Menstruation and the origins of culture

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A connection between menstruation and the origins of culture is advocated by Chris Knight, Camilla Power, and Ian Watts. Chris Knight, Professor of Anthropology at the University of East London, was the first of this group to support this connection in his 1991 book, "Blood Relations: Menstruation and the origins of culture" (Yale University Press). Darwinian anthropologist Camilla Power and archaeologist Ian Watts, the ochre specialist working at Blombos Cave in South Africa, began working with Knight when they were PhD students; Power and Watts have contributed significantly to the current model advocated by Knight. Their theory holds that menstruation was a key biological signal critical to the emergence of symbolic culture among early modern humans (Knight, Power & Watts 1995).

Southern San rock painting (Knight 1991, fig.9) depicting a young woman undergoing her first menstruation ceremony, encircled by applauding women and dancers of both sexes
Southern San rock painting (Knight 1991, fig.9) depicting a young woman undergoing her first menstruation ceremony, encircled by applauding women and dancers of both sexes

Contents

[edit] Introduction

The human female menstruates considerably more copiously than any other primate. To a greater degree than in other primates, ovulation in the human female has become effectively concealed during the course of evolution ( Alexander & Noonan 1979 and Hrdy 2000). A woman may be sometimes able to detect her own ovulation, but studies have shown that the human male is poorly adapted to determine this moment in his sexual partner, although better capable of determining it in his partner than in women other than her ( Baker & Bellis 1993 and Grammer 1996). On this basis, Knight, Power, and Watts argued that during the evolution of genus Homo, menstruation acquired new significance as a reproductive signal. They hold that it ran counter to ovulation concealment - divulging instead of concealing important information about female fertility - and conclude that menstruation in the pre-cultural past would have posed serious threats in terms of sexual conflict and competition. They argue (Knight, Power & Watts 1995) that the restrictions and taboos surrounding menstruation in hunter-gatherer cultures (Douglas 2001) are a result of this proposed conflict in pre-symbolic cultural human society.

[edit] Sexual signals and fertility

This theory is built on Robert Trivers (1972) principle of parental investment: the sex that invests most heavily in offspring (usually the female) becomes a limiting factor for the sex that invests least (usually the male). Knight, Power & Watts (1995) work on the assumption that (like other primates), males of genus Homo were initially under evolutionary pressure to invest little; meanwhile, females were coming under increasing pressure to maximise the investment they could extract from males. Against this background, one obvious benefit of concealing ovulation is that it denies males information assisting them to ‘hit and run’ – to identify females at their fertile moment, make them pregnant and then abandon them in favour of their next target. By scrambling the signal of fertility, ancestral Homo females in effect compelled the male to spend more time and energy hanging around with the current partner if he was to have a chance of getting her pregnant. According to this influential argument (Alexander & Noonan 1979), withholding information about fertility was a mechanism by which females could add to the difficulties of philandering males and encourage greater male commitment.

Knight, Power & Watts (1995) argue that menstruation, when left to biology, undermines this female strategy of resistance. In response to this threat, evolving human females banded together to bring the signal firmly under conscious control, this action playing a key role in the origins of human symbolic culture. The idea is that when (during the course of evolution) ovulation in the human female became effectively concealed, it left menstruation especially salient as a remaining source of information about female fertility. In other words, menstruation "gives the game away" as far as information about fertility is concerned, threatening to undermine the effects of ovulation concealment.

In hunter-gatherer cultures that do not use contraception (other than breastfeeding), menstruation is quite a rare event and a woman's menstrual status is loudly signalled, so that everyone in the locality knows that this is her 'sacred' or 'special' time. Typically, she must neither cook nor permit marital sex to occur for several days until her period ends ( Buckley 1988 and Knight 1991). Knight and his collaborators hold that the flow of blood signals a woman's imminent fertility, marking her out from other women. They argue this led to a situation where by monitoring who was or was not menstruating, philanderer males could target females known to be cycling and bond with them until impregnation had been achieved, regardless of the costs to their abandoned – pregnant and breast-feeding – former partners (Power & Aiello 1997).

That menstruation is a fertility signal to men is not agreed upon by researchers in the field. Even in close relationships where men are aware of their partner's menstruation, no connection between frequency of male-initiated sex and female menstrual status has been found (Bullivant et al. 2004).

