Historically, polyandry was much more common than we thought.
by Alice Dreger / Northwestern University / theatlantic.com
For generations, anthropologists have told their students a fairly simple story about polyandry — the socially recognized mating of one woman to two or more males. The story has gone like this:
While we can find a cluster of roughly two dozen societies on the Tibetan plateau in which polyandry exists as a recognized form of mating, those societies count as anomalous within humankind. And because polyandry doesn’t exist in most of the world, if you could jump into a time machine and head back thousands of years, you probably wouldn’t find polyandry in our evolutionary history.
That’s not the case, though, according to a recent paper in Human Nature co-authored by two anthropologists, Katherine Starkweather, a PhD candidate at the University of Missouri, andRaymond Hames, professor of anthropology at the University of Nebraska. While earning her masters under Hames’ supervision, Starkweather undertook a careful survey of the literature, and found anthropological accounts of 53 societies outside of the “classic polyandrous” Tibetan region that recognize and allow polyandrous unions. (Disclosure: I first learned of Starkweather’s project while researching a controversy involving Hames and he is now a friend.)
Indeed, according to Starkweather and Hames, anthropologists have documented social systems for polyandrous unions “among foragers in a wide variety of environments ranging from the Arctic to the tropics, and to the desert.” Recognizing that at least half these groups are hunter-gatherer societies, the authors conclude that, if those groups are similar to our ancestors — as we may reasonably suspect — then “it is probable that polyandry has a deep human history.”
Rather than treating polyandry as a mystery to be explained away, Starkweather and Hames suggest polyandry constitutes a variation on the common, evolutionarily-adaptive phenomenon of pair-bonding — a variation that sometimes emerges in response to environmental conditions.
TRANSCRIPT OF SPEECH… [bold highlighting added by helen]
Vice President Biden, Mr. Chief Justice, Members of the United States Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow citizens:
Each time we gather to inaugurate a president, we bear witness to the enduring strength of our Constitution. We affirm the promise of our democracy. We recall that what binds this nation together is not the colors of our skin or the tenets of our faith or the origins of our names. What makes us exceptional – what makes us American – is our allegiance to an idea, articulated in a declaration made more than two centuries ago:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Today we continue a never-ending journey, to bridge the meaning of those words with the realities of our time. For history tells us that while these truths may be self-evident, they have never been self-executing; that while freedom is a gift from God, it must be secured by His people here on Earth. The patriots of 1776 did not fight to replace the tyranny of a king with the privileges of a few or the rule of a mob. They gave to us a Republic, a government of, and by, and for the people, entrusting each generation to keep safe our founding creed.
For more than two hundred years, we have.
Through blood drawn by lash and blood drawn by sword, we learned that no union founded on the principles of liberty and equality could survive half-slave and half-free. We made ourselves anew, and vowed to move forward together.
Together, we determined that a modern economy requires railroads and highways to speed travel and commerce; schools and colleges to train our workers.
Together, we discovered that a free market only thrives when there are rules to ensure competition and fair play.
Together, we resolved that a great nation must care for the vulnerable, and protect its people from life’s worst hazards and misfortune.
Through it all, we have never relinquished our skepticism of central authority, nor have we succumbed to the fiction that all society’s ills can be cured through government alone. Our celebration of initiative and enterprise; our insistence on hard work and personal responsibility, are constants in our character.
But we have always understood that when times change, so must we; that fidelity to our founding principles requires new responses to new challenges; that preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action. For the American people can no more meet the demands of today’s world by acting alone than American soldiers could have met the forces of fascism or communism with muskets and militias. No single person can train all the math and science teachers we’ll need to equip our children for the future, or build the roads and networks and research labs that will bring new jobs and businesses to our shores. Now, more than ever, we must do these things together, as one nation, and one people.
This generation of Americans has been tested by crises that steeled our resolve and proved our resilience. A decade of war is now ending. An economic recovery has begun. America’s possibilities are limitless, for we possess all the qualities that this world without boundaries demands: youth and drive; diversity and openness; an endless capacity for risk and a gift for reinvention. My fellow Americans, we are made for this moment, and we will seize it – so long as we seize it together.
