But who cooperated at scale, and thereafter gained power?

Male-male alliances were paramount to human evolution, and laid the foundations for patriarchy - argue Barbara Smuts and Richard Wrangham. Smuts suggests that by restraining within-group rivalries and competition, male groups were better able to confront external rivals, while also increasing their collective control over women. Wrangham hypothesizes that around 300,000 years ago humans became increasingly smart, savvy, communicative and coordinated. By developing more sophisticated language, men could conspire against despotic tyrants and defend themselves against rival groups. By forming fraternal alliances, men could then enforce patriarchy.

Building on these insights, I suggest that as communities produced an agricultural surplus, they became vulnerable to predation, which motivated military coalitions. These thrived by reinforcing fraternal solidarity and ultimately built patriarchy:

1. Non-human primates also form alliances, but humans developed elaborate language, collective rituals, ideologies and institutions that enable cooperation at greater scale.
2. Agriculture meant fixed assets and a storable surplus , which made communities vulnerable to external predation.
3. Warrior fraternities seized the loot. Large, organized military coalitions could seize more territories and resources. Neighbouring populations were either killed, enslaved, assimilated, or were pressured to militarize in defence. Successful coalitions could then spread the institutions that sustained their military prowess.
4. Fraternal alliances were then vital for survival . In small-scale societies, these were reinforced through collective rituals, all-male cults, and men’s houses.
5. Romantic love threatened fraternities , for a man who loved his wife might prioritize her welfare, leave his comrades and free-ride on their militarism. Fraternities have often suppressed conjugal intimacy - such as via arranged marriage, men’s houses. Even if a man loves his wife, acting on it could carry a heavy social cost, constraining his willingness to put her first.
6. Misogyny further strengthened fraternal loyalty . By denigrating women as untrustworthy, men encouraged their peers to control women for biological reproduction, yet remain emotionally distant.Surplus → predation → military fraternities → patriarchy.

Today, let’s explore these mechanisms among small-scale societies.

Warriors Enforced Fraternal Solidarity

Warrior fraternities depended on cohesion, solidarity and willingness to sacrifice. Yet a man besotted with his wife might devote his time and resources to her, defend her interests, and even resist demands to prioritize his comrades. Worst-case scenario: he might abscond.

Reviewing the anthropological literature on small-scale societies, Lars Rodseth notes that concern for collective defence could motivate men to set aside their feuds and rivalries to build alliances. Rather than see bachelors as competitors, older husbands might forge fraternal solidarity. This “fraternal security” could even take precedence over conjugal bonds, leading to institutions that kept husbands and wives apart.

Bena Bena in New Guinea

Langness (1967) describes how the patrilineal Bena Bena in the New Guinea Highlands reinforced male solidarity, while suppressing conjugal intimacy:

“Living in an hostile environment, and faced with the almost constant threat of annihilation by enemy groups, has resulted in, or is related to, a distinctive pattern of male solidarity which offers what the Bena Bena perceive as a better chance for survival. Male solidarity involves the residential separation of the sexes and a complex of beliefs and sanctions designed to insure such separation, as well as a minimal amount of contact between males and females in general” (Langness 1967, 163).

Young brides were often forced into marriage, despite their resistance and tantrums. A bride sent to her husband’s village (or seized by capture), she might then be ignored by him, and the two might harbour considerable dislike. Even if they developed affection, this might be suppressed by male peers and elders:

“The other men, especially older men, continually warn against too much feminine contact. They repeat to him what he already knows - that he will sicken and die, his skin will be no good, he will not be strong, etc. A man, then, is caught between the demands of his wife and the demands of his peers and elders... A man who prefers the company of women in general, or his wife in particular, can be subjected to powerful sanctions, and other men make it obvious to him they do not approve and make fun of him and insult him” (Langness 1967, 172).

He tells of a Bena Bena man who had worked for Europeans and wanted to emulate their conjugal ideal, openly expressing a desire to sleep in the same house as his wife, treating her with respect and kindness. “Within the space of a few days he was virtually a social outcast and could expect no help from other men, who went out of their way to make him miserable” (Langness 1967, 172).

