Micheletti, Alberto JC;
Ge, Erhao;
Zhou, Liqiong;
Chen, Yuan;
Zhang, Hanzhi;
Du, Juan;
Mace, Ruth;
(2022)
Religious celibacy brings inclusive fitness benefits.
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
, 289
(1977)
, Article 20220965. 10.1098/rspb.2022.0965.
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Abstract
The influence of inclusive fitness interests on the evolution of human institutions remains unclear. Religious celibacy constitutes an especially puzzling institution, often deemed maladaptive. Here, we present sociodemographic data from an agropastoralist Buddhist population in western China, where parents sometimes sent a son to the monastery. We find that men with a monk brother father more children, and grandparents with a monk son have more grandchildren, suggesting that the practice is adaptive. We develop a model of celibacy to elucidate the inclusive fitness costs and benefits associated with this behaviour. We show that a minority of sons being celibate can be favoured if this increases their brothers' reproductive success, but only if the decision is under parental, rather than individual, control. These conditions apply to monks in our study site. Inclusive fitness considerations appear to play a key role in shaping parental preferences to adopt this cultural practice.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Religious celibacy brings inclusive fitness benefits |
| Location: | England |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1098/rspb.2022.0965 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2022.0965 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © 2022 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited. |
| Keywords: | celibacy, cultural behaviours, inclusive fitness, institutions, parent–offspring conflict, sibling competition, Child, China, Family, Genetic Fitness, Humans, Male, Reproduction, Sexual Abstinence, Siblings |
| UCL classification: | UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Dept of Anthropology UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10151041 |
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