became battles between hundreds or thousands. With only rudimentary tactics, individual strength/skill was the only way you'd survive.

Now, I've participated in and watched, many boffer/heavy arms fights. Ignoring the organized houses and kingdom battles and focusing on the more disorganized "red vs blue" battles, a pattern emerges.

Despite not knowing any others on their team, a few always take initiative to organize group attacks or defenses. They lead with an air of authority and strength of voice. If their commands are foolish, then those that listen die, sometimes the "commander" too, but not as often as you'd think.

Still, about 1-in-20 fights will be a tier above the rest in skill/size/ prowess. It might be that 6'4" +300lbs of mostly muscle guy that many are hesitant to attack, it could be that very quick lanky guy or the foaming at the mouth berserkers.

My theory is those that survived battle well enough that they weren't crippled or died from their wounds/infection, were not only some of the few men left, but also the best.

Be careful in how far you take this. You're assuming free choice on the part of women in choosing their mates.

It's my understanding that women were allotted in the Inca empire (or at least during periods of the Inca Empire) based on position of the male. The emperor was allotted many, maybe thousands of women, the high nobles were allowed hundreds, all the way down through local government and village elders to the peasants who were allowed only one. As one can imagine, by the time you filled the higher echelons, women were becoming scarce and that meant most peasants didn't get any women or if they did, might have to share her between several men. (this had the obviously predictable result of destabilizing society by producing hordes of young sexually frustrated men with anger issues).

If this was a situation similar to what caused the study's findings, it doesn't support hypergamy as much as it supports flexibility through non-agency. Women may not want it, but they can certainly adapt and thrive in it.

about 50,000 years ago - roughly 4,000 to 8,000 years after the invention of agriculture.

????????

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_agriculture_and_food_technology

Dat hamster though.

lol

It makes sense. I have a friend - trid to explain TRP to him. Wasn't very responsive. He's was dating a hoe, but then she said he's boring. Dumped him, within a week found a new dick, got filled to the brim and 9 months later that dudes bastard was born. Now my dumb friend 'dates' that overstreched post prenatal hoe. BETA to the core, but you can't turn a pussy into an alpha

Not just women. More than likely you come from an alpha ascendant. I only have to see my family's history see the amount of half cousins and the incredible amount of infidelity cuckolding and AF/BB that happened. Both my grandpops were selfish assholes who loved to drink and had girls on the side (hence the half cousin thing). One great aunt married 9 times, even when one dude was on his deathbed. Many many examples. its in you to be the MAN. Just like women have the hypergamy imperative, we have the fuck as many women as possible imperative.

So if you reproduced historically, you "won"?

Is that still the case today "winning" = babies and continuing your genetic lineage?

Or does simply fucking = winning?

I wonder if some of this can be explained by mass-killing of males during war and letting the women live to breed them.

It doesn't prove it, it suggests it, there could be a lot of other reasons for this.

For example, warfare back then would mean the death of every single man in one tribe and the rape of many of the women.

Also it could be that all men had mates, but only the wealthy had the ability to protect their offspring and keep them healthy.

Another thing, even if it really was the case that only 6% of the men were mating, you are assuming this is because of the women's choices, which seems unlikey considering this 6% is likely the top 6% and could have had the power to take whatever woman he wanted.

your logic is perfectly sound but there are many other possibilities

[deleted]

"In more recent history, as a global average, about four or five women reproduced for every one man."

in otherwords, 80% of women bang 20% of men

Every innovation that increases ease of life is disadvantageous for most men.

The conditions of paleolithic Europe were so harsh that it was men who were valued more than women, not the other way around. As a result, men only provisioned for the best looking women, which led to nearly all modern Europeans having light eyes (even if brown, they are much lighter than the brown eyes found amongst non-whites).

The same selection process happened in Siberia/Canada, where the natives have lighter eyes than other non-white racial groups. There is no direct evolutionary benefit from having light eyes; their presence is evidence of sexual selection.

I got banned from /r/history for pointing out that this means a ton of cuckolding and deceitful mating is occuring, and for giving the correct interpretation of the stat (disagreeing with someone who posted that it might mean that women just have many more children each, which makes zero sense).

Its interesting how taboo the open discussion of such a major feature of our civilization is.

Haha women nothing but hoes since the dawn of time. Good for laughs.

This was forced polygamy. The women had no choice. A recent example of this is the Inca empire. This is a great passage from the "Red Queen" book that explains what was happening at the time.

....

