[Marxism] cross-cultural analysis of infanticide and male supremacy (was: reaching out to the far right II)

[Greg McDonald <sabocat59@xxxxxxx>]

American Anthropologist

 1976




Divale, William Tulio and Harris, Marvin     Population, Warfare and  
the Male Supremacist Complex American Anthropologist March, 1976 Vol.  
78(1): 521-538

The authors, William Tulio Divale and Marvin Harris, set out in this  
paper to demonstrate that the male supremacist complex in band and  
village sociocultural systems is primarily caused by warfare. They  
also set out to explain that the perpetuation of this warfare and its  
interaction with selective female infanticide is an attempt to answer  
the need to control population growth. For the authors, the main  
focus is on the unbalance distribution of sex-linked practices and  
beliefs. As they state, "The primary ethnological evidence for the  
existence of a pervasive institutionalized complex of male supremacy  
consists of asymmetrical frequencies of sex-linked practices and  
beliefs which on logical grounds alone either ought not to be sex- 
linked or ought to occur with equal frequency in their male-centered  
and female-centered forms. Certain aspects of this complex are well  
known; others are less well known or have hitherto been viewed as  
isolated phenomena." The ethnological evidenced referred to is  
garnered from an extensive collection of ethnographic data of the  
Ethnographic Atlas by Murdock, published in 1967, of which the  
relevant aspects are distilled and included in multiple tables in  
this paper. Murdock’s data includes ethnographic data in the form of  
trait lists for 1,170 societies from around the world. The authors’  
theory rests on the concept that the most effective form of  
population control is the reduction of the percentage of sexually  
active fertile females within the population. Selective female  
infanticide and neglect of female infants fills this role more  
effectively than does abortion for two reasons: "(1) male fetuses  
could be brought to term and selectively reared to adulthood; (2) the  
death of babies was less costly in an emotional, structural, and  
economic sense, than the death of mothers." Divale’s and Harris’s  
analysis of the extensive data collected seem to support this, which  
is in direct opposition to the use of the Freudian Oedipus complex as  
single variable for explaining sex roles and intergenerational conflict.

Nowhere in this paper do the authors assume to know why or how  
warfare first came about. In fact, they clearly state that they do  
not need to know this.

CLARITY RANKING: 3

HUNTER N. KELLEY California State Polytechnic University, Pomona  
(Mark Allen)



Divale, William Tulio and Harris, Marvin.     Population, Warfare,  
and the Male Supremacist Complex. American Anthropologist 1976 Vol. 78 
(3):521-538

In their essay, William Tulio Divale and Marvin Harris present a  
cross-cultural study on the institutional belief of male superiority  
in band and village societies. They argue that the "male supremacist  
complex," the societal authority based on men, results and is  
perpetuated by warfare and the killing of female infants, which stems  
from the cultural preference for men. They argue that warfare is its  
most important cause. This system is self-reinforcing. War functions  
to perpetrate the male supremacy complex and selective female  
infanticide, which promotes warfare in the first place. Divale and  
Harris examined 561 local band and village populations from 112  
societies.

They attest that this "preferential male" mentality, that exists in  
some band and village societies, is nurtured through postmarital  
residence with the husband’s family or tribe, which leads to male  
dominated decision-making and access and control over resources. This  
leads to a situation that favors the status of men over women.

In order for the "male supremacist" ideology to survive, there needs  
to be a constant collection of men in a society who are ready to  
participate in war. This is made possible through the process of  
"selective female infanticide". Evidence for this theory is shown by  
the ratio disproportion of males to females in these societies. There  
is a preference for males because their physical stature is more  
conducive to aggression and warfare that is prevalent in pre- 
industrial societies. A male monopoly over "the weapons of warfare"  
concludes that it is men who exclusively participate in war  
activities and competitive sports. There are higher levels of the  
disproportion in societies where there are higher levels of warfare  
than in societies where warfare is not as common. Warfare and  
selective female infanticide are used as mechanisms for population  
control because there are no effective, less costly alternatives.

CLARITY RATING: 3

ANNA K. SWARTZ Michigan Technological University (Josiah Heyman and  
Susan Martin)________________________________________________
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