For we, the people, understand that our country cannot succeed when a shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it. We believe that America’s prosperity must rest upon the broad shoulders of a rising middle class. We know that America thrives when every person can find independence and pride in their work; when the wages of honest labor liberate families from the brink of hardship. We are true to our creed when a little girl born into the bleakest poverty knows that she has the same chance to succeed as anybody else, because she is an American, she is free, and she is equal, not just in the eyes of God but also in our own.
We understand that outworn programs are inadequate to the needs of our time. We must harness new ideas and technology to remake our government, revamp our tax code, reform our schools, and empower our citizens with the skills they need to work harder, learn more, and reach higher. But while the means will change, our purpose endures: a nation that rewards the effort and determination of every single American. That is what this moment requires. That is what will give real meaning to our creed.
We, the people, still believe that every citizen deserves a basic measure of security and dignity. We must make the hard choices to reduce the cost of health care and the size of our deficit. But we reject the belief that America must choose between caring for the generation that built this country and investing in the generation that will build its future. For we remember the lessons of our past, when twilight years were spent in poverty, and parents of a child with a disability had nowhere to turn. We do not believe that in this country, freedom is reserved for the lucky, or happiness for the few. We recognize that no matter how responsibly we live our lives, any one of us, at any time, may face a job loss, or a sudden illness, or a home swept away in a terrible storm. The commitments we make to each other – through Medicare, and Medicaid, and Social Security – these things do not sap our initiative; they strengthen us. They do not make us a nation of takers; they free us to take the risks that make this country great.
We, the people, still believe that our obligations as Americans are not just to ourselves, but to all posterity. We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations. Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires, and crippling drought, and more powerful storms. The path towards sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult. But America cannot resist this transition; we must lead it. We cannot cede to other nations the technology that will power new jobs and new industries – we must claim its promise. That is how we will maintain our economic vitality and our national treasure – our forests and waterways; our croplands and snowcapped peaks. That is how we will preserve our planet, commanded to our care by God. That’s what will lend meaning to the creed our fathers once declared.
We, the people, still believe that enduring security and lasting peace do not require perpetual war. Our brave men and women in uniform, tempered by the flames of battle, are unmatched in skill and courage. Our citizens, seared by the memory of those we have lost, know too well the price that is paid for liberty. The knowledge of their sacrifice will keep us forever vigilant against those who would do us harm. But we are also heirs to those who won the peace and not just the war, who turned sworn enemies into the surest of friends, and we must carry those lessons into this time as well.
We will defend our people and uphold our values through strength of arms and rule of law. We will show the courage to try and resolve our differences with other nations peacefully – not because we are naïve about the dangers we face, but because engagement can more durably lift suspicion and fear. America will remain the anchor of strong alliances in every corner of the globe; and we will renew those institutions that extend our capacity to manage crisis abroad, for no one has a greater stake in a peaceful world than its most powerful nation. We will support democracy from Asia to Africa; from the Americas to the Middle East, because our interests and our conscience compel us to act on behalf of those who long for freedom. And we must be a source of hope to the poor, the sick, the marginalized, the victims of prejudice – not out of mere charity, but because peace in our time requires the constant advance of those principles that our common creed describes: tolerance and opportunity; human dignity and justice.
We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths – that all of us are created equal – is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great Mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth.
It is now our generation’s task to carry on what those pioneers began. For our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers, and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts. Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law – for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well. Our journey is not complete until no citizen is forced to wait for hours to exercise the right to vote. Our journey is not complete until we find a better way to welcome the striving, hopeful immigrants who still see America as a land of opportunity; until bright young students and engineers are enlisted in our workforce rather than expelled from our country. Our journey is not complete until all our children, from the streets of Detroit to the hills of Appalachia to the quiet lanes of Newtown, know that they are cared for, and cherished, and always safe from harm.
That is our generation’s task – to make these words, these rights, these values – of Life, and Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness – real for every American. Being true to our founding documents does not require us to agree on every contour of life; it does not mean we will all define liberty in exactly the same way, or follow the same precise path to happiness. Progress does not compel us to settle centuries-long debates about the role of government for all time – but it does require us to act in our time.
For now decisions are upon us, and we cannot afford delay. We cannot mistake absolutism for principle, or substitute spectacle for politics, or treat name-calling as reasoned debate. We must act, knowing that our work will be imperfect. We must act, knowing that today’s victories will be only partial, and that it will be up to those who stand here in four years, and forty years, and four hundred years hence to advance the timeless spirit once conferred to us in a spare Philadelphia hall.