Bena Bena boys were initiated into this fraternity through painful rituals. During adolescence, they underwent a “violent month-long event, during which the boys are kept in seclusion by the adult males. At various stages sharp leaves are rolled pencil thin and thrust repeatedly into the nostrils to cause bleeding. The urethra is pierced with a miniature bow and arrow until blood is drawn”.

This ceremony was, in Langness’s account, “clearly designed to impress upon the youths the importance of male solidarity and the evils of associating too much with women”:

“The purpose of the blood-letting and vomiting is to cleanse the youths from the contaminating influence of women, and as adults, the males continue periodically to cleanse themselves in this way. No adult male can participate in the initiation ceremonies if he has recently had intercourse. Food is cooked for the initiates exclusively by men during their seclusion. The initiates are shown the sacred flutes, which are carefully concealed from the women and kept in the men’s house…

Boys are repeatedly cautioned not to spend too much time with women..

Male superiority and solidarity are concepts constantly reinforced... Men believe it is their responsibility to keep women in line…

After initiation, the young men spend most of their time together, venturing off to court, to raid and fight, to steal pigs and, if possible, to steal women”.

The Sambia of New Guinea

Sambia were also characterised by endemic warfare and intense misogyny that cast women as “polluting, depleting inferiors a man should distrust and keep distant”. In one of the boys’ many initiation rituals, they were warned about three things:

“first, they must be vigilant and always ready for enemy attack; second, sexual contact with women will debilitate and make them vulnerable to death in battle; and third, they must avoid women and know that death from the angry husband and his cohorts awaits adulterous transgressors” (206).

Sambia elders threatened youths with severe punishments for adultery - perhaps because it would sow discord between men. If a youth committed adultery, he “will be killed by the cuckold and his age-mates, elders warn: obey us or suffer that fate. In other words, nosebleeding is here explicitly used as a powerful social sanction to constrain the youths’ sexuality” (206).

Upon marriage, men were cautioned to be ‘aloof’. While some marriages exhibited care and respect, fraternities repeatedly cautioned men against becoming too close:

“If a wife is sassy or insubordinate, or under any hint of suspicion that she is being unfaithful, a man must not spare the rod in demonstrating his ownership and power over this creature who is responsible for his smarting nose” (208).

Sambia youths were thus inducted into warrior fraternities and taught to keep their wives at a distance.

Why Sleep Apart from Your Wife?

Reviewing a cross-cultural sample of societies, Whiting and Whiting (1975) hypothesise that in societies with valuable resources requiring collective defence (that is, where capital investments are high), couples are more likely to sleep apart.

Separately, de Munck and Korotayev find that husbands and wives were less likely to spend leisure time together where boys were trained to be aggressive.

Why Did Some Societies Impose Painful Rituals?

Several explanations have been offered for male initiation ceremonies, such as to prevent defection, and unify men through trauma.

Sosis and colleagues (2007) analyse observations of 60 small-scale societies worldwide. They find that warfare frequency is the most significant predictor of costly, painful rituals. Warfare against culturally different groups is also associated with more permanent bodily marks, like scarification and piercings.

Sosis and colleagues suggest that marks may demonstrate group commitment and make it harder for men to switch sides - abandoning their community to join rivals. Under this interpretation, rituals could demonstrate loyalty and make it harder to escape, establishing commitment before men entrusted each other with their lives.

Harvey Whitehouse (2023) likewise recognizes that warlike societies tend to have painful initiations, leaving permanent scars*.* Drawing on research among the Mambila of Cameroon, he suggests that emotionally intense rituals leave lasting memories and strengthen men’s sense of brotherhood. Men who had undergone initiation reported stronger identification with the Mambila, and willingness to sacrifice for their ethnic group.

