Recent theories of the state often draw attention to states’ autonomy from social preferences. This paper suggests that the phenomenon of public ignorance is the primary mechanism responsible for state autonomy in democratic polities. Such theorists as Skocpol and Poulantzus, who do not take account of public ignorance, either underestimate the state's autonomy or stress causal mechanisms that are necessary but not sufficient conditions for its autonomy. Gram‐sci's concept of ideological hegemony is promising, even though it is far too insistent (...) on the penetration of ideology of any kind beyond relatively small numbers of political sophisticates. (shrink)

In the proposed gynecentric aesthetic, which follows the work of Heide Göttner-Abendroth and Alan Lomax, aesthetic activity would function to integrate the individual and society. Intellect, emotion and action would combine to achieve a synthesis of body and spirit. Song and dance would involve the equal expressions of all participants, and aesthetic structures would reflect this egalitarianism. The erotic would be expressed as a vital, positive force, divorced from repression and pornography. The emphasis would be off aesthetic objects to be (...) coveted, hoarded and contemplated, and on dynamic process, fully engaging and socially significant. (shrink)

Many scholars assume a connection between the evolution of language and that of distinctively human group-level morality. Unfortunately, such thinkers frequently downplay a central implication of modern Darwinian theory, which precludes the possibility of innate psychological mechanisms evolving to benefit the group at the expense of the individual. Group level moral regulation is indeed central to public life in all known human communities. The production of speech acts would be impossible without this. The challenge, therefore, is to explain on a (...) Darwinian basis how life could have become subject to the rule of law. Only then will we have an appropriate social framework in which to contextualize our models of how language may have evolved. (shrink)

This special thematic issue of The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy brings together a cross-cultural set of scholars from Asia, Europe, and North America critically to explore foundational questions of familial authority and the implications of such findings for organ procurement policies designed to increase access to transplantation. The substantial disparity between the available supply of human organs and demand for organ transplantation creates significant pressure to manipulate public policy to increase organ procurement. As the articles in this issue explore, (...) however, even if well intentioned, the desire to maximize organ procurement does not justify undermining foundational elements of human flourishing, such as the family. While defending at times quite different understandings of autonomy, informed consent, and familial authority, each author makes clear that a principled appreciation of the family is necessary. Otherwise, health care practice will treat the family in a cynical and instrumental fashion unlikely to support social or individual good. (shrink)

In this essay I develop a Marxist-informed anticolonialist position, and from this position I assess the role of law in the early Canadian settler-state. I claim that the flexibility of law is a measure of its restitutive and exploitative facets, such facets that operate dialectically as a means of moderating between the settler-state’s liberal democratic ideals and its capitalist imperatives. Law plays an integral role in this context because, by performing this moderating function, it stabilizes the socio-economic order of the (...) emergent settler-state. In the second half of this essay, I enrich my theoretical analysis by examining the variable legal subjectivity of early Ukrainian immigrants to Canada. This historical perspective allows me to illuminate the intricacies of the logic that informs law’s flexibility, and to show how the liberal democratic principle of freedom was—and continues to be—both extolled and compromised by the law’s moderating function. (shrink)

I argue that the family remains integral to neoliberal capitalism. First, I identify two tensions in the neoliberals' advocacy of the traditional family: that the ?family values? advocated run directly counter to the homo economicus of the ?free market?; and the fact that the increasingly strident rhetoric of the family belies its decreasing popularity. The implications of these tensions for how we might think of the family, I then propose, suggest that earlier critiques are worth revisiting for what they have (...) to say about the family?whether in biological or in social form?as a structure of ownership. Finally, I conclude with some embryonic thoughts about the ideological role of that state of affairs in shaping at once our understanding of ?politics? and our politics. (shrink)

Lars Lih’s study of Lenin’s What Is to Be Done? demolishes the shared liberal and Stalinist myth of Leninism as an ice-cold ideology of professional and opportunistic revolutionary organisation. He conclusively shows, not only that Lenin’s thought had deep roots in the democratic culture of contemporary Marxism, but also that it was predicated upon a strong belief in the revolutionary potential of the working class. Lih’s research thus moves the debate about Lenin’s contribution to Marxism on from the tired caricatures (...) of the textbooks to focus instead upon his complex relationship to the Marxism of the Second International. By showing that Lenin’s Marxism was much more sophisticated and textured than is normally allowed, this debate opens his rich legacy to contemporary re-evaluation. 1. (shrink)