[edit] Reproductive burdens of human females

Ape and monkey mothers, with their relatively small-brained, fast-maturing babies, typically have little need of male time or energy once impregnation has been achieved. Certainly, they do not need or expect help with provisioning. Non-human primate males may help carry offspring; they may also often provide protection, particularly against the threat of infanticide from rival males. Frans de Waal (1996:144) notes that food is freely shared with offspring and mates in gibbons and marmosets. In capuchin monkeys and in chimpanzees, de Waal notes group-wide food sharing as a common activity. Despite all this, Knight, et al. cite Dunbar (1988), who states that no nonhuman male primate has ever been documented deliberately obtaining food and bringing it back for his sexual partner or offspring. This is not a problem for ape or monkey mothers, since their burdens are relatively light and they can obtain all the provisions they need for their offspring by their own efforts.

The extent of the extra dependency of human children on their parents is well documented although controversies still exist. In chimpanzees, the average juvenile nurses for four years; one case of extensive maternal care for eight years has been documented (de Waal 1996:187-188). Among the Ik, a human group, it has been claimed that children over three years old were never fed by adults (de Waal 1996:86). Palaeoanthropologists widely agree, however, that human infants need investment from others in addition to the mother as no other primate ever has. No other primate produces babies quite so needy, or dependent, for quite so long (Hrdy 2000). Owing to the large Homo brain, infants must be born while still heavily dependent because the head needs room to expand as the brain grows. Other primates with smaller brains can be carried longer in gestation, and be born at a higher level of development. Immature humans therefore need greater levels of investment and care from their mothers and preferably also from other adult carers. Knight, Power & Watts (1995) argue that this is a primary reason why we would expect human females to resist being impregnated by a male who subsequently abandons her in order to impregnate someone else.

Among chimpanzees, meat is a highly coveted food, and often there is intense aggressive competition surrounding a recent kill (Goodall 1986: 299). Hunting is mostly done by males, who are likely to be unable to keep all of the meat to themselves despite attempting to monopolise as much as they can. Jane Goodall (1986: 307) notes that the scramble may be so violent that even the toughest female who has obtained some meat cannot count on holding onto it for long. (Goodall 1986: 307). Primatologist de Waal & 1996 (138-141) has noted that as a consequence of the general scramble, a significant portion of meat does end up being widely distributed. Goodall (1986: 484) observes that females in oestrus tend to be more successful than lactating mothers in securing portions of meat hunted by sexually active males. Knight, Power, and Watts believe that, in early Homo societies, adult females would have been obliged to resist the imperative to fight and scramble for every portion of available meat. If evolving humans had not moved socially, politically and morally beyond the level of chimpanzees, mothers would have been subject to intolerable stress. The difficulty with chimpanzee-style sexual dominance and internal food competition is that meat from the hunt tends to be least available to females precisely when they are pregnant or lactating - that is, precisely when they need it most. Knight, Power and Watts (1995) argue that in the human case, females had a special interest in evolving collective bargaining strategies to ensure the equitable sharing of meat, leading ultimately to the egalitarian distribution systems characteristic of extant human hunter-gatherers.

[edit] Female counter-strategies

The theories of Knight, Power, and Watts on menstruation as a fertility signal, strong evolutionary pressure for males to be philanderers, and a relationship between an adult female's food supply and a steady sexual relationship with an adult male are combined. If all true, these conditions would cause conflict between women who were menstruating (presumed attractive to males and therefore well-supplied with food) and women who, due to pregnancy or lactational amenorrhea, were not menstruating (presumed unattractive to males and therefore at risk for food scarcity). In such a situation, Darwinian anthropologists would expect the females most at risk to mount counter-strategies to prevent male investment from being siphoned off by sexual rivals ( Knight, Power & Watts 1995 and Power & Aiello 1997).

Knight, Power, and Watts argue that non-cycling females would need to form a coalition to control menstruating females and prevent them from unauthorized association with males. They suggest hiding females during menstruation, but dismiss it as impractical - because of the strength of the attraction males have toward menstruating females. They then go on to propose that a female coalition could advertise menstruation, the proposed biological signal of opportunities for fertile sex. This menstrual advertising is argued to prevent males from distinguishing (and thus providing meat exclusively for) fertile females over non-fertile ones.

