Paternal Investment and the Positive Effects of Fathers among the Matrilineal Mosuo of Southwest China

Abstract

The matrilineal Mosuo of Southwest China have been described as the only human society that lacks fathers and husbands. These claims are based on ethnographic descriptions of normative practices and have typically not employed rigorous tests of quantitative behavioral or demographic data to verify actual practices. Here we challenge these claims, providing quantitative evidence of paternal investment among contemporary Mosuo fathers.We show that co-residence with one's biological father is associated with increased education and lower age at first reproduction, suggesting that incentives to provide paternal care exist among the Mosuo. We examine men's selfreports of fathering activity and women's reports of their partners' fathering activities, including measures of both direct care and monetary investment in their children. Every participant (N = 140) reported paternal involvement in childcare, but factor analysis of fathers' responses revealed that men specialized in either monetary or direct care. We speculate as to what may lie behind differences in caring patterns and conclude by emphasizing that while paternal investment is facultative, it is unlikely to be completely absent even in societies like the Mosuo. [human behavioral ecology, paternal investment, fathers, tourism, matriliny] American /academics/asianstudies/meet-our-faculty/Pages/Tami-Blumenfield.aspx NOTES Acknowledgments. The authors would like to thank their Mosuo participants for humor, candor, and companionship during the many months of combined fieldwork that allowed us to explore the roles of fathers in their daily lives. We are indebted to Michael Chibnik, Mayumi Shimose, and the anonymous reviewers who provided useful comments and criticisms on earlier drafts of this article. the invaluable scholarly perspectives and practical assistance from He Shaoying, He Zhonghua, Lamu Gatusa, and Latami Dashi. We thank Jiajia Wu and Hsun-Hui Tseng for assistance in translating the abstract to Chinese.

Women Tend to Defect in a Social Dilemma Game in Southwest China

“…The Mosuo minority matriarchal society leaves it up to women to mainly manage family resources (e.g. [41]) and therefore they hold relatively more power than most other Chinese women. Mosuo women were found significantly less risk averse than neighbouring communities, when having to invest a certain endowment into a Lottery game [42].…”

Thinking about relations: Strathern, Sahlins, and Locke on anthropological knowledge

“…While the trend described here is persistent, it is not all-pervasive in the study of kinship. For relatively recent work on kinship that shows more affinity with older ethnographic kinship studies see Allen et al (2008), Berman (2014), Chapais (2008), Dziebel (2007), Godelier (2004), Godelier et al (1998), Mattison et al (2014) and McConvell et al (2013). 10.…”

World Anthropologies andAA

“…Robert Wilson reviews ways that anthropologists have conceptualized “kinship” over the past century, with an emphasis on the extent of what he calls “bioessentialism.” Wilson's article provides a useful way to think about three recent articles about kinship in AA (Berend ; Berman ; Mattison et al. ).…”