>In general it is problematic to import a bourgeois individualist or isolated
>_nuclear_* family frame onto the early humans that probably wasn't there.
>There were not nuclear family units, so there isn't such a thing as a male
>abandoning his nuclear family unit and thereby its being less likely to
>survive. These are true communes , with all women in a generation being
>mothers and all men in a generation being uncles, mother's brothers being
>more the males who parent the children , etc. Plus there are not
>"monogamous" sexual units. There are larger kinggroup nuturing going on, not
>individualized , nuclear family nurturing. It took a whole village to raise
>a child, and the whole village was raising each child.
>
>
CB makes a good point here; however, it's orthogonal to the point of my
earlier post. Regardless of family structure, offspring are more likely
to survive if there are adults around to care for them, including the
father. In the kind of society that CB describes, a man who fucks and
leaves would be socially stigmatized, marginalized, and unlikely to have
much sexual access to women, wouldn't he?
Miles