The Women Who Take Their Mate as a Master

Posted by Tanos on Fri 2 Mar 07, 9:14 PM

In 1992 "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Chattel" was published by Wilson and Daly as part of "The Adapted Mind", a collection of papers which established Evolutionary Psychology as a new way of looking at the mind in terms of evolution, and attempting to identify which aspects are the result of an evolved human nature. These evolved psychological mechanisms each made a contribution to survival and reproduction in the environment in which humans evolved, although many are no longer useful or even wanted by modern humans. Wilson and Daly's paper argued that one of these adaptations is that men take a proprietary view of women's sexuality and reproductive capacity, and that this is the basis for laws and traditions which formally treated women as owned by men. In this essay, I will apply these ideas to the understanding of heterosexual male dominants in modern day, consensual Master/slave relationships, and propose ways in which they can be extended to explain many female submissives' ability to enter an inescapable state of enslavement.

(I started this essay immediately after writing a Review of "Evolutionary Psychiatry" by Stevens and Price which provides some more background to Evolutionary Psychology.)

Evolution has equipped human males and females with different reproductive strategies due to the different ways in which they invest in their offspring's survival. Females bear a larger and unavoidable cost by bearing the child to birth, nursing it and then bringing it up to adulthood. Human males may also invest resources of food, time etc in the upbringing of their offspring, but their contribution is generally lower, and they have a much greater choice about their degree of contribution. For example, a child produced by a casual encounter involves, at minimum, a nine month investment by the mother, but only a small amount of semen from the father.

Many male animals pursue this strategy, make no investment in their offspring and concentrate on the competition for mates instead. However, human males frequently do invest but until recent medical advances, they could not be sure that a particular child was their's rather than a rival's. Since investing in your children's survival promotes the survival of your own genes, human males have evolved tendencies to invest in children more likely to be theirs (eg participating in family life and supporting women and children in their household) and strategies for increasing the likelihood that their mates do not engage in sex with other men, including various forms of mate-guarding and sexual jealousy. The ultimate expression of mate-guarding and jealousy is treating women as property, either explicitly as slaves or by laws and customs that strictly control wives (and unmarried women, on behalf of their future husbands.)

Wilson and Daly summarised this sense of female property ownership in men:

Men take a proprietary view of women's sexuality and reproductive capacity. By "proprietary" we mean first that men lay claim to particular women as songbirds lay claim to territories, as lions lay claim to a kill, or as people of both sexes lay claim to valuables. Having located an individually recognizable and potentially defensible resource packet, the proprietary creature proceeds to advertise and exercise the intention of defending it from rivals. Proprietariness has the further implication, possibly peculiar to the human case, of a sense of right or entitlement.

It is important to note that the issue of sexual fidelity doesn't apply equally to men and women, because wombs are in much shorter supply than semen. With pregnancies lasting nine months, a woman does not need to monopolise her mate's semen: if he fathers children elsewhere too, it will not inhibit his ability to reproduce with her. The only cost to her is if he diverts some of his resources to his other families, since that means less for her children, who are carrying her genes. For this reason, female jealousy is typically centered on relationships ("Do you love that woman?") rather than sex ("But did you sleep with him?").

"The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Chattel" collected these insights into a single paper, along with the evidence for this position which had accumulated during the 1970s and 1980s. The authors then described some of the ways in which human societies have played out these reproductive strategies.

One immediate prediction is that higher status men will attempt to use their greater access to resources to obtain more sexual partners and therefore father, and perhaps support, more children. This is well bourne out in modern-day tribal societies, where chiefs have much greater reproductive success than low status men; and the stereotype of the businessman with mistresses and girlfriends "on the side" in addition to his wife provides a Western version. Wilson and Daly examine the extreme consequences of this in despotic societies, where sultans and emperors were able to collect hundreds of female slaves, kept in idleness and imprisoned in harems to ensure sexual fidelity. And in more down-to-earth examples, they show how laws have treated adultery as a trespass on the husband's right of property over his wife.

With this background, a desire for some men to pursue modern-day, consensual Master/slave relationships does not now seem out of place: it is a perfectly natural part of the human spectrum, and the result of playing out these adaptive tendencies in men, even if viewed as extreme by comparison to the current mainstream.

Discussions of this subject within Evolutionary Psychology have tended to concentrate on this male adaptation, and have paid less attention to how women have in turn adapted to promote their own genes' reproductive success with their mates (rather than with other men.)