If a single menstruating female attracted male sexual interested, this theory holds, then if all females in a group were decorated with blood or other red pigments ('sham menstruation'), the males in the group would become especially interested in sex. Knight, Power, and Watts hold that this increased sexual interest would hold even for females obviously infertile through conscious reasoning, such as those currently pregnant or post-menopausal, because the posited "hominid female blood"-"sexual attractiveness" relationship is proposed to be a strong but unconscious male response (Knight, Power & Watts 1995:106). Only once the female coalition had put men in this heightened state of sexual desire, according to this theory, could they use sex as a bargaining chip (going on a sex strike) to motivate the males to hunt enough meat for all of the females in the group.

Hunter-gatherer rituals celebrating a young woman's first menstruation are held up as modern-day derivatives of the proposed early 'sham menstruation'. Ethnographically, brilliant red cosmetics (body paint) are particularly associated with hunter-gatherer first menstruation rituals, not only in sub-Saharan Africa but cross-culturally ( Knight 1991 and Watts 1999). The control females in these societies have over the sexual activities of these young women is held up as a modern-day derivative of what Knight, Power, and Watts propose was the first female coalition - the one that originated the 'sham menstruation' ritual. Typically, the 'New Maiden' (as she is called in the Kalahari) is depicted as inseparably bound up with her aunts, sisters and other kinswomen (Lewis-Williams 1981). By grabbing hold of her from the outset and controlling her movements, her aunts and other female kin offer her the security of an insurance society or childcare co-operative. Although commitment to such a coalition may entail privations in the short term, in the longer term each new entrant has everything to gain. In fact (according to proponents of this model), mechanisms ensuring ritual commitmemnt to such coalitions - known by ethnograpers as 'initiation rites' - are among the prime mechanisms by which hunter-gatherer women maintain their sexual solidarity and collective bargaining power, this in turn serving to uphold the political and social egalitarianism so characteristic of most hunter-gatherer populations.

[edit] The world's first ritual

The 'sham menstruation' or 'cosmetic manipulation' theory (Knight 1999) is presented by Knight, Power, and Watts as a ritual occurring, at first, whenever a woman in an early human group began menstruating. Later, they propose, it became a monthly ritual, occurring regardless of whether a member of the group was menstruating or not. They offer evidence for this in red ochre pieces, likely used for marking or painting human bodies or ritual spaces. (That menstruation-related rituals were the first use of ochre for is not agreed upon in the scientific community - its use in death rituals, for example, has also been argued (Hovers et al. 2003).) Ochre pieces are found sporadically at sites up to 300,000 years old (Barham 2002), and then found with much greater frequency at sites of more recent use than approximately 100,000 years, coinciding with the earliest discoveries of Homo sapiens fossils (Knight, Power & Watts 1995:85-86 and Watts 1999). This community ritual is proposed to have evolved into an initiation rite for young women experiencing menarche; Knight, Power, and Watts argue this was the world’s first initiation rite. They also claim that this initiation rite was the origin of symbolic culture in early human society. Other authors have observed strong kinship relationships in all monkeys and apes, and see aspects of morality present in non-human primates (de Waal 1996). However, Knight includes kinship and morality in the human-only domain of symbolic culture that also includes ritual, cosmology and religion (Knight 2006).

Menstrual taboos and ritual practices associated with menstruation are found in most human hunter-gatherer groups. While these have been interpreted by some as evidence of male sexual dominance in these groups, Knight, Power, and Watts cite authors who interpret these traditions as empowering to women (Buckley & Gottlieb 1988). They cite as one example Khoisan women in the Kalahari, who are ritually most powerful when menstruating. In her special hut, the 'New Maiden' is thought to be inviolable – having only to snap her fingers to bring down lightning on any disrespectful male ( Lewis-Williams 1981 and Power & Watts 1997). They also cite, as evidence of the respect given to menstruation, cultural instances of male induced genital bleeding. Such male bleeding is mythically held to be 'stolen' from women, and is practiced on ritual occasions (Montagu 1974), including in male initiation rites (Hogbin 1970).

