Why do people value women more than women?

In many societies, parents discriminate against their children. Han people are no strangers to the tradition of son preference. This kind of discrimination is not only manifested in the attitude towards children and the allocation of family parenting resources, but also occurs in an extreme way of abandoning or even drowning baby girls. Under the pressure of fetal sex identification technology and family planning policy, it is characterized by large-scale selective abortion.

Is it better to have a boy or a girl?

Is it better to have a boy or a girl?

In pre-modern society, the mortality rate of boys is much higher than that of girls, so the natural sex ratio at birth is usually between 102 ~ 108, so that the number of boys at marriage is equal to or slightly less than that of girls, but selective abortion will greatly change the sex ratio at birth. According to the data of the fifth census, the sex ratio at birth in China at the end of 1990s was 120, which was the highest in Jiangxi province, reaching 65,438.

A similar situation exists in India, but to a lesser extent; But at the same time, in some societies, children's gender preferences are opposite. For example, in many Tibetan and Yi areas in southwest China, the sex ratio at birth is obviously lower than the normal level, and similar situations have been found in some parts of Africa and Europe. Of course, these are not the results of selective abortion, and parents may not have intentional preferences or even be unconscious, but the unconscious response of the physiological system to environmental conditions.

So, what factors are affecting people's gender preference for children? Is it just the so-called cultural differences (this word has unfortunately become a convenient laundry list of all kinds of "I don't know how to explain group differences")? Let's go back to the beginning of biology and see what evolution can say about it.

Who is partial to his daughter?

It is easy to think that men may prefer daughters, because men pass on the X chromosome to their daughters, and the Y chromosome to their sons, which is much shorter than X, and sons carry 4% (by base pair) or 3.2% (by gene number) less genetic material from their fathers than daughters, so it is more economical to have daughters. However, there is no empirical evidence that this prejudice does exist. If it does exist, it must be realized by genes on chromosomes other than the Y chromosome, and a mechanism against it may be developed on the Y chromosome.

The first theory about sex preference of offspring put forward by evolutionary biology is the trivers-Willard hypothesis, which was developed by biologist Robert? RobertTrivers and Dan, a computer scientist who is studying for a doctorate? Dan Willard, who lacks empirical evidence and is unclear about the micro-mechanism, is completely deduced from trivers's theory of parents' investment.

This hypothesis holds that parents who are rich in resources will prefer male offspring if they can help their children improve their reproductive opportunities. The reason has been introduced in the previous series of articles on the relationship between men and women: limited by the number of female births, the marginal reproductive benefits of investing in daughters will soon decline, while sons can more fully transform their resource advantages into reproductive benefits because they can use the fertility of many women at the same time.

The applicability of trivers-Willard hypothesis to human society has been supported by many empirical studies. Anthropologist William? After studying the data of marriage and childbirth in Yomut, Turkmenistan, irons found that there is a marriage mode based on tribal rank in all ministries of Turkmenistan, that is, women either marry men from their own tribe or marry a tribe with a higher rank.

During the research period, Yomut was at the top of the system, and only married outside. Some rich men married multiple wives, resulting in the total number of births of men (10.6) being 2.86 more than that of women (7.74). Therefore, the sex ratio in this department is far below the normal level. Even after more than half a century, the sex ratio of the elderly over 60 is still as high as 137.

A similar situation exists in different cultures of the West, Irina Captier Lova? In 2009, Elissa Cameron and others found that among the children of American billionaires, sons accounted for 60% (equivalent to 150 gender ratio), and the proportion of men who inherited property and women who married men was as high as 65% (gender ratio was 186).

The research of anthropologist Lee cronk supports the above hypothesis from another direction. At the beginning of the last century, many Mukogo people in Kenya made a living by hunting and gathering, gradually turned to animal husbandry and began to intermarry with neighboring animal husbandry tribes. However, as latecomers who lack resources and experience, their livestock products are far less than the latter. According to the custom of pastoral tribes, the bride price is paid by animal products (the old custom of Mukogodo is to use honey), so the tribe is in a particularly embarrassing situation in the marriage market.

Mukogodo nationality

Mukogodo nationality

As a result, the parents of this tribe gradually developed a strong preference for their daughters. Through careful quantitative observation, it is found that girls receive much more care and feeding than boys before the age of three: the average care distance is 77% shorter, the cuddling time is 82% longer, the feeding time is 56% longer, and the height and weight are less than half of the normal level. As a result of eccentricity, the survival rate of boys is much lower than that of girls. 1986, boys under four years old are better than girls.

Tamas? Tamas Bereczkei's research on Hungarian Gypsies in 1997 found that this ethnic group, which has been in an almost untouchable position in Europe for a long time, also has a serious patriarchal tendency, with a sex ratio as low as 89. The abortion rate when the previous child is a girl is more than twice as high as that when the previous child is a boy. The breastfeeding time for girls is half as long as that for boys, and the school time is one year longer. Judging from the birth income, this preference is quite rational: each daughter brings 3.53 grandchildren to her parents, while each son only brings 2.75.

Another evidence to support the Tewei hypothesis is that the nutritional level of women during pregnancy and pregnancy has a significant impact on the sex ratio at birth, because the nutritional level of mothers is a useful signal (though not necessarily reliable) to predict whether family resources are superior, which was initially confirmed in many animals, and in recent years, many studies on human groups in poor areas have also obtained similar results; In addition, the study of abortion during famine also found that the abortion rate of male children was significantly higher than that of female children.