Chris Wickham’s Framing the Early Middle Ages is a towering comparative overview of Rome’s successor-states in the four centuries after its collapse in the West. Not only does it bring together evidence from across the continent in a way that will inform all subsequent serious discussions of the period, it also conceptualises an important, peasant-mode of production. Notwithstanding these strengths, Framing has been criticised for its structuralist, static characterisation of feudalism. The debates surveyed in this essay suggest that, while Wickham’s (...) book will act as a milestone in the history of Europe, it should also act as a spur to further research and critical reflection on the period. Moreover, in the light of recent criticisms of Marxist historiography, Wickham’s book and the debate surrounding it point to the continued vibrancy of historical materialism. (shrink)

ABSTRACT 'The Duologue of King/Governor Pāyāsi' has long been recognised as a source for the proto-materialism current at the time of the Buddha. What needs to be stressed is the significance of the text as a pointer to the development of Logic in India. Perception, which is an accepted method of experimental enquiry, and reasoning from analogy, which can lead at best to a probable conclusion - these two are the only means employed to settle the dispute concerning the existence (...) of the other-world. The Jain version of the same duologue-cum-parable, though varying in minor details regarding the name and identity of the monk refuting the king/governor, contains the same contrast, namely, perception versus analogical reasoning. There can be little doubt that the original parable was conceived with a view to asserting the existence of the other-world. In the Kaṭha Upaniṣad, an earlier Brahmanical text, however, instead of argument by analogy, verbal testimony was invoked to settle the same point. Naciketas is assailed by doubt about the existence of a person after his or her death. The authority of Yama, the Pluto of Indian mythology, is invoked to convince him that the other-world does exist. Thus, the three parables taken together exhibit three means of knowledge in operation: verbal testimony and argument by analogy pitted against perception. RESUMO 'O duólogo do rei/governador Pāyāsi' há muito tempo é reconhecido como uma fonte da corrente protomaterialista da época do Buda. O que é necessário ressaltar é o significado desse texto como um indicador do desenvolvimento da lógica na Índia. Percepção, aceita como método de investigação experimental, e raciocínio por analogia, que no máximo pode conduzir a uma conclusão provável - apenas esses dois são os meios utilizados para dirimir a disputa que diz respeito à existência do outro-mundo. A versão jaina do mesmo duólogo-cum-parábola, mesmo com variações que concernem ao nome e à identidade do monge que se opõe ao rei/governador, contém o mesmo contraste, a dizer, percepção contra raciocínio por analogia. Não há muita dúvida de que a parábola original foi concebida com o intuito de afirmar a existência do outro-mundo. Entretanto, na Kaṭha Upaniṣad, um texto bramânico mais antigo, em vez do argumento por analogia, o testemunho verbal foi invocado para resolver o mesmo ponto. Naciketas é tomado pela dúvida sobre a existência da pessoa depois da sua morte. A autoridade de Yama, o Plutão da mitologia indiana, é invocada para convencê-lo que o outro-mundo existe. Portanto, as três parábolas juntas exibem três meios de conhecimento em função: testemunho verbal e argumento por analogia opostos à percepção. (shrink)

Because the Israeli kibbutz is innovative in collective ownership, production, consumption, and child care, and in part also because it is erroneously assumed to have once had a gender-egalitarian ideology and structure, it is taken to be a valid test case for many theories explaining or justifying gender inequality or gender equality. This article argues that the kibbutz cannot serve as a test case for theories that blame inequality on the family as such, on the exclusivity of infant rearing by (...) women, on the precultural differences between the sexes, or on compulsory heterosexuality for women. Kibbutz experience refutes theories that blame the inferior social status of women on material inequality, on private ownership of the means of production, or on the inferior ritual evaluation of women's activities. Kibbutz experience is indeed a unique test case for, but also a refutation of, theories that base gender equality on maximal participation of women in work in the public sphere or on the maximal socialization of housework and child care. Finally, kibbutz experience corroborates the theory that gender equality depends on equal control over surplus resources and, conspicuously so, the theory that in modern society, gender equality depends on the full abolition of the gender segregation of all social roles, especially work roles, whether performed in the private sphere or in the public sphere, whether paid for or unpaid. (shrink)