It is accepted that women have developed abilities to cheat on their partners if sufficiently desirable men, presumably with fitter genes, show an interest in sex. Concealed ovulation, which means men are not able to detect exactly when a woman can fall pregnant, may be one such adaptation, as this makes it impossible to concentrate mate-guarding efforts on those few days each month. However sex outside of the relationship carries its own risks, not least that it will be discovered and provoke potentially deadly sexual jealousy which has evolved to reduce men's risk of unwittingly raising their rivals' children as their own, and so female fidelity is often presented in Evolutionary Psychology as a struggle between jealous males and females aware of other, more desirable men.

However, what hasn't received so much attention is whether women have also developed adaptations to accept or even encourage men's proprietorial attitudes if their mate is sufficiently desirable. This is the possibility that I want to explore to try to understand submissive women's role in Internal Enslavement, but first I need to introduce some more ideas from Evolutionary Psychology.

MacLean's Triune Brain hypothesis identified the human brain as really being three layers, acquired over our evolutionary history: the oldest, the R-Complex or Reptilian brain, is concerned with instinctive behaviours, without emotion or thought, such as displays of aggression; the limbic system or Paleomammalian Brain provides emotions and much of our personality, and is similar to that of lower mammals; the Neocortex or Neomammalian Brain is responsible for what we normally call thought - our rational ability to think through problems and make decisions, rather than follow instinctive or emotional responses. The human versions of the reptilian and paleomammalian structures will have adapted over time, but similarities with other animals are still striking.

Each of these three sub-brains have their own way of responding to the environment, and their own memory system (for example, the way a long-forgotten smell can trigger a strong emotion in the Paleomammalian Brain, without being able to understand why consciously at first, until your Neomammalian Brain catches up and finds the corresponding memories of old schoolbooks and break times.) The replication of functions in the different sub-brains means that there are often three versions of a particular aspect of the mind: for instance, that depression can involve negative opinions about the future in the rational Neomammalian Brain, with general feelings of pessimism in the emotional Paleomammalian Brain, associated with lethargy and lack of drive in the instinctive Reptilian Brain.

Submission in BDSM is usually presented as a conscious and rational choice, involving the Neomammalian Brain (although not usually in those terms.) In Internal Enslavement theory, this kind of consenusal submission is either described as Ongoing Voluntary Submission (that is, the opposite of IE and continually dependent on the submissive's desire to stay), or as Consensual Non-consent, when a submissive chooses to enter a relationship such as Internal Enslavement which they cannot subsequently choose to leave.

If we accept the Triune Brain model, then we are led to ask what the corresponding forms of submission in the Paleomammalian and Reptilian Brains look like.

Bondage and other forms of physical overpowerment are likely candidates for submission in the Reptilian Brain, in which the submissive becomes convinced of their helplessness and then often enters a warm, peaceful state of subspace, in which they remain very aware of the dominant, but their higher thought processes are dulled. This process has been described many times by writers from the BDSM scene, for example by Cleo Dubois in her interview for "Different Loving": "(When you're effectively bound) you can think of escaping, but eventually, if you try to escape and realize that you cannot, then a switch goes off in the mind. You have to accept." In 2000, I explained this using Brehm's Theory of Psychological Reactance, in which individuals respond to restrictions on their freedom first with increased tension and attempts to escape or bypass the restrictions, and then, if convinced of their inability to defeat the restrictions, with helplessness. I suggested that BDSM submissives, unlike the "normal" individuals described by Brehm, responded to this state of helplessness in a secure and safe environment with positive emotions, rather than the negativity and depression identified by Brehm.

In 2000, I also proposed the Enslavement Hypothesis to account for similar effects at the level of relationships rather than BDSM scenes:

The Enslavement Hypothesis is that there are submissives who have an overwhelming need to be possessed by a dominant. Given the right environment, the submissive can be coaxed out from behind the protective walls she has built during her life and made to expose all of her Self to her master. Among other things this requires that he creates an environment which is emotionally safe and in which her underlying character will be accepted, probably for the first time in her life. During this process, the bond between the submissive and her master becomes sufficiently strong that she can no longer break it herself, and she has then been enslaved.

and I would now like to propose that Internal Enslavement is the Paleomammalian Brain equivalent of consensual, voluntary submission in the Neomammalian Brain and physical submission and subspace in the Reptilian Brain; and that Internal Enslavement is an adaptive capacity in the natures of the submissive women who seek out these kinds of relationships.