Webster (1908) detailed how initiation rituals mark a boy’s passage from association with women to the male fraternity. Where elders controlled admission and instruction, they could gain authority over younger warriors.

All hypotheses may be true: painful rituals could create a sense of fraternity, while scarification could increase the costs of defection. (US readers may have seen reports of dangerous hazing rituals in college fraternities).

Male Secret Societies

In Amazonia and Melanesia, anthropologists have observed how men in small-scale, horticultural societies built camaraderie through painful initiation rituals, secret societies, shared men’s houses and feasts.

Gregor and Tuzin argue that inconsequential secrets could have a powerful social purpose, uniting cult insiders (men), distancing them from outsiders (women and children). Fraternities could fiercely guard this secrecy, threatening women who saw ritual objects with rape or death. Among the Sambia and Yahgan, an individual could also be killed for revealing the secrets.

In the Mehinaku origin myth, the men rape the women and bar them from the men’s house, shouting:

“We paint up, not you. We stand up and make speeches, not you. You don’t play the sacred flutes. We do that. We are men.”… “You are just women”… “You make cotton. You weave hammocks. You weave them in the morning, as soon as the cock crows. Play the sacred flutes? Not you!”.

In another Mehinaku myth, Pahikyawalu entered the men’s house and played their sacred flutes. Her husband denounced her, and the men buried her alive. Her lover joined them, fearing the men’s anger if he refused, but later return to dig her out, carried her to a stream, washed her and took her to another community. In sharing this story, the Mehinaku chief recognised the conflict between romantic love and fraternal loyalty.

I suggest that these bonds could reinforce men’s collective authority. This would help explain why even matrilocal societies were so often governed by men.

Misogyny

Misogyny is a manifestation of patriarchy. Worldwide, male dominance was sustained by an ideology that cast women as evil, dangerous, untrustworthy or polluting. The Christian Bible, Muslim Quran, Hebrew Torah, as well as Buddhist and Hindu scriptures all blame women for tempting and manipulating men. Western folklore also features nagging wives, abusive step-mothers, and wicked witches.

Ethnographic records of Papua New Guinea’s small-scale societies likewise describe women being seen as polluting to men, dangerous to men’s strength and vitality. Globally, menstruation was often regarded as polluting, with women being banished to a hut. Myths frequently portrayed powerful women as sources of danger and disorder, making male dominance seem necessary for collective safety.

Synthesising this literature, Marilyn Gerber records that New Guinea’s Eastern Highlands may be ethno-linguistically diverse, but nevertheless share many customs of gender antagonism. She adds,

“In a group in the Chimbu area which I visited, a man had recently murdered his wife with an axe. He was jailed for it by the authorities, but men from his own locality paid a large sum of money (K300 - about U.S. $425) to have him released “because we felt sorry for him” (Gelber 1986, 40).

In Southern Africa, the matrilineal Bemba have several proverbs on fraternal loyalty: if a woman is permitted to lead, “kuti atoba umushi” - she might destroy the village! Also, “Bepo mwanakashi: umwaume mubiyo, mwenda nankwe” - lie to a woman; your male companion, you travel with him.

This historical and geographical comparison of misogyny helps us recognize:

1. Irrespective of women’s economic contributions , kinship, political complexity or external threats, they have been repeatedly cast as deceitful, dangerous liars.
2. Fraternal organizations distrusted, denigrated and excluded women so as to consolidate their stronghold. This is a fundamental aspect of patriarchy.
3. The evolution of complex societies was inherently misogynistic . Men scaled up co-operation and outcompeted rival groups by Othering women: reinforcing “us and them” gender antagonism.

Does Peace make Conjugal Intimacy less Costly?

If external threats increased men’s dependence on warrior fraternities, might peace and security weaken some of their demands? Langness described instances where the suppression of warfare allowed more conjugal intimacy:

“Probably the most important single reason for accepting the argument presented here is the fact that now warfare has been effectively suppressed by the Australian administration, the relations between men and women are rapidly changing. Indeed, the Gahuku-Gama who are similar to the Bena in most respects, gave up the pattern soon after contact. Men began sleeping with their wives, the sacred flutes were burned after a public display, and the men’s houses and associated activities were largely abandoned” (1967, 175).