The shift to companionate marriage in South Asia and elsewhere is widely read as a move from ‘tradition’ to ‘modernity’ resulting in an expansion of individual agency, especially for women. This paper critically examines the narratives of urban middle-class women in Sri Lanka spanning three generations to illustrate that rather than indicating a radical shift in the way they negotiated between individual desires and social norms, the emphasis on ‘choice’ signals a shift in the narrative devices used in the presentation (...) of the ‘self’. The paper illustrates how young women's narratives about marriage appear to suggest ‘modernity’ as inevitable—that its processes are reconstituting the person who, less constrained by ‘tradition’ and collective expectations, is now experiencing greater freedom in the domain of marriage. However, it also shows how urban middle-class families in Sri Lanka have collectively invested in the narrative of choice through which ‘a choosing person’ is consciously created as a mark of the family's modernity and progress. Rather than signalling freedom, these narratives about choice reveal how women are often burdened with the risks and responsibility of agency. The paper illustrates that the ‘choosing person’ is produced through narratives that emphasise agency as a responsibility that must be exercised with caution because women are expected by and obligated to their families to make the ‘right’ choices. Hence, a closer look at the individualised ‘choosing person’ reveals a less unitary, relational self with permeable boundaries embedded within and accountable to family and kinship. (shrink)

La trayectoria intelectual de Marcuse está acompañada de un compromiso constante con las formas de la crítica filosófica heredadas de la tradición occidental, desde la forma en la cual aparece la negación de lo dado a través del diálogo socrático hasta la manera en que se configura la crítica del sistema capitalista en el siglo XX. Esto no quiere decir que Marcuse haya sido un erudito que absorbió y comprendió a cabalidad todos los sistemas e ideas filosóficas y que las (...) utilizó al servicio de su propia consideración crítica del mundo; más bien resalta que entre sus elaboraciones han estado presentes algunos de los contextos e ideas más potentes del pensamiento que ha entendido de manera crítica la estructura de las sociedades humanas. (shrink)

Tracing the leading role of emotions in the evolution of the mind, a philosopher and a psychologist pair up to reveal how thought and culture owe less to our faculty for reason than to our capacity to feel. Many accounts of the human mind concentrate on the brain’s computational power. Yet, in evolutionary terms, rational cognition emerged only the day before yesterday. For nearly 200 million years before humans developed a capacity to reason, the emotional centers of the brain were (...) hard at work. If we want to properly understand the evolution of the mind, we must explore this more primal capability that we share with other animals: the power to feel. Emotions saturate every thought and perception with the weight of feelings. The Emotional Mind reveals that many of the distinctive behaviors and social structures of our species are best discerned through the lens of emotions. Even the roots of so much that makes us uniquely human—art, mythology, religion—can be traced to feelings of caring, longing, fear, loneliness, awe, rage, lust, playfulness, and more. From prehistoric cave art to the songs of Hank Williams, Stephen T. Asma and Rami Gabriel explore how the evolution of the emotional mind stimulated our species’ cultural expression in all its rich variety. Bringing together insights and data from philosophy, biology, anthropology, neuroscience, and psychology, The Emotional Mind offers a new paradigm for understanding what it is that makes us so unique. (shrink)

Forster presented some interesting examples having to do with distinguishing the direction of causal influence between two variables, which he argued are counterexamples to the likelihood theory of evidence. In this paper, we refute Forster's arguments by carefully examining one of the alleged counterexamples. We argue that the example is not convincing as it relies on dubious intuitions that likelihoodists have forcefully criticized. More importantly, we show that contrary to Forster's contention, the consilience-based methodology he favored is accountable within the (...) framework of the LTE. (shrink)

So-called family values and their part in education are considered. ‘Traditional’‘modern’ and ‘deviant’ patterns of family relationships are discussed and the moral superiority of the first is questioned. The single life without family involvement is also proposed as a possibly fulfilling mode of existence in its own right.

Comparing the typologies of human activities developed by Beauvoir and Arendt, I argue that these philosophers share the same concept of labor as well as a similar insight that labor cannot provide a justification or evaluative measure for human life. But Beauvoir and Arendt think differently about work (as contrasted with labor), and Arendt alone illuminates the inability of constructive work to provide non-utilitarian value for human existence. Beauvoir, on the other hand, exceeds Arendt in examining the ethical implications of (...) our existential need for a plurality of free peers in a public realm. (shrink)

The demand for female labor is a central explanatory component of macrostructural theories of gender stratification. This study analyzes how the structural demand for female labor affects gender differences in labor force participation. The authors develop a measure of the gendered demand for labor by indexing the degree to which the occupational structure is skewed toward usually male or female occupations. Using census data from 1910 through 1990 and National Longitudinal Sample of Youth data from 261 contemporary U.S. labor markets, (...) the authors show that the gender difference in labor force participation covaries across time and space with this measure of the demand for female labor. (shrink)

