human self-domesti- cation events

the idea that humans have self-domesticated themselves (ourselves!) is definitely in vogue: here’s a recent irl+online symposium held on the topic.

domestication in mammals results in a specific suite of traits known as the “domestication syndrome”:

“[I]ncreased docility and tameness, coat color changes, reductions in tooth size, changes in craniofacial morphology, alterations in ear and tail form (e.g., floppy ears), more frequent and nonseasonal estrus cycles, alterations in adrenocorticotropic hormone levels, changed concentrations of several neurotransmitters, prolongations in juvenile behavior, and reductions in both total brain size and of particular brain regions.”

humans — in some cases some human populations — appear to exhibit many, if not all, of these traits: increased docility, skin color changes, reduction in tooth size, craniofacial feminization, more frequent/nonseasonal estrus cycle, neotenous gene expression in the developing human brain, prolongation in juvenile behavior, and reduction in total brain size.

much of the current thinking seems to be centered on the idea that humans self-domesticated “in the more distant past,” but the fact that humans have been able to dwell together at all in ridiculously large numbers beginning around the time of the agricultural revolution suggests that human self-domestication did not stop “in the more distant past” and is probably even ongoing. this is 10,000 Year Explosion territory, and cochran and harpending have been here already [pgs. 110-113 — my emphases]:

“If your ancestors were farmers for a long time, you’re descended from people who decided it was better to live on their knees than to die on their feet.

“Farming led to elites, and there was no avoiding their power. Foragers could walk away from trouble, but farms were too valuable (too important to the farmers’ fitness) to abandon. So farmers had to submit to authority: The old-style, independent-minded personalities that had worked well among egalitarian hunter-gatherers (‘A Man’s a Man for a’ That’) were obsolete. Even when some group had a chance to refound society on a more egalitarian basis, as in the case of the medieval Iceland republic, elites tended to reappear.

“Aggressive, combative people may also have experienced lowered fitness once ruling elites began to appear. With strong states, the personal payoff for aggression may have become smaller, while law and order made combativeness for self-defense less necessary. Sheer crowding must also have disfavored some personality traits that had worked in the past. Intuitively, it seems that a high level of aggressiveness would be less favored when encounters with strangers were frequent. Fight too often and you’re sure to lose. Moreover, although the winner of a deadly struggle between two peasants might conceivably gain something, his owners, the elites who taxed both of those peasants, would not, any more than a farmer benefits when one bull kills another.

“Farmers don’t benefit from competition between their domesticated animals or plants. In fact, reduced competition between individual members of domesticated species is the secret of some big gains in farm productivity, such as the dwarf strains of wheat and rice that made up the ‘Green Revolution.’ Since the elites were in a very real sense raising peasants, just as peasants raised cows, there must have been a tendency for them to cull individuals who were more aggressive than average, which over time would have changed the frequencies of those alleles that induced such aggressiveness. This would have been particularly likely in strong, long-lived states, because situations in which rebels often won might well have favored aggressive personalities. This meant some people were taming others, but with reasonable amounts of gene flow between classes, populations as a whole should have become tamer.

“We know of a gene that may play a part in this story: the 7R (for 7-repeat) allele of the DRD4 (dopamine receptor D4) gene. It is associated with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), a behavioral syndrome best characterized by actions that annoy elementary school teachers: restless-impulsive behavior, inattention, distractibility, and the like.

“The polymorphism is found at varying but significant levels in many parts of the world, but is almost totally absent from East Asia. Interestingly, alleles derived from the 7R allele are fairly common in China, even though the 7R alleles themselves are extremely rare there. It is possible that individuals bearing these alleles were selected against because of cultural patterns in China. The Japanese say that the nail that sticks out is hammered down, but in China it may have been pulled out and thrown away.

“Selection for submission to authority sounds unnervingly like domestication. In fact, there are parallels between the process of domestication in animals and the changes that have occurred in humans during the Holocene period. In both humans and domesticated animals, we see a reduction in brain size, broader skulls, changes in hair color or coat color, and smaller teeth. As Dmitri Belyaev’s experiment with foxes shows, some of the changes that are characteristic of domesticated animals may be side effects of selection for tameness. As for humans, we know of a number of recent changes in genes involving serotonin metabolism in Europeans that may well influence personality, but we don’t know what effect those changes have had — since we don’t yet know whether they increase or decrease serotonin levels. Floppy ears are not seen in any human population (as far as we know), but then, changes in the external ear might interfere with recognition of speech sounds. Since speech is of great importance to fitness in humans, it may be that the negative effects of floppy ears have kept them from arising.

