What can evolution tell us about domestic violence? Two researchers in the US suggest such violence has ancient origins and that establishing evolution’s role could help to better identify those at risk. Others argue that the research makes simplistic assumptions, and warn that some people will interpret the research as an excuse for violence.
Each year more than 500,000 women in the US alone report to the police violent attacks by current or former male partners. There is a reason why domestic violence is so widespread, says David Buss, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Texas in Austin: it carries a selective advantage, tied with reproductive success. In other words, men who are violent are trying to make sure that their partner has his child and not another man’s. “There are very predictable circumstances in which violence occurs,” says Buss. “For instance, with the threat of sexual infidelity or the threat of relationship termination.”
For instance, in a study of 8000 women some 14 per cent of those with a history of domestic violence agreed that their partner “is jealous and doesn’t want you to talk to other men” – less than 1 per cent of women who experienced no violence agreed with the statement.
Buss predicts that domestic violence will be more likely when a man has a female partner of higher “mate value” – a woman who earns more, is more intelligent or is considered more physically attractive than him. He says men in such circumstances may resort to violence to deter the woman from straying, or else to reduce her own perception of her value by lowering her self-esteem.
“Buss’s hypotheses are certainly plausible,” says biologist Barbara Tschirren at the University of Zurich in Switzerland. “We know from studies in animals that conflicts among family members are ubiquitous.”
“For many people, saying something might have been adaptive in the past is difficult to separate out from saying it is good or right or natural,” says Robert Brooks, an evolutionary biologist at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. “But we are the product of the traits that made our ancestors good at reproducing, including many quite abhorrent traits.”