We invite systematic consideration of the metaphors of cycles and circulation as a long-term theme in the history of the life and environmental sciences and medicine. Ubiquitous in ancient religious and philosophical traditions, especially in representing the seasons and the motions of celestial bodies, circles once symbolized perfection. Over the centuries cyclic images in western medicine, natural philosophy, natural history and eventually biology gained independence from cosmology and theology and came to depend less on strictly circular forms. As potent ‘canonical (...) icons’, cycles also interacted with representations of linear and irreversible change, including arrows, arcs, scales, series and trees, as in theories of the Earth and of evolution. In modern times life cycles and reproductive cycles have often been held to characterize life, in some cases especially female life, while human efforts selectively to foster and disrupt these cycles have harnessed their productivity in medicine and agriculture. But strong cyclic metaphors have continued to link physiology and climatology, medicine and economics, and biology and manufacturing, notably through the relations between land, food and population. From the grand nineteenth-century transformations of matter to systems ecology, the circulation of molecules through organic and inorganic compartments has posed the problem of maintaining identity in the face of flux and highlights the seductive ability of cyclic schemes to imply closure where no original state was in fact restored. More concerted attention to cycles and circulation will enrich analyses of the power of metaphors to naturalize understandings of life and their shaping by practical interests and political imaginations. (shrink)

Meaningful work is both a moral issue and an economic one. Studies show that workers’ experience of meaninglessness in their jobs contributes to job dissatisfaction which has negative effects to business. If having a meaningful work is essential for the well-being of workers, providing them with one is an ethical requirement for business establishments. The essay aims to articulate an account of meaningful work in the Catholic social teachings. CST rejects the subjectivist and relativist notion of work which affirms the (...) absolute freedom of individuals to choose their commitment and goals, even if this includes experiencing satisfaction in dehumanizing work. First, the paper will present a summary account of some of the current views on meaningful work from the objective-normative approach. This will be followed by a systematic treatment of the meaning and value of work in the CST, the similarities and differences it has with alternative views, and its implications for the way we promote meaningful work. The paper will argue that by recognizing the subjective and objective dimensions of work and affirming that although the two are inseparable, the former takes priority over the latter; CST develops a holistic, comprehensive, and coherent account of meaningful work which overcomes some of the difficulties that are usually encountered in dealing with this issue from a purely objective approach. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that the material and rhetorical connection between “parental involvement” and motherhood has the effect of making two important features of parental involvement disappear. Both of these features need to be taken into account to think through the positive and negative effects of parental involvement in public schooling. First, parental involvement is labor. In the following section of this paper, I discuss the work of feminist scholars who have brought this to light. Second, parental involvement remains (...) one of the most significant ways in which citizens participate in the public sphere. While education reform projects centered on parental involvement do show some recognition that what parents/mothers do is in fact work, even as they ignore the gendered dimensions of this work and sunnily demand that parents do ever more of it, these projects resist the recognition that parents’/mothers’ involvement is also political. (shrink)

Kinship was one of the key areas of research interest among anthropologists in the nineteenth century, one of the most hotly debated areas of theory in the early and mid-twentieth century, and yet an area of waning interest by the end of the twentieth century. Since then, the study of kinship has experienced a revitalization, with concomitant disputes over how best to proceed. This special issue brings together recent studies of kinship by scientific anthropologists employing evolutionary theory and quantitative methods. (...) We argue that the melding of the evolutionary theoretical perspective with quantitative and ethnographic methodologies has strengthened and reinvigorated the study of kinship by synthesizing and extending existing research via rigorous analyses of evidence. (shrink)

Takamure Itsue has many faces following different phases of her life: poet, activist-writer, anarchist, ethnologist and historian. Throughout these transformations, Takamure maintained her feminist position. This article concentrates on her politics of love, sex and marriage, formulated and presented in the pre-war period during the time of Japanese colonial empire. A specific focus is placed on her positionality in the act of writing within the discursive field of women whose nation was colonizing others, notably Koreans. The combination of positivistic craving (...) for ‘scientific’ history to substantiate the uxorilocal tradition of Japanese matrimony and uncritical acceptance of ‘motherhood’ as a superior virtue led her to consequently embrace Japan's colonialism. (shrink)

