The Male Loneliness Epidemic Is Just Natural Selection In Action
Polonio Video | ShutterstockI am the first woman in my lineage to focus uninterrupted on my career, to make six figures, and to buy a house by myself. I will also be the last woman in my lineage, because I’ve decided to remain child-free. All of these factors allowed me to be extremely picky when choosing my man.
I didn’t have to worry about my bank account, or my biological clock, or the roof over my head, or finding someone to rescue me from my father’s house. I was single for years while I worked on myself, and I went on a lot of dates before I found my partner, who’s kind, smart, and cooperative.
If I’d never found him, that would’ve been fine, too, because unlike the women who came before me, I was perfectly capable of surviving on my own. My generation of women is the first in millennia to have that choice. Until recently, marriage was the only way for modern women to gain wealth, resources, property, and stability.
In America, women weren’t entitled to equal pay until 1963, and without male co-signers, we couldn’t legally get mortgages or open bank accounts until 1974. For the past 12,000 years, the patriarchy has made sure that women could not survive without men.
The male loneliness epidemic is just natural selection in action
Beyza Kaplan / Unsplash+
But according to experts, humans aren’t naturally patriarchal
Yes, men have always been physically stronger, but when we lived in nomadic tribes, that didn’t make them more powerful. Actually, male aggression may have been a liability.
According to social scientist Elle Beau, humans survived when no other hominin groups did because of our social norms around cooperation, sharing, and personal autonomy.
“For 97% of human history, we lived in small mobile forager bands that used cooperation to survive and thrive,” said Beau. These tribes consisted of about 20 to 50 people, and since “group well-being was a priority for all,” we all shared food, protection, and child-rearing responsibilities.
Contrary to what The Flintstones will have you believe, we did not have monogamous marriages or inherently gendered roles. Prehistoric women both foraged and hunted, so they “provided” as much as the men did.
Beau also points out that humans (both males and females) are “designed for multi-mating,” so women were not tied to one man. Women mated with as many genetically desirable mates as they pleased, which improved the odds of “finding a good genetic match” and “warding off disease.”
Then humans discovered agriculture
Once we started farming, tribes settled down in one place. We began owning land, animals, and possessions, which led to the invention and exchange of money.
Now, men needed to claim and “protect” what was theirs, and that included their wealth, their women, and their offspring. They created laws and social customs to enforce their dominance.
According to Ruth Mace, professor of Evolutionary Anthropology at UCL:
“Men used their wealth to attract young women to the resources on offer. Women began to lose agency. If land, livestock, and children are the property of men, then divorce is almost impossible for women. A daughter returning to mum and dad would be unwelcome, as the brideprice would need to be returned. The patriarchy was now getting a firm grip.”
Under the patriarchy, genetic desirability no longer determined who got attention. Wealth did — and since men held all the wealth, even the undesirable ones could buy female mates like cattle. Women suddenly had little to no say in their partnerships.
In almost every other species, the female chooses the male
Roberta Sant'Anna / Unsplash+
The only exceptions are species in which males bear the primary responsibility of pregnancy and parental care, such as seahorses and buttonquails. Otherwise, females are picky about their mates because a bad genetic match compromises their health and the health of their offspring.
For human women, choosing the wrong partner could also be fatal, given that human men are now our only natural predators.
Bonobos (our closest living relatives, which share 98.7% of their DNA with humans) are matriarchal. Female bonobos are highly autonomous and pretty selective about their mates, who tend to be non-aggressive, cooperative, and socially intelligent.
In fact, a group of five female bonobos in the Congo recently made headlines because they beat a male bonobo to death, “disfiguring his face almost beyond recognition, ripping off one of his ears, and biting his testicles.”
Since bonobos are usually pretty peaceful, researchers were shocked by this display of group violence. They suspect it was because the male had attempted to hurt one of the female’s infants.
Anthropologists theorize that humans used to be like this, too: The women chose the men, not the other way around.
If a member of the tribe was particularly violent, disruptive, predatory, or selfish, we’d cast them out or kill them. They weren’t entitled to a mate. They wouldn’t pass on their genes. Their undesirable qualities would die out with them.
The patriarchy overrode this natural selection
In patriarchal societies, the hoarding of wealth has protected rich, powerful men from the social consequences of their violence, selfishness, and predatory behavior. But women have finally earned back the right to choose our mates.
Now that we have our own money, we’re picking men based solely on the quality of their character. And guess what? Most of us aren’t happy with our options.
For the first time in modern history, a huge percentage of women are choosing to remain single. Nearly half of us believe that marriage is not essential to living a fulfilling life, and 52% of women between the ages of 20 and 39 are currently child-free.
We no longer have to put up with aggressive, disruptive, selfish men to survive, so we’re simply not. We’re definitely not helping them pass on their genes.
Some men are unhappy with this development, deeming it “the male loneliness epidemic.”
According to the Manosphere, men should be entitled to women’s servitude, affection, and bodies. It’s “the natural order of things.” At the very least, we supposedly owe them advice. Patience. Compassion. Apparently, it’s now women’s responsibility to teach men how to be desirable mates.
But as we’ve already discussed, that’s not how natural selection works outside of the patriarchy.
When a male bird doesn’t dance well enough, does the female bird stop, explain to him what he did wrong, and offer to help him fix his feathers and his footwork before presenting her genitalia anyway?
No. She flies away and finds a mate who’s already worthy.
Editor's Note: This is a part of YourTango's Opinion section where individual authors can provide varying perspectives for wide-ranging political, social, and personal commentary on issues.
Maria Cassano is a writer, editor, and journalist whose work has appeared on NBC, Bustle, CNN, The Daily Beast, Food & Wine, and Allure, among others. She's in the process of publishing her memoir.
