The Structure of Humanity: Arranged marriage systems explain human evolution

We know that people have arranged marriages, but why, and what implications could this have for human evolution? This book reinterprets the major questions concerning human behaviour, morphology and evolution by assuming that humans evolved with arranged marriages.

People use arranged marriages to cooperate. This has been studied by field researchers in anthropology for over one hundred years. Our ancestors were able to form cooperative societies by exchanging females in marriage to males in other kin groups. This cooperation was needed in highly competitive social environments. Arranged marriages create a link between reproduction and cooperation: only by cooperating can a male expect to reproduce.

Arranged marriages involve no selection of long-term sexual partners, unique amongst mammals. Why do females hide their ovulation from their long-term partner? They didn’t choose their long-term partner. Why is love an intense, short-term emotion? Why do humans initiate sexual interest with eye-contact? All sexual selection is extra-marital, short-term and initiated covertly. Even today, the word ‘paramour’, indicating an extra-marital partner, means ‘through love’.

This book will redefine humans as the apes that exchange reproduction for cooperation.