Free mate choice does not influence reproductive success in humans

Abstract

The effect of free mate choice on the relative magnitude of fitness benefits has been examined among various species. The majority of the data show significant fitness benefits of mating with partners of an individual’s own choice, highlighting elevated behavioral compatibility between partners with free mate choice. Similarities between humans and other species that benefit from free mate choice led us to hypothesize that it also confers reproductive benefits in Homo sapiens. To test this hypothesis, we conducted a study among three indigenous societies—the Tsimane’, Yali, and Bhotiya—who employ natural birth control. In all three samples, we compared the marriages arranged by parents with the non-arranged ones in terms of number of offspring. Here, we show that there were no significant relationships between type of marriage and the total number of alive children and number of dead children among the three sampled groups. The presented study is the first to date to examine the fitness benefits of free mate choice in humans. In discussion we present limitations of our research and discuss the possibility of love having a beneficial influence in terms of the number of offspring.

Arranged Marriage Often Subverts Offspring Mate Choice: An HRAF‐Based Study

“…Our primary goal was to assess whether general parent–offspring agreement (rather than disagreement) might explain the finding (Agey and Gaulin 2018; Sorokowski et al. 2017a) that arranged marriage has no obvious fitness consequences.…”

“…In each society, individual marriages were sorted into two groups—arranged and free choice—but no fitness differences were observed between the two groups (Agey and Gaulin 2018; Sorokowski et al. 2017a). Specifically, the number of surviving children, the number of deceased children, and the timing of reproduction did not differ between arranged and free‐choice marriages in any of these four societies.…”

Love Influences Reproductive Success in Humans

“…Researchers have attempted to isolate and identify neural (Bartels and Zeki, 2004 ; Fisher et al, 2005 ; Young, 2009 ), hormonal (Fisher, 2004 ; Carter and Porges, 2012 ), and genetic (Walum et al, 2008 ) components underlying this seemingly uniquely human phenomenon. The main unanswered questions so far are why love was promoted by human evolution and how it is related to biological fitness (Sorokowski et al, 2017 ).…”

Romantic Love and Reproductive Hormones in Women

“…Self-reported “in love” status was further confirmed by evaluating the level of passion, assessed using Sternberg’s Triangular Love Scale (STLS questionnaire, Polish adaptation [26]). We used the passion subscale of the STLS because passion (or ‘eros’) typically plays a central role in falling in love [27,28] and is a particularly critical component of love in the context of human reproductive success [29,30,31].…”