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Comment by obiterdictum | Hacker News Reader

It's interesting to note that Orwell takes a contrary viewpoint: http://www.orwelltoday.com/orwellwaryoungwhy.shtml

"Why is it worse to kill a woman than a man? The argument usually advanced is that in killing women you are killing the breeders, whereas men can be more easily spared. But this is a fallacy based on the notion that human beings can be bred like animals. The idea behind it is that since one man is capable of fertilizing a very large number of women, just as a prize ram fertilizes thousands of ewes, the loss of male lives is comparatively unimportant. Human beings, however, are not cattle. When the slaughter caused by a war leaves a surplus of women, the enormous majority of those women bear no children. Male lives are very nearly as important, biologically, as female ones."

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The evolutionary processes that got us to where we are were operating during a time when we did breed like animals because we were animals. So I don't know that Orwell's is a contrary viewpoint. It's possible to hold the view that male and female lives are just as important biologically now, while acknowledging that that is only a relatively recent development.

Hmm,

It's Orwell so it's well written.

But even Orwell needs references to back up this argument.

I assume he means although the stigma is much less than it once used to be, it's not especially culturally acceptable for a woman to conceive a child from a man who isn't her life partner. Most women who do, do so by accident.

Also, while the man is out at war, the woman usually won't be procreating with anyone else until the man dies. The news of his death will probably affect her badly, and procreation is probably the last thing on her mind at least for a while (after which she may be too old).

But yes, hard data would be even better.

Most women who do, do so by accident.

Or don't get caught....

Also, while the man is out at war, the woman usually won't be procreating with anyone else until the man dies.

There is some counter-evidence to this claim: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dear_john_letter

"Dear John," the letter began. "I have found someone else whom I think the world of. I think the only way out is for us to get a divorce," it said. They usually began like that, those letters that told of infidelity on the part of the wives of servicemen... The men called them "Dear Johns".

Also see "Jodie"

> it's not especially culturally acceptable for a woman to conceive a child from a man who isn't her life partner.

Beyond cultural acceptability, there is objective optimality. Since men thrive to validate themselves by providing more than they consume (cf. article again), it's a comparative disadvantage for women to raise kids without the benefit of that surplus.

In a society where it's reasonably easy to secure a (male) provider, you're a major loser as a woman if you can't secure one. In a society where it's hard, e.g. due to skewed gender demographics, it's acceptable to be a single mom.

There's been a quite politically incorrect paper about black US communities, their lack of men due to huge imprisonment rates and higher mortality, and the resulting prevalence of the single mom model. I think it was referred to by Freakonomics.

It would have been obvious general knowledge to any post Great War (World War I) reader in England.

See: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-481882/Condemned-v...

I'm pretty sure that in "The Road To Wigan Pier" Orwell makes an observation about the effect on the British population of having a significant proportion of the youngest and healthiest men killed in the the Great War.

Interesting. I didn't know that unmarried mothers in England at that time were "often condemned to asylums". Is such harsh treatment of single motherhood common? I can think of societies where it often carries the death penalty, but those societies also permit polygyny.

Isn't one of the main motivators for polygamy to provide a means of support for the excess women in a patriarchal society in which many men have been killed?

See, say, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levirate_marriage

Or the other way round?

Anyway, reproductive success (or just the chances of getting a wive) are even more skewed in polygamous societies, than in monogamous ones. It's an alpha-males paradies, and a loser's hell.

His point holds only if the society never converts to polygamy. This is true in a period of time during British history in which it was written. However, you would assume that over the period of one generation, if there were consistently more women than (suitable) men, the society would begin to accept multiple marriage, first tacitly, then finally explicitly. Or, as we experience in today's society, single mothers. Once shunned, then accepted, now supported. In fact, because of the surplus that modern society now generates (and thus is able to support single mothers, for the most part) single mothers can succesfully raise a family. In a modern society with a surplus of women and a deficit of men, widespread single motherhood is more likely than polygamy. Thus, successful men are going to have multiple partners, but might not stick around to support them.

Continuing in the evolutionary psychology vein, though, the two viewpoints can be reconciled - humans evolved in an environment where it would likely be more acceptable for women to reproduce without a steady partner, so it would be advantageous for groups to protect women more than men for the reasons cited in the original article. However, in modern society, those tendencies could well be unjustified, since contraception and the increased payoffs of committed parent pairs in a society where it's expensive to raise children have made it less likely that a single woman would have children by a man that hasn't committed to her. So we may well be in a situation where we're wired by evolution to protect women more than men despite the practice not being demographically justified in a modern society.

There are a social and economical constraints, not a biological ones.

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