Hungarian gypsies

Hungarian gypsies

Who likes sons better?

In fact, the Tweet hypothesis can be more accurate. In high-status families, the degree of preference between husband and wife is different. Theoretically, the wife's preference should be higher than that of her husband (although there is no empirical evidence to support this inference), because both wife and daughter are directly limited by the birth bottleneck. To get a large number of grandchildren, only the son's polygamy strategy can make full use of the superior family resources, and the husband can find more spouses (inside or outside marriage) to achieve it.

For example, family resources are enough to support 65,438+000 grandchildren. Even if a wife gives birth to eight daughters and each daughter gives birth to eight grandchildren, there are only 64 grandchildren. But as long as you have a son and marry more daughters-in-law, you can easily achieve your goal at the same fertility rate. Let's call this effect of her son's polygamy "son multiplier effect".

In addition to a higher degree of preference, the wife is also faced with time constraints: because the husband also prefers his son (though to a lower degree), he needs his son to inherit his high position, and if the wife has no son for a long time, the husband is more likely to seek other opportunities.

If the differences in social structure and inheritance system are also taken into account, the situation will become more complicated; It is not difficult to understand that the greater the family resources, the longer the life span, the more reliable the paternal inheritance, the more patriarchal the inheritance right, the more obvious the multiplier effect of sons, and the stronger and more urgent the wife's preference for sons.

Compared with the eldest son inheritance system and monogamy, the son distribution system will have a stronger preference for sons when it is combined with polygamy. The eldest son inheritance system actually concentrates the son multiplier effect on the eldest son, so with the increase of the number of sons, the preference for sons between husband and wife will continue to decrease. Under the distribution system, even if the husband has multiple sons, the wife who has no son or only one son (who is likely to die) will still strongly prefer the son.

Multi-generation extended family and clan system sharing family property will further strengthen the above-mentioned effect of property distribution system, because in multi-generation extended family, when the oldest paternal parents are still alive and controlling the undistributed property, every male descendant is expected to get a share, so before separation, brothers and even cousins are competing to expand their share in this branch by having more sons, but under the eldest son inheritance system, such competition.

In the paternal clan, the share of clan property rights (such as the right to vote, the right to use or the right to distribute the proceeds of clan property) will be determined by the size of each branch, while in the paternal clan, the size of the branch is the number of adult men, and the incense degree of each branch means the number of cards in the ancestral hall and the number of representatives of the elders, which is the share ratio of the clan in this loose partnership.

Memorial tablets in Hakka ancestral halls

Memorial tablets in Hakka ancestral halls

The similar principle is also applicable to the competition of community interests outside the family: in the case of the prevalence of patriarchal family organizations, the right to speak in community affairs, the competition for public resources and the advantages in disputes and conflicts are highly dependent on the number of men in the family, especially in the society with weak legal protection, lack of institutional guarantee of property rights and frequent looting, families without men will be in an extremely unfavorable position, so the chances of having more sons will become very strong.

Keen readers may have found that inadvertently, this article has explained the phenomenon that Han people prefer boys to girls. The traditional Han society also has all the above-mentioned institutional elements to strengthen the preference for sons: polygamy, division of property between sons, patriarchal clan system, clan system enjoying family property, lack of institutional guarantee of rule of law and property rights, and rights need families to rely on their own strength to defend.

In this case, the preference for sons over daughters is no longer just to obtain the genetic benefits brought by the son multiplier effect, but to enhance the strength of the patriarchal family organization, so as to gain an advantage in the competition between clans and communities, and thus obtain the best resource conditions for the family and itself. When this demand is strong enough, even if the superior resources or the premise of high status disappear, the psychology of preferring sons will still exist, which explains why even the poor prefer sons in areas where the clan system is prevalent.

The influence of clan system on children's gender discrimination is also confirmed by the gender ratio difference in China. According to the data of the fifth census, the sex ratio at birth in Guangdong, Guangxi, Wenzhou, Fujian, Jiangxi, Hunan and other developed areas of clan system has been much higher than the average level since modern times. The sex ratio at birth in southern Jiangsu and northern Jiangsu is in sharp contrast. According to the research of sociologist Han Hailang, clan organizations are quite developed in northern Jiangsu, but almost extinct in southern Jiangsu.

In this way, once the paternal family, which was originally organized by high-ranking men to seek reproductive benefits, developed and became popular, it evolved into a tool for competing for resources between different branches of the family and between different families. This mode of competition in turn promoted the development of larger clan organizations, and eventually involved all members of society with different status (except a few marginal individuals who are outside this structure, or minority groups in untouchable status), and made them accept the concept of patriarchal regardless of wealth.

In contrast, in medieval Western Europe, organizations participating in social competition were mainly established through the feudal contractual relationship between unrelated lords and vassals, and their property and rights were more systematically guaranteed. With the development of modern constitutional government and judicial system, this guarantee became more and more reliable. At the same time, the existence of churches, guilds and various unrelated interest groups makes people less dependent on paternal blood organizations when seeking and protecting interests, so they are not in urgent need of male family members to provide combat effectiveness like clan society.

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