My fellow Americans, the oath I have sworn before you today, like the one recited by others who serve in this Capitol, was an oath to God and country, not party or faction – and we must faithfully execute that pledge during the duration of our service. But the words I spoke today are not so different from the oath that is taken each time a soldier signs up for duty, or an immigrant realizes her dream. My oath is not so different from the pledge we all make to the flag that waves above and that fills our hearts with pride.
They are the words of citizens, and they represent our greatest hope.
You and I, as citizens, have the power to set this country’s course.
You and I, as citizens, have the obligation to shape the debates of our time – not only with the votes we cast, but with the voices we lift in defense of our most ancient values and enduring ideals.
Let each of us now embrace, with solemn duty and awesome joy, what is our lasting birthright. With common effort and common purpose, with passion and dedication, let us answer the call of history, and carry into an uncertain future that precious light of freedom.
Thank you, God Bless you, and may He forever bless these United States of America.
“A community is democratic only when the humblest and weakest person can enjoy the highest civil, economic, and social rights that the biggest and most powerful possess.” – A. Philip Randolph
If Michael Apted’s Up series of documentaries plays like the older, more relaxed brother of reality TV, it’s because that’s basically what it is. Launched in 1964 as a one-off special of interviews with 7-year-olds in Seven Up by director Paul Almond, the film surveyed 14 kids of various economic backgrounds to explore England’s class system (it was based on the repeatedly invoked Jesuit motto “Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man”). Apted, who helped cast that film, then took over and has returned to its subjects every seven years to document their lives over time. Though the films are still inherently political, what emerged was less of an economic survey and more one of humanity. Reality TV is often referred to as a sociological experiment, but the Up series is as bona fide of a longitudinal study as pop culture has ever offered.
56 Up, the series’ eighth film and most recent entry, features all but one of the people interviewed in the first film. It aired last year in England and opened last week in America. While you feel the project’s prescience – our cultural ideal that, as Apted put it to me last week in the First Run Features office, “every life is worth sharing” – the film plays vastly different than what you’d expect from reality TV. It’s almost two and a half hours of soft-spoken, 56-year-old British people describing their quiet existences which, in most cases, seek to avoid drama as opposed to reveling in it. Take Jackie, who describes a string of familial deaths she’s endured since 49 Up, and whose mother and ex-husband have since been diagnosed with cancer. She is without a partner, suffering from rheumatoid arthritis and her benefits have been taken away, forcing her to rely on her sons for support. And yet the tone of her segment is as upbeat as the rest. She likes her life, she says. We see her meeting men. She is, in fact, here to make friends.
An Eastside state legislator was quick to propose fixing an 1872 rape law that got a defendant a new trial for having sex with a woman he duped into believing he was her boyfriend.
The reversal of the rape charge is based on a seemingly-archaic law in the California penal code that states: any person who fraudulently obtains the consent of another to sexual relations escapes criminal liability unless the attacker masquerades as the victim’s spouse…. After hearing of the legal travesty that could allow a rapist to walk free, Assemblymember Gomez vowed to fight for a change in the law that would assure that never again will a rapist be able to walk away from their crime.
Prosecutors in the 2009 case allege that Morales climbed into bed with an 18-year-old who had been drinking and fell asleep at a house party.
He started to have sex with her and when she came to she thought he was her boyfriend, according to authorities. At one point she said she realized he was not her boyfriend and tried to push him off but he resisted. He ultimately left.
A first trial ended in a hung jury. A second ended with a conviction. Morales already served his sentence — 3 years — for the rape.
The appeals court cited the letter of the law, which states that rape in such a circumstance is limited to a situation …
… [w]here she submits, under the belief that the person committing the act is her husband, and this belief is induced by any artifice, pretense, or concealment practiced by the accused, with intent to induce such belief.
In the summer of 2008, at a national gathering of Hadassah in downtown Los Angeles, nearly 2,000 women shrieked with delight as Sherry Lansing, the pioneering first female to run a movie studio, coolly extolled the upside of aging.
“I used to think 60 is the new 40,” Lansing said brazenly, dismissing the pithy phrase as platitude. “Now I say 60 is the new 60!”
