Insights From Evolutionary Anthropology on the (Pre)history of the Nuclear Family

Abstract

My aim in this article is to elucidate the relevance of the evolutionary paradigm to the study of kinship and marriage systems. I begin with a discussion of conceptual and methodological issues that arise in approaching human social systems from an evolutionary perspective. I then narrow the focus on key tools used in contemporary cross-cultural research within evolutionary anthropology. Next, as a case study, I provide an overview of work aimed at reconstructing the (pre)history of the nuclear family in Indo-European-speaking societies, focusing on the interplay between monogamous marriage and neolocal residence. I conclude with musings on the prospect of a biologically based social anthropology.

Children of the (gender) revolution: A theoretical and empirical synthesis of how gendered division of labour influences fertility

“…Instead, the male-breadwinner-female-homemaker family form seems to have risen to its peak prevalence in Europe in the mid-twentieth-century post-war era, the time when Becker wrote his theory. It appears to have grown in popularity owing to economic, social, and demographic changes that happened around the beginning of the demographic transition in Western Europe, establishing the construct of public and private spheres; the former largely the preserve of men, the latter the preserve of women (Van Poppel et al 2009;Basu 2017;Fortunato 2017). The rise in popularity of the male-breadwinner-female-homemaker family as industrialization progresses is still evident globally, with high women's labour force participation in countries with a low GDP per capita, which falls as countries industrialize and urbanize (World Bank 2012).…”

Lineal kinship organization in cross-specific perspective

“…compared to estimates based on equivalent data for its 'parent' sample, the Ethnographic Atlas; [30,31]). The increase in accuracy derives from (i) specific considerations underlying the sampling strategy, (ii) explicit criteria for the inclusion of societies, based on the quality of the ethnographic materials, and (iii) refinement of the code definitions and corresponding data (see [28,32] for related discussion).…”

How might life history theory contribute to life course theory?

“…For example, marriage and family formation, along with gender roles, vary considerably across societies. The sociological perspective, which holds that divorce and family complexity have increased recently and that 'malebreadwinning' has decreased (Bernardi et al, 2019, p. 16), only really holds for industrialized nations since the Second World War, given that the male-breadwinner nuclear family has not been a common family form in human history (Fortunato, 2017;Sear, 2016).…”