“Some of these favored changes could be viewed as examples of neoteny — retention of childlike characteristics. Children routinely submit to their parents — at least in comparison to teenagers — and it’s possible that natural selection modified mechanisms active in children in ways that resulted in tamer human adults, just as the behaviors of adult dogs often seem relatively juvenile in comparison with adult wolf behavior.

“If the strong governments made possible by agriculture essentially ‘tamed’ people, one might expect members of groups with shallow or nonexistent agricultural experience to be less submissive, on average, than members of longtime agricultural cultures. One possible indicator of tameness is the ease with which people can be enslaved, and our reading of history suggests that some peoples with little or no evolutionary exposure to agriculture ‘would not endure the yoke,’ as was said of Indians captured by the Puritans in the Pequot War of 1636. In the same vein, the typical Bushman, a classic hunter-gatherer, has been described as ‘the anarchist of South Africa.'”

what i’d like to draw attention to is the idea that there have been multiple (probably multiple multiples of) human self-domestication events which occurred at different places and at different times — all sorta within the broader human self-domestication project which began back in some stone age or, perhaps, even before. one of these, i propose, was the manorialism/outbreeding/execution-of-violent-criminals combo of medieval europe which left “core” europeans with a very specific set of behavioral traits. another might very well be whatever domestication package went along with rice farming in southern china as peter frost has discussed. others undoubtedly include the sorts of civilizations described by cochran & harpending in the passage quoted above — those “strong, long-lived states” — like those found in ancient egypt, ancient china, and ancient india.

just like how we (prolly together with dogs themselves) domesticated dogs thousands of years ago, but then continued and honed the process by selecting for specific traits in specific breeds, i think we should consider that, not only did humans start self-domesticating themselves a very long time ago so that there are common domestication traits in (nearly?) all humans populations, but also that there have been more localized self-domestication events which selected for somewhat different behavioral traits depending on what sort of selection pressures were present in these various events.

_{(note: comments do not require an email. domesticated foxes!)}

Advertisement

genetics and nat’l differences in life history strategies

via ben southwood, here’s an interesting looking paper from the journal Personality and Individual Differences: “Genetic polymorphisms predict national differences in life history strategy and time orientation” [pdf]. (the paper’s even from the future! April 2015. (~_^) )

the “highlights”:

• Polymorphisms in three genes have been linked to aspects of life-history strategy.
• National frequencies of these polymorphisms form a strong single genetic factor.
• The genetic factor is strongly associated with national differences in life-history strategy.
• This association remains after controlling for national socioeconomic differences.

the three genes in question are some of the usual suspects: the androgen receptor gene (AR), DRD4, and the 5-HTTLPR in the SLC6A4 gene. the authors, minkov and bond, worked up a national genetic index based on the variations of these three genes as they relate to life history strategies (LHS) and time orientation (TO). they describe LHS and TO thusly:

“Life history strategy (LHS) theory explains differences in the allocation of an individual’s total bioenergetic and material resources between somatic effort (devoted to the survival of the individual) and reproductive effort (devoted to the production of offspring), as well as parenting effort (devoted to the survival of offspring) and mating effort (devoted to obtaining and retaining sexual partners) (Figueredo et al., 2005). Fast LHS (a focus on reproductive and mating effort) is positively associated with risktaking in animals (Ackerman, Eadie, & Moore, 2006) and humans (Figueredo et al., 2005). In addition to the individual-level studies, a number of nation-level measures associated with LHS have been proposed, relying mostly on national statistics about reproduction, violent crime, and cognitive ability or educational attainment (Meisenberg & Woodley, 2013; Minkov, 2013; Rushton & Templer, 2009; Templer, 2008).

