Catherine Driscoll

In “Out of Eden” David Barash argues that humans are naturally polygamous, in that they have innate polygamous preferences. In particular, Barash argues that human males have preferences and other psychological states designed to support aggressive polygynous sexual competition, and that the resulting behavior has driven the selection of various other psychological and behavioral traits in humans. This is controversial, since the prevailing view of the human mating system in our recent evolutionary history was that it was choice-based and only mildly polygynous. In this review I evaluate Barash’s arguments and conclude that he has not made his case for the stronger view.