Lansing was the keynote speaker that morning, there to discuss her transition from workforce leader — specifically, her 14-year tenure as chairwoman of Paramount Pictures — to philanthropist. Although some say she was poised to become the first bona fide female mogul, Lansing turned 60 and decided instead to pull the curtain on her Hollywood ambitions. “In my late 50s, I started to get bored,” she confessed during a recent interview. “I’d had a wonderful career, I loved movies, I loved my time in the film business — but I felt as if I was repeating myself. The highs weren’t as high; the lows weren’t as low. I had this pull to have a different kind of life.”
Widely regarded by her industry colleagues as both kind and intellectually curious, she sought to develop a more expansive legacy, one that could parlay her career into a late-middle-life calling. By no means did she plan to retire — that would not be her nature — but she sought an encore, a “third act,” as she put it, that would give her life purpose and meaning and enable her to share some of her very considerable fortune with others.
“She was incredibly measured and clear-headed about leaving,” producer and former Disney executive Donald De Line said about her exit. “But I thought, ‘It’s too seductive, the power, the job itself is so thrilling.’ I think everybody kind of thought, ‘OK, that’s what she’s saying — she’s not really gonna go. People can’t give up those jobs. Usually, they go kicking and screaming and have to be pushed out the door. That was not the case with Sherry. She turned 60, and she was gone. And she never looked back.”
But privately, Lansing feared the unscripted day. A notorious workaholic, she agonized over the potential emptiness. “She was concerned that after being so immersed in the world of entertainment that she would maybe feel she didn’t have enough to do,” her friend, the author and philanthropist Cheryl Saban recalled. “She reached out to everybody and asked, ‘What am I gonna do with myself when I retire?’ ”
There have been plenty of young-adult novels about young people searching for their identity — literally or figuratively. But few have taken the concept as far as Every Day, the new young-adult novel from David Levithan, the co-author of Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist. This is a coming-of-age story that manages to pack some age-old philosophical questions about selfhood and the body into an unconventional love story.
In Every Day, A is an identity without a body. Each day, A wakes up in a new body of another 16 year-old. A has almost none of the usual markers of identity: A is genderless, sexless, without race or eye color, neither attractive nor unattractive. A takes these qualities from the bodies A inhabits. While A has access to the bodies’ memories, A experiences the world differently from the individuals he or she inhabits. And A has no control over whose body he or she will end up in tomorrow. A has, over the years, developed a sort of moral code built primarily around a strict non-interference policy. Which all comes crashing down when A wakes up in the body of Justin and falls in love with Justin’s girlfriend Rhiannon.
A tries to stay in touch with Rhiannon, which is difficult when A is different person each day. Eventually A tells Rhiannon the truth about his or her existence. From there, the book focuses on the young couple’s struggles to establish a relationship, when A is never sure who he or she will be tomorrow. A’s experiences as all these different people could have been nothing more than vignettes, but A’s love for Rhiannon and desire to see her again is in the background of each of these lives, complicating everything A does.
There are plenty of signs that the book could have turned into a more run-of-the-mill thriller about a unique supernatural being discovering its race or some other ridiculous plot. Luckily, Levithan stuck to the love story. He also uses the first person — thus avoiding the unfortunate “he or she” that I’ve used above. The book has an overall dreamy, fantastic quality that fits A’s wise beyond his or her years personality. While many of the daily episodes and interactions are very grounded, together they add up to something poetic. A’s life is, necessarily, deeply internal and this is reflected in the language.
One of the things I loved about the book was it defies easy labels just as much as A does. It’s a contemporary YA romance, but it’s also not just a romance book. It’s a fantasy book, in that there is no technology or rational scientific explanation for A’s existence or ability to move between bodies, but it’s not like any other fantasy books. It’s like a science-fiction book, to the extent that it’s about big difficult-to-answer questions, explored through an incredible narrative, but again there’s no tech or science. It’s just a unique lovely book about young love and identity, wrapped up in the impossible.
This isn’t necessarily Levithan’s first venture into speculative fiction — his poetic novel Boy Meets Boy takes place in what could only be described as an alternate or near future universe in which the school’s popular, quarterback is also a drag queen — but he is better known for his co-authoring of realistic teen fiction like the aforementioned Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist. He was also involved in editing The Hunger Games. In fact, he’s probably the busiest person in YA fiction. Aside from writing and editing, he also organizes readings and teaches in the Writing for Children program at The New School (where, full disclosure, I had him as a professor).
