|
Nutritional Anthropology The
Bond Effect |
||
 |
PRESS ARTICLE |
Geoff Bond's |
|
The most recent Newsletters are available by private subscription USEFUL LINKS
Nutritional Anthropology's Bible: by Geoff Bond
|
Stepfathers: When
a lion takes over a lioness and her cubs, the first thing he does is
kill the cubs. Some other lion fathered them and they do not contain his
genes. Wolves do the same thing. We
can predict that step-fathers or live-in partners, rather than
biological fathers, are more likely to kill their partner’s children.
Indeed this is so. Professors Martin Daly and Margo Wilson specialize in
the evolutionary psychology of conflict. They find that so-called
“intimate partners” or stepfathers kill small children in their care
at a much greater rate than biological fathers. Children in the 0 to 2
year age-group are 70 to 100 times more likely to die at the hands of a
stepfather rather than a biological father. Put this way, the situation
sounds dire. However, we must put the figures in perspective. Most
step-fathers do NOT harm their step-children. In figures for Canada,
just 67 children were killed by stepfathers in a 17 year period. Death
of course is final, but there will be many step-children who, if not
murdered, will receive less parental care than a biological child. We
now have an immense body of studies indicating that step-children
receive less parental investment in general and from step-fathers in
particular. This goes right back to hunter-gatherer societies. The
Hadza of Tanzania is such a tribe studied by Professor Frank Marlowe.
Typical of such tribes, men frequently take on new wives and so find
themselves being responsible for children by other husbands. Marlowe
found that on a wide range of criteria, step-children received less
contact time, less talk time, less playing time, less nurturing and less
food provisioning. These Hadza stepfathers were not deliberately
favoring their own offspring -- they claim that there is no difference
between fathers and stepfathers. However as Marlowe says: “…and yet
the data shows there is. It seems that deception is involved in
promoting the ethic that stepfathers should be good fathers.” In
the words of cognitive scientist, Steven Pinker: “Many step-parents,
nonetheless ARE kind and
generous to a spouse’s children, in part out of love for the spouse.
Still, there is a difference between the instinctive love that parents
automatically lavish on their own children and the deliberate kindness
and generosity that wise stepparents extend to their stepchildren.” Why am I
laboring this point? Those who follow the British news will have been
gutted by the recent story of “Baby P”, the 14 month-old baby who
died in the most grisly circumstances at the hands of a stepfather and
complicit mother. Naïve social workers, who visited the child over 60
times, were too trusting. They wanted to believe in the ultimate
goodness of human beings. They wanted to believe that a stepfather was
just as safe as a biological father. Moreover,
the social workers were taken in by the lies and deception. They could
not admit to themselves that a small percentage of ANY human population
is genetically programmed to be glib,
plausible, charming, clever, yet heartless, cruel, unemotional,
ruthless, cunning, manipulative and deceitful. Researchers estimate that
some 4% of the male population demonstrates this personality, commonly
called “psychopathic”. Meanwhile, evolutionary psychologists are rolling back the politically-correct nonsense that stupefies, paralyzes and addles the social sciences. And they are also answering the question why psychopathic genes thrive in a human population. But that’s a story for a later article! |
|
