Behavioral Ecology of the Family: Harnessing Theory to Better Understand Variation in Human Families

Abstract

Researchers across the social sciences have long been interested in families. How people make decisions such as who to marry, when to have a baby, how big or small a family to have, or whether to stay with a partner or stray are questions that continue to interest economists, sociologists, demographers, and anthropologists. Human families vary across the globe; different cultures have different marriage practices, different ideas about who raises children, and even different notions of what a family is. Human behavioral ecology is a branch of anthropology that is particularly interested in cultural variation of family systems and how these differences impact upon the people that inhabit them; the children, parents, grandparents. It draws on evolutionary theory to direct research and generate testable hypotheses to uncover how different ecologies, including social contexts, can explain diversity in families. In this Special Issue on the behavioral ecology of the family, we have collated a selection of papers that showcase just how useful this framework is for understanding cultural variation in families, which we hope will convince other social scientists interested in family research to draw upon evolutionary and ecological insight in their own work.

Biosocial life‐course factors associated with women's early marriage in rural India: The prospective longitudinal Pune Maternal Nutrition Study

“…Others have used human behavioral ecology, also underpinned by life history theory, to explore the socioecological drivers of early marriage, and its potential costs and benefits in different cultural contexts (Lawson et al, 2021; Schaffnit & Lawson, 2021; Sheppard & Snopkowski, 2021). Using this perspective, Schaffnit and Lawson (Schaffnit & Lawson, 2021) put forward four hypotheses on the drivers of early marriage.…”

“…Using this perspective, Schaffnit and Lawson (Schaffnit & Lawson, 2021) put forward four hypotheses on the drivers of early marriage. First, in contexts where life expectancy is short, early marriage may be an adaptive strategy aimed at maximizing reproductive success (Sheppard & Snopkowski, 2021), particularly where childbearing occurs after marriage. Second, parent‐offspring conflict (Trivers, 1974) is likely to drive child marriages (<15 years): parents from poor households benefit by reducing care and education costs whilst daughters lose out on this investment (Schaffnit, Hassan, et al, 2019).…”

“…short, early marriage may be an adaptive strategy aimed at maximizing reproductive success (Sheppard & Snopkowski, 2021), particularly where childbearing occurs after marriage. Second, parent-offspring conflict (Trivers, 1974) is likely to drive child marriages (<15 years):…”