Among the Sambia of New Guinea, Herdt observed:

“The initiates gradually stopped being trained for warfare; the war raids ceased, and the vigilance that preserved the absolute sanctity of the men’s clubhouse secrecy was undermined… Although the ideology of preparedness remained, demands to train and prepare for war were gone” (Herdt 2003, 90).

Clearly, these changes were part of wider colonial transformations, so they do not isolate the effects of peace. That might require a more complex natural experiment... Nevertheless, they are consistent with the proposed mechanism that, as the military demands sustaining male fraternities weakened, that particular constraint on conjugal intimacy also loosened, and couples could spend more time together.

That said, men’s reliance on fraternal networks can certainly persist during peacetime.

Male Segregation

Peggy Sanday’s team of graduate students coded societies in the Standard Cross Cultural Sample for “male segregation” - whether males congregated alone, occupied a separate part of the household, or sharply segregated in ceremonies. Male segregation, as you can see from the map below, existed across all world regions.

Which Societies Lacked Male Segregation??

The Semang of Malaya were an exception. In the 1920s, men did not band together collectively for warfare, father often cared for children, men and women undertook many activities together. “A married pair are bound together by genuine affection”, wrote Paul Schebesta, who spent months among the Semang (199, 280).

But it would be wrong to characterise the Semang as evidence of ancient matriarchy. Their way of life was not necessarily timeless. Schebesta repeatedly suggested that Malay population expansion and exploitation had led the Semang groups to retreat into the forest, where they lived as small, mobile and dispersed communities.

Furthermore, this was not a matriarchy in the sense of women ruling over men. There was hardly anyone to rule! Semang camps were tiny: one comprised just 15 inhabitants, while another had 54. Political organization was also weak. Schebesta added that “there are no commands emanating from the seniors” and that “the individual camps have no recognised rulers”. Within each family, however, “the father alone is a respected person” (Schebesta 1929, 279).

The Semang provide suggestive evidence that where communities are tiny, dispersed and non-militarised, there may be little cooperation at scale - including very little among men.

Curious to see if my hypothesis holds more widely, I reviewed the 23 other societies where “male segregation” is coded as absent.

Generally, they confirm my hypothesis, but with several exceptions: the Aleut, Omaha and Haidi. Reviewing the original ethnographies, they are described as warrior societies. Alice Fletcher (1896), one of the earliest female anthropologists, who spent decades with the Omaha, describes the Omaha Hae-thu-ska as a society composed of warriors, governed by male military leaders. Military victories were scrutinised and celebrated in “The Tent of War”. So the Omaha case looks like a coding anomaly, and nice reminder to always check the underlying ethnography!!

Male Co-operation, Misogyny & the Suppression of Romantic Love

Humans uniquely evolved to cooperate in enormous, complex societies. As farming communities stored a surplus, they became vulnerable to predation and so men invariably allied together for defence. Societies may have gained a military advantage over rivals if men cooperated at scale, that is if they reinforced fraternal solidarity. While we lack direct evidence about our prehistoric ancestors, ethnographic records of small-scale societies that organise collectively show how men can punish others for becoming too close to their wives.

Scaling up cooperation is often regarded as human “success”, but these military feats were invariably fraternal victories. Thus even where women produced much of the food, moved independently, or lived near their kin, they could remain subject to male collective authority. Fraternal age-mates, clans or tribes maintained collective strength by bullying any man showing too much loyalty to his wife.

This tension is best illustrated by the Sopranos - a television show about an Italian-American crime family. Corrado (a gangster) enjoys performing cunnilingus on his lover, and she brags about this to her friends. When the gossip spreads, he is mocked by his gangster brethren. Embarrassed, Corrado breaks up with his beloved, shouting “you stupid, fucking blabbermouth cunt”.