Knight, Power, and Watts take this interpretation further and argue that their proposed first menstrual ritual is what caused human hunter-gatherer groups to first have semi-permanent home bases. Instead of the women following hunting men around for an opportunity to share in the kill, women conserved energy resources by staying at these bases. Through the sex-strike Knight, Power, and Watts associate with menstrual rituals, men were coerced into toting meat back to the base to share with the women. As evidence, they cite an association of menstruation rituals with hunting rituals. For example, in the Khoisan New Maiden tradition, while the girl is secluded, other women dance around her, acting as if they are rutting antelopes. This ‘Eland Bull Dance’ spurs men to success in the hunt.

Legends involving menstruation can be found in cultures all over the world; they have been heavily documented by Knight, Power, and Watts. These legends are often associated with lunar motifs (women menstruating during the new moon), motifs of death and rebirth, or both ( Knight 1997, Power & Watts 1997, and Watts 2005). Even traditions not widely viewed as menstrual in nature may be so; the Sleeping Beauty story, for example, may depict the spell-casting potency of a royal menstrual flow, in this case coded as Beauty’s pricking of her finger and consequent sleep for one hundred years (Lévi-Strauss 1978). That such lengends permeate modern human culture is offered as evidence that they were the first form of human (symbolic) culture.

Knight, Power, and Watts further associate lunar rhythms, menstruation, and hunting. They argue that human fertility rhythms have evolved to cycle with the best hunting times, with menstruation occurring most commonly during the waxing moon, and the best hunting being done during the full moon. The tradition of a menstruation-associated sex strike prior to a large hunting expedition would be consistent with a pattern of lunar-based menstrual synchrony (Knight, Power & Watts 1995). However, the theory of menstrual synchronization is currently out of favor in the scientific community (Adams 2002).

[edit] The emergence of morality and kinship

How does this model work in terms of morality and kinship? According to its proponents, the onset of menstruation prompts females on a periodic basis to form coalitions that include their sons and brothers, the aim being to deter outsider males from attempting primate-style sexual dominance and associated philandering (Knight 1999). In effect, coalitions of kin-related males and females begin signaling to outsider males: ‘You can have sex with our womenfolk, but only on our terms!’. A critic of this theory might object that males can always use violence to get their way. But violence entails certain risks and costs. If these can be sufficiently raised – in other words, if sufficient resistance can be mounted – males might be persuaded to try another way. The argument is that this ‘other way’ resulted in the establishment of group-level social cooperation based on collective moral norms. If we think in terms of the costs and benefits to outsider males, what have they got to lose? By giving in gracefully to their spouses and in-laws, they get to go hunting, bring back meat, have lots of sex, win respect and status – and help their own offspring survive.

How might we expect females (backed by their male kin) to signal their sexual resistance? At this point, proponents of the theory take the signals normal in primate sexual soliciting and simply reverse them (Knight, Power & Watts 1995). A female chimpanzee in oestrus courts male attention using body-language which signals, in effect, ‘I am the right species, the right sex and this is the right time’. The reverse of this would be a display of all-female resistance. To indicate ritually 'taboo' or 'sacred' status, females should deploy body language indicating: ‘We are the wrong species, the wrong sex and this is the wrong time!’. This is a purely logical, abstract argument, but its advantage is that it allows anthropologists, rock art specialists and others with relevant data to test the whole theory ( Knight 1997, Power & Watts 1997, and Power 2004). The question, in this context, is what does ‘God’ look like in the first place? If the theory is correct, we should expect ambivalence of sex, species and time. If any rock-art specialist were to discover an image of supernatural potency which violated these specifications, the theory would be disproved. Imagery depicting a divine or supernatural couple with offspring or engaged in marital sex, for example, would disprove the theory.

