From an evolutionary perspective the issue is whether an adult should devote resources to the care and raising of an offspring. For a female, this was never an issue. She gestated the baby and, not to put too fine a point on it, she pushed it out of her vagina. Therefore, she was positive it was hers and she should care for the baby. The important thing in whether she decides to expend time and energy caring for the baby is that she knows it is her baby.
For males this was never so clear. If the woman was monogamous and had not had sex with anybody in the last 9 months, then it was his child. Then he should help raise the child. Again, from a purely biological perspective. Mr. Stevens articulates it far better than I:
The evolutionary consequences to men of an unfaithful partner are greater than they are for women. (He then expends energy raising a child who is not passing on his genes. The woman, at worst, might be abandoned due to infidelity.) Thus, men care more about the possibility of infidelity than women do.
I want to be clear about something because sometimes people equate biological with Good or Right. This is not the case. So, even if biology evolved to overcome these issues then, it does not make them Right.
But then we have to move on to the sociological aspects -- property inheritence, divine lineage, etc, etc.
Arethusa writes:
The observation that maternity is never beyond doubt reminds me of the warming-pan baby claim (and that for 300 years afterward, the Lord Chancellor or some court dignitary in a wig had to attend royal births).
C.S. Perry writes:
But the problem is further complicated inasmuch as society, for want of a better term, tacitly admits that women may not necessarily be trusted when it comes to paternity. Case in Point: When my son was born I had to sign a document that “Binds” me to be financially responsible for him until he is a legal adult.
In most societies the solution to paternal ambiguity is monogamous marriage. A child born in a monogamous marriage, if it has lasted longer than 9 months is another way to guarantee paternity. Dance takes a slightly cynical view, calling it surveillance and control:
Well, I might agree that the fetishization of female virginity was a reasonable response to the problem of property inheritance (let's not pretend this is about paternity, as CS Perry proves), except for one thing---it doesn't guarantee anything. It promises 1 night, 1 opportunity to ensure paternity. After that one night, there are no guarantees. After that one night, surveillance and control is the response to the inheritance problem.
I would argue that the woman benefits from the monogamous marriage, or surveillance and control, arrangement however. If we assume that the odds a male will expend resources, not just inheritance, on a child is directly proportional to the probability in his mind that the child is his, then a monogamous marriage drastically increases the odds that he will devote resources to said child. But monogamous marriage is not the only solution.
Andrew Stevens writes:
there are some societies where the men were frequently away for long periods of time hunting and a woman's fidelity was both unlikely and unverifiable. These societies frequently adopted schemes in which the woman's brothers helped to raise her children rather than the father of the child.
This way the bloodline continues with resources from a side of the family that is guaranteed to be a part of the bloodline.
dave.s. makes a good point:
Jeez, there is recent innovation! Women get eggs fertilized outside, and implanted. They have to trust the doc that the implant is their egg - or is the egg of the perfect-1600-SAT donor they paid $23000 for. Guys have to trust the doc that their jiz was in fact mixed with the donor egg. Dr Jacobsen went to the slammer for 52 counts of mail fraud (mail fraud) including a case in which he used his own stuff instead of donation from the woman's husband. 'Father of us all', he was called in his Ig Nobel. So that's unreliability introduced into parents' knowledge of pater/maternity.
And now you can get DNA testing which will lock up the answer. So: world has changed, from the one which led to the attitudes FLG is describing
Even given DNA testing, if human biology has adapted in a response to paternal ambiguity, which I would argue it has given the relatively stronger sexual jealousy in males, then those tests won't solve everything. Sure, they can resolve some of the legal issues, and eventually the socially constructed ones will probably adapt as well. However, even socially constructed reactions to paternal ambiguity and maternal certainty aren't going to change overnight. And by not overnight I mean decades at the very least. So, women will be stuck with male promiscuity being okay, but female promiscuity generally frowned upon and other double standards for a while yet.
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I think you are eliding some categories here and oversimplifying the issues....this series started as about virginity.
I'm cynical about virginity. My point is that fetishizing female virginity is not the same thing as honoring trust, monogamy and fidelity. And female promiscuity is not the same thing as not being a virgin on your first marriage.
If you can trust a woman after marriage to be monogamous and faithful, then it really shouldn't matter whether she is a virgin before marriage. Yet, for some reason it does (or used to). Why? I think because fetishizing virginity is 1) neither a reasonable nor effective response to the paternity issue 2) probably not only or even mainly about ensuring paternity.
Dance,
If you think about this in terms of the Madonna-whore dichotomy with a spectrum of chastity/wantonness in between, then it will probably make more sense. A woman who is a virgin until marriage is more likely to remain faithful. I don't have empirical evidence of this, but I'm willing to bet that all the virgin-until-marriage-never-get-divorced-evangelical-types are numerous enough to make this fact statistically significant. So, to the extent that virginity implies sexual passivity, for lack of a better term, vis-a-vis finding partners, the fetishing of virginity makes sense.
"...confronted their elderly mother..."
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-dnasurprise18-2009jan18,0,5045230.story
dave.s.
Dance,
But how do you know how many sexual partners a woman has had before you or how likely she is to be faithful afterward? Answer: you don't really, unless she's virgin intacta, in which case you know (more or less) for sure that the answer is zero to the first question. You still don't know the answer to the second question, but your chances of fidelity are higher than with a woman who is not an intact virgin. Thus, the prizing of virginity.
FLG's distinction between what is natural and what is good or right is an important distinction here (and not made nearly often enough). To say that there are logical reasons why men fetishize virginity is not to argue that they should fetishize virginity.