Marriage practices, the dynamics of interpersonal relationships and the politics of sexuality are relatively under-researched themes in the study of Bengali communism. Historical scholarship on the revolutionary politics of the extreme left Naxalbari andolan of the late 1960s–1970s, the object of this piece of study, is no exception. The article engages with women and men's narratives on the practice of ‘revolutionary’ marriage in the movement through the prism of contemporary popular memory studies and narrative analysis. Drawing on field interviews with (...) middle-class male and female activists, the article draws attention to the contestatory nature of marriage in the collective memory of the movement. Narrative contestations over marriage in the Naxalite movement underscore, I argue, a tension between a utopian ideal of transgressive interpersonal relations and dominant middle-class codes of sexual morality. At the same time, individual attempts to ‘compose’ (in storytelling) socially recognizable and acceptable subject positions are grounded upon the silencing and abjection of more risky memories. Given the discrepancies and contradictions within the narrative repertoire from which individuals construct their identities, these ‘marriage stories’ are a tremendous resource for investigating the politics of love, sexuality and subject-formation in middle-class Bengali society. (shrink)

On Catharine MacKinnon’s view, feminism aspires to be a theory of the kind that Marxism is: a theory of the organisation of the social world as sex hierarchy, just as Marxism is a theory of the organisation of the social world as class hierarchy. In 1982, MacKinnon observed that feminism was not yet such a theory, and set out to make it one. She did this by developing a theory of sexuality as to feminism what work is to Marxism. If (...) one shares MacKinnon’s view that feminism aspires to be a theory of the kind that Marxism is, then one sees MacKinnon as, with her theory of sexuality, creating, albeit in beginning form, a feminist theory. One thus considers MacKinnon’s theory of sexuality a definitive moment in the history of feminist theory. Yet, for all its importance, no one, neither critics nor proponents, has analysed this theory on its own terms. It is therefore not clear whether MacKinnon’s theory of sexuality succeeds, and so whether feminism is yet a theory of the kind that Marxism is. In the spirit of progressing MacKinnon’s project, in this paper, I return to her theory and consider whether it succeeds. (shrink)

Most human societies exhibit a distinct class structure, with an elite, middle classes, and a bottom class, whereas animals form simple dominance hierarchies in which individuals with higher fighting ability do not appear to form coalitions to “oppress” weaker individuals. Here, we extend our model of primate coalitions and find that a division into a bottom class and an upper class is inevitable whenever fitness-enhancing resources, such as food or real estate, are exploitable or tradable and the members of the (...) bottom class cannot easily leave the group. The model predicts that the bottom class has a near flat, low payoff and always comprises at least half the society. The upper class may subdivide into one or more middle class(es), resulting in improved payoff for the topmost members (elite). The model predicts that the bottom class on its own is incapable of mounting effective counter-coalitions against the upper class, except when receiving support from dissatisfied members of the middle class(es). Such counter-coalitions can be prevented by keeping the payoff to the lowest-ranked members of the middle classes (through concessions) well above that of the bottom class. This simple model explains why classes are also absent in nomadic hunter-gatherers and predominate in (though are not limited to) societies that produce and store food. Its results also agree well with various other known features of societies with classes. (shrink)

Frustrations attending East/west feminist dialogs in the early days of post-socialism were particularly visible in the Czech Republic. English-language publications explained why Czechs were not going to accept feminism easily, despite the growth of new gender studies centers. This article explores the works of three scholars who participated in these discussions: sociologist Marie Čermáková, philosopher and sociologist Hana Havelková, and sociologist Jiřina Šiklová. It argues that in the early to mid-1990s, Czech gender scholars' explanations of why feminism was inappropriate in (...) the Czech context reproduced state narratives of family and gender relations from the interwar and socialist era. Feminist writings from Western Europe and the US often make explicit the contrast between state agendas and women's lives. Czech narratives of past experiences with the state, however, served as a framework for navigating the early post-socialist era. (shrink)

Recent scholarship on gender and the state suggests that women's agency has been critical to the formation of welfare policy. Yet, nations with strong, mobilized feminist movements do not necessarily develop the most supportive welfare policies. By historically analyzing the emergence of British and French family allowance policy, the author suggests that the key to this conundrum lies in the interaction between women's movements and the value given to women's paid and unpaid labor. Woman-friendly state policy requires an active women's (...) movement and ideologies valuing women's paid and unpaid labor. In addition, women's movements must be able and willing to strategically use those ideologies to pursue their goals. (shrink)

: This article presents Irigaray as a philosopher committed to sociopolitical change by discussing her political thought and her engagement with the European Parliament. It traces her recent work with the ex-Communist Party in Italy back to her early critique of Marx and her subsequent attraction to Hegel's civil definition of the person. The failure of her European Parliament initiative suggests that her thinking is in advance of its possible realization.