“Some different studies (Hofstede, 2001; Minkov & Hofstede, 2012a) discuss a nation-level short-term versus long-term orientation dimension (STO versus LTO or simply TO for ‘time orientation’), derived from measures of values originally proposed by the Chinese Culture Connection (1987). According to these studies, TO reflects national differences in the endorsement of a wide range of values, some of which are especially prominent and seem to form the backbone of this dimension: future-related values (such as thrift and strong effort in modern education) versus a lack of emphasis on such values. The former set of values is known as long-term orientation, whereas the latter is called short-term orientation (Hofstede, 2001).”

what they found was that:

“Nations that score lower on the LHSGF [Life History Strategy Genetic Factor] are characterized by faster LHS and shorter TO. The reason for this association is that these nations have relatively high percentages of people who carry AR, DRD4, and 5-HTTLPR polymorphisms that seem to stimulate risk-taking, impulsivity, and short-term-oriented mating competition (expressed as a tendency for earlier sexual initiation, sexual networking, and violence, in specific circumstances). The effect of the LHSGF on hypometropia-LHS seems stronger across societies with high socioeconomic inequality.”

mr. billare objects to the paper on the grounds that, in some cases where data were lacking, the authors estimated the frequencies of the alleles based on the rates found in neighboring populations — neighboring populations that, perhaps, aren’t all that related to those for which there were no available data. that is not ideal, i agree — for example, estimating the national frequency of the DRD4 7-repeat for venezuela based on mexico’s frequency is…questionable. but i don’t think that their reference populations (i.e. the neighboring populations) which they used are that far off in most of the cases — at least not from a first glance at the paper. still, not ideal. definitely a weakness of the study.

my biggest objection to the paper is that’s we’re just talking about three genes here — there must be waaaay more genes related to behavioral traits involved here, as there are with height or intelligence. the authors acknowledge this, though: “[N]ational/ethnic LHS-TO may be driven by a large package of genes, each of which produces a very small effect at the individual level (and, in some cases, no effect at all); however they produce a large cumulative effect at the national level. It is therefore quite possible that our LHSGF index is actually a proxy for a much larger package of genes….“

it’s early days, of course, and teh scientists simply just don’t know even half of the genes involved in our behavioral traits at this point in time. Further Research is Required^TM! it’ll certainly be exciting when more data arrives! (^_^) this is an intriguing first step, though.

_{(note: comments do not require an email. boobies!)}

le parallélo- gramme

i promised myself that i wouldn’t post any more about france until i’d finished reading robb’s The Discovery of France (and some other materials on that nation), but i’m too impatient, so here goes.

here from Fréquence et répartition des mariages consanguins en France is a map of consanguineous marriages among catholics in france between 1926 and 1945 (this map made a previous appearance on the blog in this post):

last week i posted a couple of maps showing how the distributions of these historic cousin marriage rates in france and the various regions in which different crops are grown are largely congruent — historically there was (prolly still is) a greater avoidance of cousin marriage in the wheat growing areas of the country versus the grass covered areas of the pastoralists (and even those areas inhabited by olive and grape growers!). this is undoubtedly a legacy of medieval manorialism since, as mitterauer has convincingly argued, manorialism was all tied up with wheat/grain growing AND the institution also helped to promote the avoidance of cousin marriage.

normally i don’t like to use a population’s modern cousin marriage rates to try to guess what their past rates might’ve been — it’s dangerous and one shouldn’t make assumptions. mating patterns change. however, in this case, based upon what i know about the history of medieval france, especially the franks and their adoption of christianity, and the patterns of manorialism in northern europe, i think it’s probably safe to assume that the regional differences in the cousin marriage rates on the map above probably do reflect cirumstances on the ground in france for the last few hundred years — perhaps even one thousand. note that i’m not saying that the cousin marriage rates were the same in france in the past as in the early twentieth century, just that these same regional differences probably existed — i.e. that those areas with lower cousin marriage rates in the 1920s-1940s probably had lower rates than the rest of the country for a very long time, etc. going forward, this will be my working assumption for france, but please keep in mind that it is an assumption. could be wrong. if i come across any data contradicting — or supporting! — this assumption, i’ll let you know!

something robb says early on in The Discovery of France [pg. 12] caught my eye:

“Tales of isolation and ignorance tend to be associated with spectacular exceptions and with regions that lie beyond what some French historians have termed ‘an enlarged Paris Basin’, which accounts for more than one-third of the country — an enormous parallelogram [sic] stretching from Lille to Clermont-Ferrard and from Lyon to Le Mans, where ‘men, ideas and merchandise’, all identifiably and self-consciously French, had supposedly been pumping through the system since the Ancien Regime.”

