Sublime

Males without “certainty of paternity” are unlikely to stick around to pair-bond with a female and help raise the kids. Male birds tend to have high certainty of paternity, but male mammals are rarely certain at all. As a result, male mammals tend to abandon mates and offspring when—if they could just be confident of their paternity—selection would

‘Professional Aunt No Kids’, or ‘PANKs’.

Why, then, is the anthropological record so rich with examples of societies where biological paternity is of little or no importance? Where paternity is unimportant, men tend to be relatively unconcerned about women’s sexual fidelity.

Because of private property, for the first time in the history of our species, paternity became a crucial concern.

Far into the unfathomable past of our race we find the assumption that the founding of a family is the personal adventure of a free man.

“Why did you bring Peter?” “Because he’s part of our family, no matter how much he reminds me of the weird squirrel from Ice Age.