One of the more interesting things that has come out of research in this area, by the way, is that women have a large amount of "erotic plasticity." In other words, the promiscuity of women varies very widely from culture to culture. This is not really true of men who tend to show about the same amount of promiscuity in all cultures (usually with a small amount of women who are prostitutes to mop up the excess demand in those cultures where women are not very promiscuous). This is true even in those cultures where the penalty for male promiscuity or adultery is harsh. On the other hand, men have a large amount of "parenting plasticity." In some cultures, men play very little role in raising children and in others they play a very large role. Women tend to parent their children to about the same degree in all cultures.
FLG and Andrew---but to consider virginity logical proof of fidelity, then you have to buy into the "women are either Madonnas or whores" dichotomy. Which is why Linda called it misogynist. Because women don't fit that dichotomy.
To consider virginity logical proof of fidelity, you also have to buy into the idea that sex is sinful. I agree that it is reasonable to claim that this woman who has not yet sinned will not sin in the future. But since my moral standards hold that there is nothing sinful about having sex even just for fun, but that cheating on people is one of the biggest sins there is, it's very clear to me how flawed that logic is.
How many women out there are serial monogamists who have had several sexual partners before getting married but would never ever cheat on their husbands? How many women out there reported that they cheated on their husbands because they wondered what they were missing after getting married as a virgin? How many women cheat because of emotional dissatisfaction, not physical temptation?
I can see why people think it's logical to substitute past virginity for proof of future fidelity, but you two don't yet seem to see how that substitution relies on a constellation of underlying premises that are both flawed and based on misogynistic understandings of women.
(Note: using myself as a datapoint does not mean I am taking this personally, nor that I am accusing you of endorsing misogyny.)
"To consider virginity logical proof of fidelity, you also have to buy into the idea that sex is sinful..."I can see why people think it's logical to substitute past virginity for proof of future fidelity, but you two don't yet seem to see how that substitution relies on a constellation of underlying premises that are both flawed and based on misogynistic understandings of women."
I would argue that a woman who views sex as sinful would be more likely to remain a virgin until marriage AND faithful during the marriage. Therefore, the imposition of the Madonna-whore dichotomy is self-reinforcing.
As to misogyny, I am not advocating female virginity until marriage in any way, nor am I endorsing the Madonna-whore dichotomy. My point is that there are biological reasons for fetishizing female virginity, not that it is Right.
My ovearching point is that men have a biological interest in controlling female sexuality because of paternal ambiguity. This does not mean it is just, good, or right, but it is a fact.
Too often those who object, rightfully in my opinion, to the control of female sexuality ignore most biological aspects out of bias or a recognition that it is an obstacle to the goals.
It could be that women benefit from the control when it comes to child-rearing resources:
"I would argue that the woman benefits from the monogamous marriage, or surveillance and control, arrangement however. If we assume that the odds a male will expend resources, not just inheritance, on a child is directly proportional to the probability in his mind that the child is his, then a monogamous marriage drastically increases the odds that he will devote resources to said child."
I agree that it is reasonable to claim that this woman who has not yet sinned will not sin in the future. But since my moral standards hold that there is nothing sinful about having sex even just for fun, but that cheating on people is one of the biggest sins there is, it's very clear to me how flawed that logic is.
I totally concur with your moral standards here. (I don't care how promiscuous one is, but I frown very seriously on breaking one's promises.) However, you should be aware that yours is a very modern attitude, and is only really logical after birth control is developed.
How many women out there are serial monogamists who have had several sexual partners before getting married but would never ever cheat on their husbands?
Quite a few, I have no doubt.
How many women out there reported that they cheated on their husbands because they wondered what they were missing after getting married as a virgin?
Not nearly as many as you probably think. This is the basis of an awful lot of erotic literature and not much of reality.
How many women cheat because of emotional dissatisfaction, not physical temptation?
Probably most of those who do cheat.
I can see why people think it's logical to substitute past virginity for proof of future fidelity, but you two don't yet seem to see how that substitution relies on a constellation of underlying premises that are both flawed and based on misogynistic understandings of women.
I agree with you that it is imperfect, but I have no real doubts that a correlation exists. I also deny that it is based on misogyny, since I think a man who comes to his marriage a virgin is more likely to remain faithful and I'm betting virtually nobody will disagree with me on this.
Oh, I don't really doubt that a correlation exists either, *especially* in today's society where not so many women remain virgins to a later age of marriage. But correlation isn't causation. There are lots of correlations that just distract from the real cause and obscure what is really going on rather than illuminate it, and should not be relied upon as shorthands or proxies. I think this is one of them. And the fetishization of virginity gives it far more weight than just a correlation--it suggests that it offers a useful measurement for fidelity, and that I refuse to concede. I think it was an even worse measurement in the eras when this fetishization was developed, when both virginity and fidelity were enforced by far more than a woman's internal character.
(Incidentally, I'm pretty sure I'm picked up the "wondered what I was missing" from reading about the Kinsey Report, not erotic lit. :) )
Actually, I'm reacting far more to the converse of the claim, which would hold that a lack of virginity is predictive of a lack of fidelity. That's idiotic. But if the real concern is ensuring paternity, then that is the real issue, right? To make sure a false child isn't pawned off on them?
men have a biological interest in controlling female sexuality because of paternal ambiguity
Sure. No argument there. *Something* had to be constructed to deal with the paternity problem. But as I said before, virginity at marrriage doesn't actually measure an effective control of female sexuality. In fact, I'm arriving at a theory that all the madonna-whore dichotomy, etc ideas arose just to rationalize the foolishness of thinking virginity at marriage solved the paternity problem, and to delude men into thinking they *could* predict fidelity by some objective, measurable factor.
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