What effects would a change in the nature of human sexuality have on society and infrastructure
Consider a group of humans at a bronze-age to early iron-age technological level colonizing a new earthlike planet. There is just one difference - there exists on the planet something which changes the nature of human sexuality - and the colonists don't know what it is, nor can they stop it from having its effect.
Normal Human sexuality could be summarized as being (usually) private, nocturnal and selective, and can occur at any time due to humans' concealed and extended estrus.
The change (which occurs within a few decades of colonization as the source is revealed) changes human sexuality to (usually) public, diurnal and unselective, only occurring for 5 days each 28 or so of the human female reproductive cycle. Men are only interested in women in heat when said women are present (due to the woman's pheromones), and are very strongly driven to act upon their desires (i.e. in rut), as are the women who are in heat. Women become selective for the day of maximum fertility. Men can only stay in rut for a day or two before they become exhausted. When in heat, a woman wants to become pregnant. The rest of the time, women are totally disinterested in sex/pregnancy and the men they come into contact are similarly disinterested, and they are able to think even more logically than non-estrus humans. When not in heat, the limit of sexual behavior between men and women may be to ask a member of the opposite sex if they would be interested in getting together the next time the woman goes into heat.
While this is a question on human sexuality, I'm not interested in the prurient aspects - I'm sure we could all imagine the immediate results of the changes I suggest on an interpersonal level. I'm looking for an answer that gives a broader view of the effects this change could have on the way human society structures itself and the things it makes, particularly the infrastructure of settlements. I want to find ways that humans could maintain or improve their technology under such conditions, if that is possible.
In addition, I am interested in what would happen if after a long period of isolation (say, several thousand years), a colony beginning with this change (that had managed to maintain a reasonable level of development) came into contact with an advanced society such as ours, and our whole modern society "caught" the same "disease" about month later, globally (airborne trigger).
In neither case will a cure be available within any foreseeable timeframe, certainly not within several human lifespans, by which time it will have become the norm.
EDIT
It has been shown in chimpanzees (who show just this behavior) that when a female becomes mate-selective at her time of greatest fertility (i.e. at ovulation), she retires with the chosen male, who usually becomes the genetic father of the offspring of the resulting pregnancy. Hence, it would be possible to determine the biological father with some degree of accuracy without needing to resort to DNA tests.
Those of us who are either women or who live with one would know that women can predict their cycles to an accuracy of a day or so.
When not in heat, there is nothing stopping a woman from taking birth control pills that would prevent a pregnancy despite wanting to get pregnant when in heat, and nothing would prevent a woman taking abortive drugs after the fact once her heat had passed.
So, to reiterate the question:
How would each society adapt to this situation in terms of its social organization and infrastructure?
This post was sourced from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/144. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
2 answers
There is plenty of material in the earlier answers to make them nearly comprehensive; so while I agree with those earlier answers, I will only expand on a devil's advocate view for the fun of it:
For women, due to both sexual dimorphism and having to bear all the burdens of pregnancy, these urges (if unchecked) will cause them to be become woefully 2nd class citizens. They would likely be pregnant somewhat continuously from the age of 14 on, but unlike their 2nd class position IRL (just a hundred years back in America, and still extant in much of the world) in this fantasy they don't even have husbands protecting them or their children. For the last three months of pregnancy and two months after (to recover and nurse infants) they are much less capable of working for a living, with no adult partner to care and provide for them. That is an economic and social disaster for women; in this non-technological society no work means no food.
But there is an out! Presuming women are not owned by men and are free to act independently: They aren't beholden to husbands, or sons for that matter. So women can bond with each other in coalitions; societies of their own.
The purpose of their bonding is not sexual but to provide for and sequester each other when one of their members is in heat, so they never get pregnant, because they enter a voluntary state of confinement while they wait out their periodic temporary insanity.
This is a socialist solution. non-estrus females can do the hunting, gathering, herding and provide defensive military. Production from the group ensures women in heat are fed, sheltered and protected from any males.
Not to engage in the prurient details; but I will note that if denying their sexual urges by confinement is too much for them psychologically, then no matter how primitive the society it is relatively easy for women, alone or with others, to simulate the mechanics of the male role in sex.
What are the ramifications of the women's guild?
- No children unless they say so.
- When they do allow children, controlled and supervised mating means certainty about paternity for the father, which can then include agreement for child support and raising.
- Broader social roles for women: They aren't the mother of six at the age of 20, and do not have to be a mother at all if (in their rational times) they do not wish to be.
- They have exactly as many children as they want, when they want them.
- Social cohesion and separate politics: They are bound to their sisterhood of some dozens; they have their own leaders, and such sisterhoods can form a wider regional guild; like one per village; so women can travel and have places to stay and be sequestered and protected during estrus; so they have groups to join if they choose to move elsewhere on a permanent basis.
- They can raise their children, on their own, and instill in them the moral values the women choose, which will include for both genders an acceptance that women are in charge and males are subordinate workers.
- As a result, most males will be raised without ever experiencing a women in heat; the women themselves will ensure that doesn't happen.
They can isolate males a year or two before the males enter puberty, and the males won't mind: Since they first learned to talk, the mothers have long explained the necessity of this isolation, and in fact it is a celebration of their impending maturity and taking on the role of support for their mothers and sisters, the role the men will believe they were born to do.
Perhaps if they do it well then someday, the mothers will deem them worthy, and grant them the right to father a few children of their own; and much like modern society, share the joys of their childhood and take pride in their accomplishments, even if they are raised and educated by the guild to be subordinate males.
In short, this scenario could easily become a pure matriarchy; only women decide who will be fathers, and then they raise males and females to believe this is the way society must be. The males only earn the right to be fathers through hunting, military service (and protection of women from rogue males), farming and other work on behalf of the women.
I will note that most societies of the past (and most today, for that matter) raise women in a culture that constantly reinforces the belief that they are the weaker sex, not just physically but mentally and morally, and thus are rightfully subordinate to males. The Bible says so explicitly!
In this fantasy world, a mechanism exists to reverse that dynamic, and I see no reason to think males would be any more resistant than females to being subjugated by culture in this way, if males are raised from birth to think so.
Remember that heightened rationality component: The women's guild gave them life, raised and fed them, protected them and educated them. Why shouldn't they be beholden to the guild, to their mothers and sisters, above all else?
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The most obvious result would be that there would be no concept of a family. Now the concept of a family influences a lot of things; for one, the concept of inheriting goods might not develop; without that, also the concept of property would be less strong. A lack of sexual/compassionate bindings would probably give a very individualistic society. It would also affect religion, since the concept of a father-like god in the sense we understand it would probably not develop. It also might decrease the likelihood of a single leader person also in other contexts like politics.
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