This would confer three possible advantages to women in the paleolithic environment in which humans evolved: acceptance of the proprietary feelings in men described by "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Chattel"; suppression of feelings to seek another mate; and encouragement of proprietary feelings in mates with subsequent increases in the resources they commit.

The first advantage relates to the sophisticated repertoire of strategies and desires which evolved in men to control women's reproductive capacity and to deny it to rivals. Trying to defeat these strategies and obtain a more desirable mate carries risks for women if suspected or detected, ranging from neglect to physical abuse and even death. This may be the basis of the Stockholm Syndrome phenomenon (which has also suggestively been called "Capture Bonding"), but that is fundamentally a strategy for settling and compromising, and is vulnerable to a change in circumstances (such as being emotionally convinced that you really are free of the Stockholm bank robbers.) As such, it may be the abusive and more fragile inverse of Internal Enslavement.

Secondly, Internal Enslavement will act to suppress feelings in women to seek another mate. Normally, retaining this option is in women's interests, since these feelings are directed towards more desirable (and therefore more reproductively beneficial) mates. However, when already in a relationship with a high status or highly desirable male, any desire to cheat or leave may decrease a woman's reproductive success. Crudely, when you've hit the jackpot, you don't nudge the machine. This effect would also prompt women to defer to the judgement of highly desirable mates, which may again be advantageous, since if a mate is more intelligent and more experienced, they may well be right.

Finally, being in an obvious state of Internal Enslavement may encourage men's proprietorial feelings towards their women, reassure them about the woman's fidelity (and therefore the paternity of her children) and so obtain more resources for herself and her offspring.

It is probable that this potential in women to enter a state of extreme vulnerability could only evolve in response to men's proprietorial feelings towards women they feel they own; and therefore that they will guard, protect and maintain as they safeguard their other possessions.

If this potential exists, then what can be sufficiently desirable in a mate to activate it and suppress any tendency to seek more desirable mates? The absence of any more desirable mates is the obvious answer, and that means the woman is already the mate of a high status individual such as a tribal leader. One way for the Paleomammalian Brain to identify this condition is that he presents the stability and security that his position at the top of the hierarchy, and the resources that go with it, results in. Other ways require assessment of the man's social rank and his ability to achieve high social rank.

Lower animals have a limited range of options for establishing rank, and they centre around agonistic behaviour: that is, fighting or killing rivals if necessary. These options are retained by more sophisticated animals, with the addition of agonic competition, in which threats and displays of strength and prowess are sufficient to establish rank without pursuing costly physical combat.

However, in the case of humans and some primates, hedonic competition for social rank evolved as a third option, based on attraction rather than intimidation. This gave us the inspirational leader as an alternative to the tyrant, and the offer "Do you want to be in my gang?" instead of "Your money or your life!" Hedonic competition is implicitly co-operative, since it implies that there are benefits to be had from deferring to an attractive, successful or skilled rival, rather than just risks to be avoided that would come from an agonistic test of strength.

So the Internal Enslavement adaptation may also be triggered in females by men who display hedonic leadership qualities: that is stability, resolution, dependability, honesty, and industriousness. Not only do these qualities make men attractive to other men as good leaders, but they also have obvious advantages to women who need good, non-abusive providers to supplement their own child-rearing in the family environment.

This evolutionary desirability of apparently high-status males (many of whose qualities can be achieved by men of modest relative status in an industrialised society) mesh very well with the existing understanding of what qualities in dominants promote enslavement in submissives, and on that basis, I'm proposing a second enslavement hypothesis:

The Evolutionary Enslavement Hypothesis is that there are female submissives who have an overwhelming need to be possessed by a dominant, as a result of an adaptation to the environment in which humans evolved, and that this potential is evoked by the typical qualities of high status males in that environment, including stability, security, resolution, dependability, honesty, and industriousness.

An evolutionary explanation of female submissives' capacity to enter Internal Enslavement raises another major question: how does all this relate to other orientations, for example men in homosexual Master/slave relationships? This is part of the wider question of how homosexuality can have emerged: it is a cross-cultural feature of human societies across the world and throughout history, so it must have some basis in human nature. But since it encourages non-reproductive sex, how can it not lower reproductive success?

