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Primate Paradigms

Sex Roles and Social Bonds

This critical review of behavior patterns in nonhuman primates is an excellent study of the importance of female roles in different social groups and their significance in the evolution of human social life.

"A book that properly illuminates in rich detail not only developmental and socioecological aspects of primate behavior but also how and why certain questions are asked. In addition, the book frequently focuses on insufficiently answered questions, especially those concerned with the evolution of primate sex differences. Fedigan’s book is unique . . . because it places primate adaptations and our explanation of those patterns in a larger intellectual framework that is easily and appropriately connected to many lines of research in different fields (sociology, psychology, anthropology, neurobiology, endocrinology, and biology)—and not in inconsequential ways, either."—James McKenna, American Journal of Primatology

"This is the feminist critique of theories of primate and human evolution."—John H. Cook, Nature

424 pages | 36 halftones, 22 line drawings, 2 tables | 6 x 9 | © 1992

Anthropology: Physical Anthropology

Biological Sciences: Behavioral Biology

Gender and Sexuality

History of Science

Table of Contents

Introduction to the 1992 edition
Preface
Introduction
Part I - Constructing the Paradigm
1. An Introduction to Primate Studies
2. Words
3. Instinct, Innate and Learned Behavior
4. Primate Societies
5. Sexual Dimorphism
Part II - Social Behavior: Some Major Concepts and the Implications for Sex Differences
6. Aggression
7. Dominance and Alliance
8. Roles
9. Kinship—The Ties That Bind
10. Sociosexual Behavior
Part III - Growing Up: The Ontogeny of Sex Differences
11. Fertility and Virility: Hormones and the Development of Sex Differences in Behavior
12. Ontogeny and Socialization
13. Deprivation
Part IV - Social Organization and Behavior: Female and Male Roles
14. Multi-Male, Multi-Female Societies
15. Polygynous Societies
16. Monogamous Societies
Part V - Sex Differences in Evolutionary Theory
17. Sexual Selection: Female Choice or Hobson’s Choice?
18. Sociobiological Theories and Sex Roles
19. Theories on the Evolution of Human Social Life
Bibliography
Author Index
Subject Index

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