Chapter 7: The Married Cook

The Roots of Romance… or Pair Bonding at Least.

Pair-bonding can be explained by a number of hypotheses. Wrangham states that the heart of the matter may have started at the hearth of the home. It is also acknowledged that pair-bonding wasn’t so much “love at first sight” as an economy of services.

“Whether or not the women wanted to, they cooked for their husbands. As a result, married men were guaranteed adequate food whether they returned late, tired and hungry from a day’s hunting or came home relaxed and early from discussing politics with a neighbor" (Wrangham 2009).

           

The man benefits from the “woman-the-cook” arrangement because he is guaranteed a supply of food, regardless of his own provisioning success rate. The woman, in exchange, only has to share her food with one male, who protects her from the others males within their social group who might pilfer her food otherwise. A trade-off of sorts.

Let’s continue, because further quotes from this chapter illustrate how our societal concept of marriage many have originated from this marriage of convenience.

“Many such examples suggest that the mating system is constrained by the way species are socially adapted to their food supply. The feeding system is not adapted to the mating system” (Wrangham, 2009).

So the food provisioning abilities of females may have proved more attractive, than well, sexual attraction. Wrangham (2009) goes on to say how a women is a valuable commodity not as much for her reproductive capabilities as much as her cooking abilities. This mutual household economy (protection traded for food) may have evolved into long lasting, evening loving relationships. Pair bonding.

It’s an interesting thought to think the origins of our societal concepts of romance begin with man’s empty stomach. But as always, Wrangham only presents one hypothesis for a very complex issue.

Pair bonding is old and not unique to humans. Laden (1999) states that in mammal species with low levels of sexual dimorphism, pair bonding is common. For us, pair bonding became standard about 1.9 million years ago— an important change in mating strategy (Laden, 1999). Pair bonding (to clarify) is the “long-term affiliation, including a sexual relationship, between two individuals” (Quinlan, 2008). Though mutual, they are not quite even. According to the same source, pair bonds are most stable when men do the majority of the subsistence work, because women and children are so vulnerable and dependent.

Why are women so in need of male protection?

Enter the Child-Rearing Hypothesis for Pair Bonding. With our extended ontogeny, and physically vulnerable infant forms, Homo sapiens are especially dependent upon a high paternal investment. This can come in the forms of food provisioning, education, protection and socialization. Marlowe (2002) states that among the Hadza, pair bonding appears most critical for the mother while she is still lactating, and her offspring is completely dependent upon her. During this time, fathers can contribute in two ways. (1) they can directly care for the child, or more often they (2) care for the mother, protecting her and supplementing her food supply so that she can care for the infant (Quinlan, 2008). Here emerges another trade off that results in increased reproductive success for both male and female. Here emerges pair bonding.

So although cooking may have helped tie together males and females, there are other explanations for why we tie the knot.

References:

Laden G. 1999. Light my fire: cooking as key to modern human evolution. Science Daily. Available at: http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/1999/08/990810064914.htm

Marlowe F. 2002. A critical period for provisioning by Hadza men: implications for pair bonding.  Human Evolution and Behavior. 24: 217-239.

Quinlan R. 2008. Human pair-bonds: evolutionary functions, ecological variation and adaptive development. Evolutionary Anthropology. 17:227-238.

Wrangham, R. 2009. Catching fire: how cooking made us human. New York: Basics Books.

Trinkaus E, Churchill SE, and Ruff CB. 1994. Postcranial robusticity in Homo. II: humeral bilateral asymmetry and bone plasticity. Am J Phys Anthropol 93:1–34.