if we map that…

…sacrebleu! that’s not far off…

and here overlaid onto todd’s family systems (as best i could =/ )…

my guess is that robb’s paralleogram — the “enlarged paris basin” — represents the most manoralized, most oubred region of france. (i guess, too, that it prolly can be extended a bit to the east). this is “core” france, and the peripheral regions like brittany (where the le pen family is from) and the massif central area further south have experienced more inbreeding (or less outbreeding, depending on how you want to look at it) and so those subpopulations will be more clannish than the population originating from inside le parallélogramme. in other words, brittany and the massif central areas should be thought of as france’s scottish highlands or english borderlands.

indeed, a report from transparency international seems to indicate that, looking away from paris which has no doubt attracted all sorts, there is more corruption in peripheral france than in core france. (i know that it’s also difficult to say much about southern coastal france since there are so many immigrants there.) [source]:

also, i previously found, using the world values survey data, that the population in the area officially categorized as “paris east” is the most civic in france. part of paris east falls within le parallélogramme, but much of it lies further to the east, perhaps indicating that robb’s parallelogram should also be extended further to the east. the cousin marriage rates certainly suggest that. we shall see.

and, as we’ve already seen, there are some pretty clannish sounding populations in peripheral france in places such as the auvergne and the greater roquecezière metropolitan region. (~_^) still, Further Research is Required^TM.

btw, the ancestors of french canadians came mostly from regions bordering on or outside of le parallélogramme and acadians (cajuns) originated entirely from outside this “core” france (see here).

vive la france! (^_^)

previously: meanwhile, in france… and mating patterns in france and topography (and history) and crops and cousin marriage in france and civicness in france by region and the auvergnat pashtuns and the battle of roquecezière and big summary post on the hajnal line and what’s up with french canadians?

_{(note: comments do not require an email. l’hexagone.)}

the battle of roquecezière

on the recommendation of just about everybody that i know online (thanks, almost everybody!), i am reading graham robb’s The Discovery of France.

this, below, is by far the funniest story so far! and there are a LOT of funny stories like this in the book…and i’m only about a quarter of the way through! great stuff. hbd chick is amused! =P [pgs. 27-28 – link added by me]:

“An expedition into tribal France could begin almost anywhere and at almost any time. A hilltop in the Aveyron, for instance, where the limestone plateaux of the Causses turn into a crumpled map of rocks and gorges. The year is 1884. The priest of Montclar has found an exciting diversion from the monotony of life in a small town. His telescope is trained on a battlefield in the valley below. An army of men, women and children, wielding cudgels and lugging baskets of stones, is advancing on the village of Roqueceziere. But scouts have been posted. Another army has already emerged from the village and is preparing to defend its territory.

“On the bare rock that towers above the village, turning its back to the battle, is a colossal cast-iron statue of the Virgin Mary. The statue has been funded by public subscription — something of a miracle in this impoverished region — and has recently been placed on the rock to commemorate a successful mission.

“Incensed to see the sacred effigy pointing its bottom at their village, the invaders have come to turn it around. The battle rages for hours. Several people are seriously injured. At last, the Roquecezierain lines are breached and the statue is worked around to face the other village. To prevent a full-scale war, the Church authorities find a compromise. The Virgin is rotated ninety degree, supposedly so that each village can see half of her face. However, she now looks east-north-east, towards Saint-Crepin, which contributed more than half the cost of the statue, and still had her back turned to the little clutch of houses at her foot.”

heh! =P i think this must be the statue here:

it should be noted that roquecezière (indicated by red dot) is down in midi-pyrénées in a region having, for france, pretty high cousin marriage rates historically…

…and it’s also fairly far away from the “core” of core europe (green circle here).

previously: the auvergnat pashtuns

_{(note: comments do not require an email. roquecezière.)}

what did the romans ever do for us?

apart from bequeathing the world a handful of languages, some philosophical ideas and legal traditions, a bunch of fr*cking awesome ruins, a few really straight roads, and the wine, what did the romans ever do for us?

well, i think we (northern europeans) may have gotten the idea to avoid cousin marriage from them!