In the ancient empire of the Incas, sex was a heavily regulated industry. The sun-king Atahualpa kept fifteen hundred women in each of many “houses of virgins” throughout his kingdom. They were selected for their beauty and were rarely chosen after the age of eight—to ensure their virginity. But they did not all remain virgins for long: They were the emperor’s concubines. Beneath him, each rank of society afforded a harem of a particular legal size. Great lords had harems of more than seven hundred women. “Principal persons” were allowed fifty women; leaders of vassal nations, thirty; heads of provinces of 100,000 people, twenty; leaders of 1,000 people, fifteen; administrators of 500 people, twelve; governors of 100 people, eight; petty chiefs over 50 men, seven; chiefs of 10 men, five; chiefs of 5 men, three. That left precious few for the average male Indian whose enforced near-celibacy must have driven him to desperate acts, a fact attested to by the severity of the penalties that followed any cuckolding of his seniors. If a man violated one of Atahualpa’s women, he, his wife, his children, his relatives, his servants, his fellow villagers, and all his lamas would be put to death, the village would be destroyed, and the site strewn with stones. As a result, Atahualpa and his nobles had, shall we say, a majority holding in the paternity of the next generation. They systematically dispossessed less privileged men of their genetic share of posterity. Many of the Inca people were the children of powerful men. In the kingdom of Dahomey in West Africa, all women were at the pleasure of the king. Thousands of them were kept in the royal harem for his use, and the remainder he suffered to “marry” the more favored of his subjects. The result was that Dahomean kings were very fecund, while ordinary Dahomean men were often celibate and barren. In the city of Abomey, according to one nineteenth-century visitor, “it would be difficult to find Dahomeans who were not descended from royalty.” The connection between sex and power is a long one.

Seee you at the gym? These days its like see you at Harvard Business school if you want to raise a normal American family of 4 or so. lol

Maybe in the 'old days' it was the men taking what they wanted, and only the 'best' men could reproduce. But now the roles are reversed.

If women had 100% free choice in choosing the men they have children with, would all men have an equal chance at success? Of course not. Only the best would be sought after. That seems stupidly obvious when you say it that way. They are always going to seek out the best they can get.

It's funny that people will argue hypergamy with you, yet if you show it from a woman's point of view it makes perfect sense.

As women have more freedom in choosing their own reproduction without male influence, this ratio is going to get worse...not better.

Top 5.88% of men pass on their genetic legacy, according to the study. Great article man. thanks

Heirarchy determines reproductive success.

The King has many offspring.

The peasant and the criminal have fewer offspring.

Embrace the Heirarchy, be the King.

The average age most humans reached during hunter/gatherer times was late twenties to mid thirties from what I know (I took a few anthro classes in college). So obviously the success rates of reproduction are going to be less than what we have today.

Also take into consideration that it was quite common for women to die during childbirth in these times. There's also a whole plethora of other shit hunter-gatherer groups had to deal with that is not really an issue for us today.

Status (wealth and power) was and still will always be a main component of selecting mates, but there was a LOT more people had to do for survival in those times, thus reproduction rates weren't so high.

Your metaphor of harvesting & sowing gives my primeval farmers brain a hard-on.

PS I'd like to offer a big shout-out the 6%, without whom I wouldn't be here.

What you miss is that this article says this was the case when agriculture first started. My guess is that there were a small number of elite societies/farmers, and everyone else was still a hunter/gatherer.

These elite farmers with a majority of the food slept with a majority of the women, either by winning them as slaves in conquest by killing their enemies, or by simply being the ones with food when everyone else was starving.

However, the article makes the point that once things "equalized," and everyone started farming, then the ratio became something more like 20-25% of the guys were getting laid. Those odds still aren't very good for most guys, but this article certainly wasn't saying that 17:1 was the historical average.

However, what these numbers tell us is that in addition to women being hypergamous, men also just died in much larger numbers than the women. Men died in warfare and by doing backbreaking labor. The small number of men who survived the harsh trials of nature slept with most of the women around. Many women were also won as slaves in warfare and given to wealthy, victorious men.

So in a society without harsh natural conditions where a majority of the men are dying, we can't be sure if 1:4 is the norm. I do believe that women are hypergamous, but I don't know if these historical numbers can directly correspond to our situation today.

So monogamy brought some balance for a number of centuries, but with the abrupt changes after the 20th century we are heading full speed back to the good old 6% rule.

I 'm pessimistic about what the OP says, that with a lot of work you will succeed in the mating game. It's a rat race and the 6% isn't going to get any bigger. How healthy is it for a society to spend its entire energy grooming themselves for the off chance of a small number of offspring ?

I think the Incan example is not alpha, however. Just assigning women to guys who inherited a position isn't really very alpha. Everywhere else? Yeah.

"Only 6% of men overall succeeded to reproduce."

That isn't true. More men reproduced, but their genes aren't around today.

If someone had 2 children, who then had 2 grandchildren, who then had no great grandchildren, that man would have reproduced and still have no descendants left around today.

It's plausible that the numbers were more along the lines of: 70% of women reproduce, 50% of men reproduce. Suppose that 5% of the males are high-status. These men are responsible for impregnating 25% of the women. The other 45% of men who reproduced were low-status and they fathered 64% of the next generation. Let's also assume that status is inherited from the father.

That means in the next generation, high-status males come from just 5% of the male population. But high-status males come from 25% of the female population. This group is the most likely to father many children and have their genes around today. So you repeat this process for a few generations and it's not surprising that more women than men have descendants living today.

If the society was particularly war-prone or lots of men died by accident, it's even possible that few men were left empty-handed. (ie. Maybe only 50% of men lived long enough to be fathers, and the high-status men had harems because there were more than enough women to go around.)

LOL, came here to post this. BREAKING: SCIENCE CONFIRMS ALPHA FUX AND BETA BUX

Shocking.