Let’s face it: Sex can be kinda gross. With all those body odors and fluids being traded back and forth, it’s no small miracle that humans voluntarily choose to copulate at all. But as scientists from the Netherlands have recently pointed out, our willingness to engage in sexual acts despite the yuck factor may be on account of a built-in psychological mechanism that temporarily reduces our feelings of disgust during sex — at least in women.
The study, which was conducted by Charmaine Borg and Peter de Jong, involved, among other things, 90 women, soft porn, vibrators, lubricants, voodoo dolls, and a glass of juice with an insect in it. Now, while this might sound like a typical Saturday night for most io9 readers, this was serious, scientific stuff. Disgust is an evolved defense mechanism that compels people to avoid things like contamination; why people don’t mind exchanging saliva, sweat, semen, and body odor, therefore, is a question that has baffled psychologists.
To figure out what’s going on, the researchers divided the women up into three groups: those who would be sexually aroused (by the “female friendly erotica”), those who were not sexually aroused, and the third being a control group. Once primed (or not), the women were given a series of behavioral tasks, like wiping their hands with a used tissue (which the participants didn’t know was fake), lubricating a vibrator, touching used condoms (faked), and taking a sip of juice with a large (also fake) insect in it. The women were also given a set of moral tasks, like stabbing a voodoo doll representing a person they hated, or hugging a shirt belonging to a known pedophile (faked).
The intention was to create a series of situations in which the researchers could measure the impact of sexual arousal on feelings of disgust and whether or not certain behaviors would be avoided altogether.
What Borg and de Jong discovered was that sexually aroused women rated the sex related tasks as being less disgusting compared to how the other women felt. And interestingly, they also exhibited a diminished disgust response to the non-sex related tasks and stimuli. In addition, the aroused group was less inclined to avoid certain behaviors outright; they successfully completed the highest percentage of tasks compared to the other groups.
The findings clearly show that there may in fact be a connection between sexual arousal and a diminished disgust response in women. It’s not clear from the study, however, if men are subject to the same effect.
In addition, the study hold implications for treating sexual dysfunction in women. It’s quite possible that women who find sex unpleasurable or gross may either not be sufficiently sexually aroused, or that their induced disgust reduction response is somehow impaired.
Learn about the evolution and future of human sex, love, marriage, gender differences in the brain and how your personality type shapes who you are and who you love.
Helen Fisher is a Biological Anthropologist, a Research Professor and member of the Center for Human Evolution Studies in the Department of Anthropology, Rutgers University and Chief Scientific Advisor to the Internet dating site, Chemistry.com, a division of Match.com.
The Danish parliament has approved equal marriage laws 85 to 24 today, reports said today.
by Stephen Gray / pinknews.co.uk
Members of the sole house of the Folketing approved the gender-neutral marriage legislation today after an opposition amendment creating a separate system of marriage for gay couples under different terminology was rejected yesterday.
The new law is due to come into effect on 15 June this year, b.dk reported.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Denmark, to which 80 percent of the Danish population belongs, will be able to perform marriage ceremonies under the new laws. New rites were written up by ten of the Church’s eleven bishops in a spirit of “good cooperation”, Bishop Kjeld Holm said.
Gay couples will be able to marry in churches of their choice but priests will not be obliged to perform weddings. They would, however, need to help the couple find a priest who would marry them at the church under the new laws.
Kim Klaus Wyon-Sergeant, an editor living in Denmark told PinkNews.co.uk: “Members of the Christian Democrats (a party that is not represented in parliament) plan to sue the state, believing that the law infringes on their freedom of religion. However experts say they dont have much of a chance since the law specifically allows ministers of the church to abstain from presiding over same-sex marriages.”
Denmark’s current system of registered partnerships for gay couples was the first of its kind in the world when it was enacted in 1989.
Manu Sareen, the Minister for Equality and Church and Nordic Cooperation in the coalition government of the Social Democrats, Social Liberal Party and Socialist People’s Party said of equal marriage: “It’s liberalism, it’s diversity, it’s equality, it’s tolerance and it’s so beautiful.”