here from “Agnatio, Cognation, Consanguinitas: Kinship and Blood in Ancient Rome” in Blood and Kinship: Matter for Metaphor from Ancient Rome to the Present [pgs. 24-26]:

“The early republican system of structuring marriage…essentially prevented agnatic *familiae* from remaining exclusive family units…. Neither agnates, nor cognates, were allowed to enter marriage within the sixth degree, i.e. the fourth degree by modern reckoning [third cousins or closer-h.chick]. Such alliances were considered *incestus* and *nefas*, defiled and contrary to divine law, and were forbidden.[29] Marriages to stepchildren, children-in-law, and parents-in-law were also prohibited, even after the spouse who had brought *adfinitas* had died.[30] In contrast, in classical Athens, members of the *anchisteia*, the legally defined kinship group including first cousins once removed, were the preferred marriage partners. In order to protect the continuity of the household (*oikos*), even marriage between half-siblings was allowed. The Greek practice of endogamy has been interpreted as an attempt to strengthen the *oikos* and to guarantee that its property was transmitted intact. This family strategy is most notorious in the case of the daughter as heiress, the *epikleros*. Usually women were not able to inherit or hold property, but when an Athenian died without male issue, his property was attached to his daughter, who then had to marry the closest agnate, often an uncle or first cousin. In this way the *oikos* remained linked to the agnatic lineage.[31]

“Roman society, in a strategy unique in antiquity, proscribed familial endogamy, opting instead for exogamy and the building of large kinship groups, even if this meant that property was diffused and the agnatic lineage thus weakened. Prescriptive marriage regulations were never developed, but Romans still knew perfectly well the boundaries distinguishing acceptable marriages alliances from misalliances. Familial exogamy was combined with social endogamy. Though it was forbidden legally to choose marriage partners from among agnatic or cognatic kin, it was nevertheless expected that spouses would be selected from a specific social group: matrimonial matches were judged on these grounds as *dignus* (worthy), *splendissimus* (most spendid), *par* (of equals) or *impar* (of unequals), or even *sordidus* (sordid).[32] Unlike aristocrats in early Greece, who married beyond the limits of their *patris*, Roman aristocrats concentrated on Rome. Given the limited number of appropriate families and the strict marriage regulations, the options of a Roman aristocrat seeking a marriage alliance were rather few. This ‘merry-go-round’ within the peer group led to the building up of a complext network of intertwined familial relations and ultimately to the creation of one overwhelmingly aristocratic family….

“Strains on aristocratic cohesion, however, as well as the beginning of the disintegration of the Roman elite during the third and second centuries BCE, coincided with changes in Roman marriage regulations. There is not enough source material to reconstruct precisely the relationship between changes in the building of kinship groups and in socio-political structures during the Roman Republic, but it is known that during the third century BCE, marriage restrictions were relaxed up to the fourth degree, thereby allowing first cousins to marry. Kinship groups could thus become more exclusive and refuse intermarriage with other families…. The most famous examples of this practice can be found within Rome’s most illustrious family, the Cornelii Scipiones, where the daughter of Scipio Africanus, the conqueror of Hannibal, married her first cousin once removed; and Scipio’s adoptive grandson, Aemilianus, married his first cousin, Sempronia, herself a granddaughter of the famous general. Despite such examples, however, marriage between cousins never became frequent within the Roman aristocracy.

_{“[29.] Cf. Gaius ‘Institutiones’ l.59-64; Paul ‘Digest’ 23.2.39.1. See also Tacitus ‘Annales’ 12.6. During the second half of the third century, marriage between cousins became possible; see Livy, fragment 12, in Livy, ‘History of Rome, vol. 14, Summaries. Fragments. Julius Obsequens. General Index’, trans. A.C. Schlesinger (London and Cambridge, MA, 1959). On Livy, see Maurizio Bettini, ‘Familie und Verwandschaft im antiken Rom’ (Frankfurt am Main and New York, 1992), 164-54; Philippe Moreau, ‘Incestus et prohibitae nuptiae. L’inceste a Rome’ (Paris, 2002), 181-86; Carla Fayer, ‘La familia Romana, vol. 2, Aspetti giuridici ed antiquari, sponsalia, matrimonio, dote’ (Rome, 2005), 393n216; Harders, ‘Soror’, 23-25.}