This article presents Irigaray as a philosopher committed to sociopolitical change by discussing her political thought and her engagement with the European Parliament. It traces her recent work with the ex-Communist Party in Italy back to her early critique of Marx and her subsequent attraction to Hegel's civil definition of the person. The failure of her European Parliament initiative suggests that her thinking is in advance of its possible realization.

The 2011 Historical Materialism Conference in London saw the launch of a Marxist-Feminist set of panels. This issue is inspired by the success of those panels, and the remarkably sustained interest in reviving and moving beyond older debates and discussions. The special issue’s focus, Social-Reproduction Feminism, reflects and contextualises the ongoing work and engagement with that thematic that has threaded through the conferences in the 2010s. This Introduction provides a summary overview of the Social-Reproduction Feminism framework, situating it within Marxist-Feminist (...) thinking and politics more generally, and calls on readers to consider its promise and potential as an historical-materialist approach to understanding capitalist social relations in terms of an integrated totality. (shrink)

Karl Kautsky was one of the most important Marxist thinkers of his age. In this life sketch written in 1924, he outlines his intellectual development and how he came to be such an important Marxist theoretician.

For different feminist theorists, housework and child rearing are viewed in very different ways. I argue that Marx gives us the categories that allow us to see why housework and child care can be both a paradigm of unalienated labor and also involve the greatest oppression. In developing this argument, a distinction is made between alienation and oppression and the conditions are discussed under which unalienated housework can become oppressive or can become alienated.

: The history of modern feminist political theories is often framed in terms of the already existing theories of a number of radical nineteenth-century men philosophers such as James Mill, John Stuart Mill, Charles Fourier, Karl Marx, and Friedrich Engels. My argument takes issue with this way of framing feminist political theory by demonstrating that it rests on a derivation that remains squarely within the logic of malestream political theory. Each of these philosophers made use of a particular discursive trope (...) that linked the idea of women's emancipation with the idea of social progress. I argue that this trope reproduced the masculinist signification and symbolism inherent in their particular political philosophies. I argue for a more positive, less masculinist, account of the history of feminist political thought. (shrink)

The history of modern feminist political theories is often framed in terms of the already existing theories of a number of radical nineteenth-century men philosophers such as James Mill, John Stuart Mill, Charles Fourier, Karl Marx, and Friedrich Engels. My argument takes issue with this way of framing feminist political theory by demonstrating that it rests on a derivation that remains squarely within the logic of malestream political theory. Each of these philosophers made use of a particular discursive trope that (...) linked the idea of women's emancipation with the idea of social progress. I argue that this trope reproduced the masculinist signification and symbolism inherent in their particular political philosophies. I argue for a more positive, less masculinist, account of the history of feminist political thought. (shrink)

Sociobiologists and feminists agree that men in patriarchal social systems seek to control females, but sociobiologists go further, using Darwin’s theory of sexual selection and Trivers’s ideas on parental investment to explain why males should attempt to control female sexuality. From this perspective, the stage for the development under some conditions of patriarchal social systems was set over the course of primate evolution. Sexual selection encompasses both competition between males and female choice. But in applying this theory to our “lower (...) origins” (prehominid ancestors), Darwin assumed that choices were made by essentially “coy” females. I argue here that female solicitation of multiple males (either simultaneously or sequentially, depending on the breeding system) characterized prehominid females; this prehominid legacy of cyclical sexual assertiveness, itself possibly a female counter-strategy to male efforts to control the timing of female reproduction, generated further male counter-strategies. This dialectic had important implications for emerging hominid mating systems, human evolution, and the development of patriarchal arrangements in some human societies. For hominid males who will invest in offspring, there would be powerful selection for emotions, behaviors, and customs that ensure them certainty of paternity. The sexual modesty that so struck Darwin can be explained as a recent evolved or learned (perhaps both) adaptation in women to avoid penalties imposed by patrilines on daughters and mates who failed to conform to the patriline’s prevailing norms for their sex. Other supposedly innate universals, such as female preferences for wealthy husbands, are also likely to be facultative accommodations by women to constraints set up when patrilines monopolized resources needed by females to survive and reproduce, and passed on intergenerational control of these resources preferentially to sons. (shrink)