Several theories explaning the existence of homosexuality have been proposed by Evolutionary Psychologists. One is that homosexuality has genetic components which gave reproduction advantages to bisexuals and to the siblings of male homosexuals, perhaps by way of strong alliances with other men, bonded by sex in the same way that sex is used to bond male and female couples. These homosexual relationships could either take the same form as heterosexual relationships, but directed towards the same sex rather than the opposite, and may involve a single change to foetal development (there is good evidence that sexual orientation is fixed during the third or fourth month of pregnancy); or be an additional form of sexual relationship, adapted to the hierarchies and "teams" of paleolithic hunting parties and war bands, and played out over the generations whenever a society accepted homosexual relationships: for example, the Spartans and Thebans who used homosexual relationships between soldiers to promote morale and comradeship. These two models may co-exist in human nature, and may even be the underlying cause of the distinction in the gay leather scene between leather families and quasi-militaristic associations of men.

Psychological states similar to the Internal Enslavement of female submissives have been described by gay Master/slave writers, and these states could have had adaptive advantages for homosexual and bisexual men forming alliances with other men: both in the family and mate style of relationship (in which Internal Enslavement would be carried over along with other potentials that originally evolved for reproductive heterosexual relationships), or in the hierarchical "team-building" relationship style (when we only have to look at the absolute trust placed in leaders by some soldiers to see how such relationships might become equivalent to enslavement when additionally bonded by a sexual dimension.)

Returning to the questions surrounding female submissives and Internal Enslavement, one obvious query is whether this potential for some women to fall into psychological enslavement has other observable consequences. For example, how this relates to the prevalence of themes of overpowerment and submission in, for example, romantic fiction aimed at women. The Wikipedia describes the "bodice ripper" genre of romantic fiction, saying

The term bodice ripper derives from the covers of the books, which generally depict a female whose bodice is being ripped by a muscular, often shirtless man. The story often features a dominant alpha male. The heroines of such a novel were often abducted, held for ransom, sold into slavery, forced into marriage, or captured after running away.

This and other evidence raises several unanswered questions: Are these fantasies purely sexual, or are they desires about relationships and fantasies which could be realised if a suitable mate is available? Does the prevalence of this kind of fiction point to the fraction of women who could enter Internal Enslavement, or are they two separate phenomenon? How visible are themes similar to enslavement in the traditional and historical societies that embraced female submission by wives and domestic slaves, in the way that Western societies promote equality in relationships now? Some of these questions could be addressed by analysing fiction written by women, and personal accounts and diaries - such as Hannah Cullwick's diary from the late 19th century which described her life as a domestic servant and her BDSM relationship with her master, Arthur Munby. Was Cullwick unusual for her relationship or unusual for keeping a diary of it?

Nevertheless, I want to stress that however prevalent the potential to be Internally Enslaved is amongst female submissives and women in general, this is not a theory which advocates universal submission of women towards men or even of women towards their mates. For example, "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Chattel" explained how women have evolved sophisticated strategies for pursuing sex outside relationships, especially when faced with a less desirable mate and a highly desirable potential partner. These strategies are the result of women taking an active role in the marketplace of male partners, and men's proprietary feelings towards women, frequently backed up by entitlement, law and brute force, which are in turn an adaptation to women's lack of automatic submission to men. And even when behaviours are the result of adaptation they are not necessarily right, even for all people with that potential. The newest component of the Triune Brain gives us choices that other animals lack, and as Steven Pinker said, "If my genes don't like what I do, they can go jump in the lake."

The Evolutionary Enslavement Hypothesis does not claim enslavement or submission is universal in women: instead it seeks to explain why it is possible for some female submissives to become enslaved in relationships with masters who have the qualities which were highly desirable to our Stone Age ancestors, including stability, security, resolution, dependability, honesty, and industriousness.

References

• Wilson, M. and Daly, M. 1992. "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Chattel" in J.H. Barkow, L. Cosmides and J. Tooby (eds.), "The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture." New York: Oxford University Press. (Also at http://psych.mcmaster.ca/dalywilson/pubs.html )
• MacLean, P.D. 1973. "A Triune Concept of the Brain and Behaviour". Toronto: University of Toronto Press. (See also the Triune Brain article on Wikipedia.)
• Atkinson, D. 2003. "Love and Dirt: The Marriage of Arthur Munby and Hannah Cullwick". New York: Macmillan. (See also the Hannah Cullwick article on Wikipedia.)
• Pinker, S. 1997. "How the Mind Works". London: Allen Lane.