14 DAY TRIAL // Having several dads was not unusual in Amazonian cultures, in fact, a new study carried out by University of Missouri-Columbia researchers found out that 70 percent of them, used to practice multiple paternity.
Previous research had found that in some Amazonian cultures, multiple paternity was a very common practice, but until now, anthropologists had no idea that the belief was so widely spread across South America.
A team of researchers led by Robert Walker, assistant professor of Anthropology in the College of Arts and Science, carried out ethnographic analysis of 128 societies across lowland South America, including Brazil and many surrounding countries.
Ethnography is the branch of anthropology that deals descriptively with cultures, and in 53 of these societies, the researchers found that multiple paternity was reported, while singular paternity was mentioned in only 23 societies.
For the 52 remaining societies, the ethnographic data does not mention conception beliefs.
Walker said that “in these cultures, if the mother had sexual relations with multiple men, people believed that each of the men was, in part, the child's biological father.
"It was socially acceptable for children to have multiple fathers, and secondary fathers often contributed to their children's upbringing."
In today's culture, it's socially unacceptable for married people to have extramarital sexual partners, but in the ancient times, extramarital affairs were very common.
The general belief was that when a woman became pregnant, every one of her partners was partly a biological father, and Walker's team has several hypothesis on what could the benefits of multiple paternity might have been.
For women, having several sexual partners meant that their children would have larger gene pools, and once the baby was born, secondary fathers would bring gifts and helped support the child, giving him/her more chances of survival.
Besides, in ancient Amazonia, wars were rather devastating so if the mother became a widow, the child would still have a father around.
As for men, sharing paternity meant that they could form alliances with other men, by sharing wives, and Walker speculates that this could also have strengthened family bonds, as brothers frequently shared wives in some cultures.
Today it might seem strange but in many traditional South American societies, sexual promiscuity was normal and acceptable, according to Walker.
Married couples usually lived with the wife's family, and apparently this increased their sexual freedom.
Walker said that “in some Amazonian cultures, it was bad manners for a husband to be jealous of his wife's extramarital partners.
“It was also considered strange if you did not have multiple sexual partners.
“Cousins were often preferred partners, so it was especially rude to shun their advances.”
Robert Walker worked with Mark Flinn, professor in the MU Department of Anthropology, and Kim Hill, professor in Arizona State University's School of Human Evolution and Social Change.
The research was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.