_{“[30.] Gaius, ‘Institutiones’ l.63; Gaius ‘Digest’ 38.4.3-7. During the fourth century CE, marriage prohibitions were extended to collateral affinal kin of the first degree, i.e., the brother’s wife or the wife’s sister; family exogamy was thus enforced (‘Codex Theodosianus 3.12.2’).}

_{“[31.] Though endogamy was practiced, there is no evidence of prescriptive marriage regulations concerning cousin marriage in Athens. On the *epikleros*, see Cheryl A. Cox, ‘Household Interests: Property, Marriage Strategies, and Family Dynamics in Ancient Athens (Princeton, NJ, 1998), 95-99; on marriage between cousins, see Wesley E. Thompson, ‘The Marriage of First Cousins in Athenian Society,’ Phoenix 21 (1967): 273-82.”}

so the romans avoided close cousin marriage, established a republic based on democratic principles, had a legal system founded upon universalistic principles, expanded their polity into a vast and one of the world’s most impressive empires (iow, invaded the world), eventually extended roman citizenship to non-romans and allowed barbarians to come live inside the empire (iow, invited the world), and, then, well…oops! *ahem*

why the romans ever decided to avoid cousin marriage in the first place is another question altogether, though. one for another day. perhaps. if it’s even answerable at all.

anyway, there is a direct link between ancient rome’s and medieval/modern northern europe’s cousin marriage avoidance. that link is quite obviously the catholic church which adopted all sorts of roman institutional structures and practices; but more specifically i’m referring to several of the church fathers, the earliest of whom lived in the roman empire itself and who, no doubt, were very aware of the roman avoidance of cousin marriage and very likely, having been raised “in rome,” had even internalized the idea as a natural and good one.

here, in sequence, are the guys that i think passed the romans’ notion of avoiding close marriage down to us (by introducing the idea into canon law):

– st. ambrose (d.397) – while it’s not clear whether or not ambrose disapproved of cousin marriage, he did frown upon other forms of close marriage as illustrated in this letter of his [pg. 351] from 393. ambrose was, of course, the mentor of…

– st. augustine (d.430) – as shown in the previous post, augustine was very much opposed to cousin marriage. one of augustine’s students, or at least someone who was heavily influenced by augustine, was…

– julianus pomerius – pomerius was a priest in fifth century gaul, and one of his students was…

– caesarius of arles (d.542) – who was a BIG fan of st. augustine — in fact, many of his sermons (he was renowned as a preacher, apparently — here’s volume 1 in a collection of his surviving sermons) were based directly on augustine’s writings. it was the then bishop caesarius who presided over the council of agde in 506 which issued the earliest (known) church ban on cousin marriage. this was very much a local ban that only applied to roman catholics in the very south of france (at the time controlled by the arian visigoths), but this idea to ban cousin marriages would be picked up soon afterwards by other church councils further to the north in “france” by merovingian bishops (in fact, i think caesarius may have been in attendance at one or two of those councils). i’ll be posting more on this history soon.

the notion of banning cousin marriage eventually spread across the channel into kent first (pretty sure) and then to the rest of england and later across central europe during the ostsiedlung, etc., etc. at some point, the idea was picked up by the popes in rome, too. not sure exactly when that occurred. i’ll work on finding that out. gregory the great (d.604) was one of the major proponents of the cousin marriage bans, so it was definitely well established in hq back in rome by the late 500s.

so, if you’re one of those westerners who goes ewwww! at the thought of cousins marrying, you can thank the romans!
_____

p.s. – here from caesarius of arles’ “Sermon 19 – Preaching of St. Augustine to the People” [pg. 101]:

“…No one should dare to marry his aunt or cousin or his wife’s sister, for it would be wrong for us to perish through evil dissipation arising from diabolical pleasure….”

previously: st. augustine on outbreeding and happy council of agde day!