[edit] Criticism

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[edit] References

  • Adams, Cecil (2002), "Does menstrual synchrony really exist?", The Straight Dope
  • Alexander, R.D. & K.M Noonan (1979), "Concealment of ovulation, parental care, and human social evolution", in N. Chagnon and W. Irons, Evolutionary Biology and Human Social Behavior, North Scituate, MA: Duxbury Press
  • Baker, R.R. & M.A Bellis (1993), "Human sperm competition: Ejaculate adjustment by males and the funcion of masturbation", Animal Behaviour 46: 861-885
  • Barham, L.S (2002), "Systematic pigment use in the Middle Pleistocene of South-Central Africa", Current Anthropology 43(1): 181-190
  • Buckley, T (1988), "Menstruation and the power of Yurok women", in Buckley, T. and A. Gottlieb, Blood Magic. The anthropology of menstruation, Berkeley: University of California Press
  • Buckley, T & A Gottlieb (1988), Blood Magic. The anthropology of menstruation, Berkeley: University of California Press
  • Bullivant, S.B.; S.A. Sellergren & K. Stern et al. (2004), "Women's sexual experience during the menstrual cycle: identification of the sexual phase by noninvasive measurement of luteinizing hormone", Journal of Sex Research 41(1): 82-93 (In online article, see pp.14-15,18-22), PMID 15216427
  • de Waal, Frans (1996), Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, ISBN 0-674-35661-6
  • Douglas, Kate (2001), "Painted Ladies", New Scientist (no. 2312)
  • Dunbar, R. (1988), Primate Social Systems, London and Sydney: Croom Helm
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  • Grammer, K. (1996), "The human mating game: The battle of the sexes and the war of signals", Paper delivered at the Human Behavior and Evolution Society conference, Northwestern University, June 1996
  • Hogbin, I.A. (1970), The Island of Menstruating Men, Scranton, London and Toronto: Chandler
  • Hovers, E.; S. Ilani & O. Bar-Yosef et al. (2003), "An early case of color symbolism. Ochre use by modern humans in Qafzeh Cave", Current Anthropology 44(4): 491-522 Related BBC article.
  • Hrdy, S.B. (2000), Mother Nature, London: Vintage
  • Hugh-Jones, C. (1979), From the Milk River. Spatial and temporal processes in northwest Amazonia, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  • Knight, C.D. (1991), Blood Relations. Menstruation and the origins of culture, New Haven and London: Yale University Press
  • Knight, C.D. (1997), "The wives of the sun and moon", Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 3(N.S.): 133-153
  • Knight, C.D. (1999), "Sex and language as pretend-play", in R. Dunbar, C. Knight and C. Power, The Evolution of Culture, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press
  • Knight, C.D. (2006), "Language Co-Evolved With the Rule of Law", Evolution of Language, Sixth International Conference
  • Knight, C.D.; C. Power & I. Watts (1995), "The human symbolic revolution: A Darwinian account", Cambridge Archaeological Journal 5(1): 75-114
  • Lévi-Strauss, C. (1978). The Origin of Table Manners. Introduction to a Science of Mythology 3. London: Cape
  • Lewis-Williams, J.D. (1981), Believing and Seeing. Symbolic meanings in Southern San rock paintings, London: Academic Press
  • Montagu, M.F.A. (1974), Coming into Being Among the Australian Aborigines. The procreative beliefs of the Australian Aborigines, London and Boston: outledge and Kegan Paul
  • Power, C. (2004), "Women in prehistoric art", in G. Berghaus, New Perspectives on Prehistoric Art, Praeger: Westport, CT/London
  • Power, C. & L.C. Aiello (1997), "Female proto-symbolic strategies", in L.D. Hager, Women in Human Evolution, New York and London: Routledge
  • Power, C. & I. Watts (1997), "The woman with the zebra's penis. Gender, mutability and performance", Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 3(N.S.): 537-560
  • van Schaik, C.P. & A. Paul (1996), "Male care in primates: Does it ever reflect paternity?", Evolutionary Anthropology 5: 152-6
  • Trivers, R.L. (1972), "Parental investment and sexual selection", in B. Campbell, Sexual selection and the descent of man:1871-1971, Chicago: Aldine Transaction, ISBN 0-202-02005-3
  • Watts, I. (1999), "The origin of symbolic culture", in R. Dunbar, C. Knight and C. Power, The Evolution of Culture, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press
  • Watts, I. (2005), "‘Time, too, grows on the Moon’: Some evidence for Knight’s theory of a human universal", in W. James & D. Mills, The Qualities of Time: Anthropological Approaches, New York: Berg

[edit] Further reading

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