_{(note: comments do not require an email. what have the romans ever done for us?)}

st. augustine on outbreeding

here is st. augustine from his The City of God Against the Pagans on outbreeding (and a bit on inbreeding). it’s a little “I’m My Own Grandpa” in places, but augustine’s basic point is that it’s good that people marry out (eg. avoid marrying their close cousins) because in doing so, they increase the number of connections which they have with other individuals — and if everyone in a society does this, there will be larger and broader networks of individuals with common goals and interests, etc., etc., all of which will “bind social life more effectively” and, hopefully, help create the city of god here on earth as much as possible. never mind the possible evolutionary effects.

st. thomas aquinas refers to these passages in his Summa Theologica in his discussion on the merits of outbreeding (but maybe not too much outbreeding!).

source: Augustine: The City of God Against the Pagans, Books 1-13 [pgs. 665-667]:

“16 – That the present law pertaining to marriage between blood-relations could not apply to the men of the earliest times

“After the first marriage of the man made from the dust and his wife, created from the man’s side, the human race had need of the union of males and females in order to multiply itself by begetting offspring. But there were then no other human beings apart from those who had been born of the first two. Therefore, men took their sisters as wives. In ancient times, this was acceptable, because done under the compulsion of necessity; now, however, it is damnable because forbidden by religion. For affection is now given its proper place, so that men, for whom it is beneficial to live together in honourable concord, may be joined to one another by the bonds of diverse relationships: not that one man should combine many relationships in his sole person, but that those relationships should be distributed among individuals, and should thereby bind social life more effectively by involving a greater number of persons in them. Thus, ‘father’ and ‘father-in-law’ are the names of two different relationships; and so the ties of affection extend to a greater number of persons when each has one man as his father and another as his father-in-law. When brothers and sisters were joined together in marriage, however, the one man Adam was compelled to be both father and father-in-law to his sons and daughters. So too, his wife Eve was both mother-in-law and mother to her children of both sexes; whereas if there had been two women, one as mother and the other as mother-in-law, the bond of social affection would have operated more widely. Again, a sister also, because she had become a wife as well, united two relationships in herself, whereas if these had been distributed between two people, one a sister and the other a wife, the number of persons bound together in the closeness of fellowship would have been increased. But this state of affairs could not exist when the only human beings were brothers and sisters, the children of the first human couple. It could exist only when there was a plentiful suppoly of women who could be wives without also being sisters. Then, not only was there no longer any need for brothers and sisters to marry; it also became unlawful for them to do so. For if the grandchildren of the first human beings, who by that time could have taken their cousins as wives, were joined in marriage to their sisters, there would then not have been two relationships united in one person, but three; which relationships should be distributed among different individuals, in order to unite a greater number in the closness of affection. For the marriage of brothers with sister would then have made one man the father, father-in-law and uncle of his own children. By the same token, his wife would be the mother, aunt and mother-in-law of their shared children. And the children themselves would be not only brothers and sisters and spouses to one another, but also cousins, as being the offspring of brothers and sister. If, however, each of these relationships were assigned to a different individual, they would then connect nine people instead of three to each of them. For one man would have one person as his sister, another as his wife, another as his cousin, another as his father, another as his uncle, another as his father-in-law, another as his mother, another as his aunt, and another as his mother-in-law; and so the social bond would extend not merely to a small group, but ever more widely, to connect a large number more closely together.

“We notice also that, as the human race has increased and multiplied, this rule has come to be observed even among the impious worshippers of many false gods. For although their perverse laws may permit brothers and sisters to marry, their actual custom is better, and they prefer to shun the freedom to do this. In the first ages of the human race, it was generally permitted to take a sister in marriage; but this practice is now so much deplored that it is as though it could never have been lawful. For what achieves most in influencing or offending human sensibilities is custom; and, in this case, custom restrains us from immoderate lust, so that men are right when they judge it wicked to disregard or transgress custom. For if it is wicked to pass beyond the boundary of one’s own property out of greed for possession, how much more wicked is it to subvert a moral boundar out of lust for sexual intercourse! We have also found that, for moral reasons, marriages between cousins are rare even in our own times, because, even though such marriages are permitted by law, the degree of kinship involved in them is only one step away from that of brother and sister. Such marriages were not prohibited by divine Law, and they have not yet been forbidden by human law either;[82] but abhorrence was felt for an act which, though lawful, bordered on the unlawful because marriage with a cousin seemed to be almost the same as marriage with a sister. For cousins are called brothers and sisters even among themselves, because of the closeness of their blood relationship, which is almost that of full brothers and sisters.

“To the patriarchs of antiquity, it was a matter of religious duty to ensure that the bonds of kinship should not gradually become so weakened by the succession of the generations that they ceased to be bonds of kinship at all. And so they sought to reinforce such bonds by means of the marriage tie before kinship became too remote, thereby calling kinship back, so to speak, as it fled. Thus, when the world was now full of people, although they did not like to marry sisters with whom they had either a father or a mother or both parents in common, they nonetheless liked to take wives from within their own family. Who would doubt, however, that the state of things at the present time is more virtuous, now that marriage between cousins is prohibited?[83] And this is not only because of the multiplication of kinship bonds just discussed: it is not merely because, if one person cannot stand in a dual relationship when this can be divided between two persons, the number of family ties is thereby increased. In addition, there is present in man a certain sense of honour, which is both natural and laudable, which prompts him not to direct towards a woman whom he is bound to respect and honour as a kinswoman that lust — and lust it is, even though necessary for procreation — which, as we see, occasions shame even within the chastity of marriage.

“[82] Marriage between cousins was, in fact, prohibited by the Emperor Theodosius I (see Ps. – Aurelius Victor, ‘Epitome de caesaribus’, 48; Ambrose, ‘Epist.’ 60,5. This is a fact that Augustine seems to remember in the next paragraph. See also Plutarch, ‘Quaest. Rom.’, 108.

“[83] See n. 82.”

previously: st. augustine and st. thomas aquinas and thomas aquinas on too much outbreeding

_{(note: comments do not require an email. st. augustine.)}

best laid plans 2015

at the beginning of last year, i outlined my best laid plans for 2014 — what topics i hoped to post about during the year — and, looking back on that post, i kinda-sorta stuck to that plan, but i did drop the ball in some instances (assimilation, for example — did i even post on that in 2014? don’t think so. did i ever mention that i come from a population that’s not very strong in future-time orientation? (~_^) ).

so, lemme try again this year. topics i plan on blogging about in 2015, not necessarily in this order (and with no guarantees!):

– assimilation: “you keep using that word….” (hint: i don’t think assimilation is as easy as most people assume it is. example: the four anglo “folkways” of north america, a la albion’s seed, which STILL haven’t assimilated to one another after 300 to 400 years. and they all originated from the same country/broad cultural background!)

– speaking of assimilation, i’d also like to look at how populations and subpopulations self-sort (egs. the Albion’s Seed populations mentioned above, the American Nations pops discussed at length by jayman on his blog, The Big Sort, etc.) and the significance of that. the migration of populations/subpopulations basically.

– manorialism: going to continue (and hopefully complete!) my planned series on the history of manorialism in europe and its different regional types.

– i will also dig in further into the origins of The Outbreeding Project in christian europe. (hint: i think it wuz the romans.)

– violence: want to look more into the decline in homicides/impulsive violence in western european populations. last year i wrote a sneak preview of where i think my readings on this are leading, at least for england. we shall see how it pans out.

– shame vs. guilt cultures: more on this, too.

– the tswana: i’m VERY keen on taking a close look at the tswana of southern africa, because they are the one group outside of the arabized world which has a history of father’s brother’s daughter marriage (see here), but botswana is one of the most successful and functional nations in subsaharan africa. ‘sup with that?!

– the french: i have started reading The Discovery of France (thanks to everyone who recommended it!), so i want to discuss the french a bit.

– italians: my christmas present to myself was a copy of Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy by robert putnam et al., so i want to discuss the italians a bit, too.

– democracy: really want to look at the histories/evolution of and differences between liberal and other forms of democracy (like consensus democracy). this is important, i think.

– history of mating patterns in various populations: i’ll probably just continue trawling around for more info/data on the historical mating patterns of various populations. it’s what i do.

– hbd between individuals (as opposed to between groups): ’cause i think we need to talk about that.

– prolly other stuff, too.

note that i do take reader requests! (especially if i find the topic interesting.) (^_^)

i will also have to find someone who can clone me so that i have the time to do all this blogging! (~_^)

also, my new year’s resolution is to no longer enter into “discussions” with people who feel that the existence of human biodiversity or having an interest in it is somehow wrong or waaaaycist or whatever. that is just a waste of my time. from now on, those people will simply be directed to my what is human biodiversity (hbd)? series.

that is all! (^_^)

previously: best laid plans 2014

_{(note: comments do not require an email. on planning.)}

charlie hebdo

cartoon by michael shaw which appeared in the new yorker a couple of years ago: