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The 20th century witnessed a sea change in cultural evolution. Effective & available reproductive technology was aligned with the ideology of gender egalitarianism, but ideological & moral systems remain a variable. As a consequence of that variability, gender complementarity as a worldview is placed in direct competition with gender egalitarianism. The argument is presented that over generations gender complementarity has a clear & decisive advantage over gender egalitarianism. However, increased autonomy & freedoms for one cohort of women will be systematically followed by decreased autonomy & freedoms for subsequent cohorts of women. No current community has managed to solve the paradox. & such a putative solution is still over the temporal horizon. 4 Tables, 1 Figure, 1 Appendix, 126 References. Adapted from the source document.

As the 21st century begins, two distinct versions of the father will compete for ascendancy across the world's community of cultures. One version is of rather recent vintage & casts the role of the social father as supernumerary or optional. Cultures adopting such a version tend to have high levels of divorce & out-of-wedlock births plus a pervasive cash economy as defining characteristics. The mother-child(ren) dyad becomes the familial unit of such societies. A second, older, version adheres the father to the mother-child(ren) dyad to form the traditional nuclear family. Without commenting on desirability, it is argued that, when compared to alternative familial structures, those cultures that both minimize fatherless families & systematically restrict women's roles to that of motherhood do & will have -- across generations -- a demographic advantage. In terms of cultural evolution, those cultures that emphasize triadic families of father-mother-children are positioned to systematically displace &/or to replace those cultures emphasizing the mother-&-child(ren) dyadic family. 3 Tables, 1 Figure, 1 Appendix, 71 References. Adapted from the source document.

For the last quarter of a century, American academics and literati have assumed that the traditional father figure was supernumerary and rather optional. This perspective viewed a child's life-space trajectory as little perturbed if a father was present or not. The present paper argues against this assumption. Available evidence clearly indicates that fathers do enhance their children's well-being. The problems aligned with fatherlessness are analyzed, and modest proposals are proffered to re-establish fathering as central to a child's growth and development within American society.

During discretionary times and in public places for men and women and children, the incidences of various combinations of adults and children who were associating with each other were recorded in 18 cultures. Over 49,000 children who were associating with adults were recorded. The relative proportion of man-woman-child triads (defined as a "nuclear family template") was of particular interest. Across cultures, the predominate group was the adult-child dyad, especially the woman-child dyad. In addition, it was found that when an adult-child dyad does associate with another adult to form a triad, it is more prone to associate with a cross-gender adult rather than with a same-gender adult. That is, a manwoman-child triad is formed. This dynamic of preferential cross-gender association is especially prevalent for the man-child dyad (compared to the woman-child dyad). It is further suggested that as a culture's reliance upon traditional division of labor by gender decreases, then the culture's reliance upon the man-woman-child triad ("nuclear family template") increases.

A century of murder rates is surveyed from Buffalo, New York, within the context of several demographic variables. Over the course of the twentieth century, Buffalo's murder rates have trended upward. It is argued that the dynamics of the twentieth century in Buffalo may be repeated across various cities in the twenty-first century via analogous demographics. Accordingly, increasing rates of violent crime in general, and most specifically of murder, would be under pressure to remain at the relatively high levels. Adapted from the source document.

The perception of the influence of the American father-figure upon his developing children has undergone several revisions since the middle of the 20th century. Academic literature and government policies have tended to minimize or marginalize his influence -- qua father -- as either supernumerary or irrelevant. This article suggests that the father-presence correlates strongly with lessened violence in a community whereas the absence of a father is also strongly correlated with elevated levels of violent crime within that community. The predictability is found both concurrently and with a generation lag. Although correlation does not equate to causation, and other factors affecting the respective types of families may play all or part of the causal role, the correlations are highly suggestive that paternal presence is at least a contributory factor. Adapted from the source document.

Fisher profiled the broad outlines of the relationship between men & women in the "sex contract": courting, marriage, & divorce. This article examines selected dynamics of divorce to extend the basics of Fisher's thesis. The argument is presented that, although the genders have a reciprocal relationship with each other, the reciprocity is not symmetrical. The relationship is asymmetrical. In the context of the development of romantic love (limerence), the social father, & paternal certainty, plus the cultural overlay of marriage upon pair-bonding, it is suggested that, across the millennia, the range of options from which the woman would choose her sexual partners has been attenuated. However, in the latter part of the 20th century, for some communities there was a lessening of the cultural mandates for an ongoing social father & a permanent marriage commitment; ie, procuring a divorce became relatively easy & was destigmatized. The resulting divorce patterns in the these communities, it is argued, reflect a much older mating pattern wherein female choice, based upon her psycho-emotional motivations, may have been pre-potent in selecting mating partners. 7 Tables, 2 Figures, 143 References. Adapted from the source document.

A sine qua non of a, or any, culture's continuity across generations is the existence of citizens within that culture. With a systematic replenishment of very mortal citizens, the culture can enjoy extended longevity or perpetuity. Without citizens, a culture becomes, at best, an historical footnote. With the advent of inexpensive, effective reproductive technology, a paradox has been created in the 21st century. To wit: when effective reproductive technology is incorporated by a culture which stresses gender egalitarianism, the culture's reproductive strategy tends to fall below replacement value. If the strategy is maintained over generations, then that culture melts away or evaporates and would be supplanted by or replaced by a culture with an alternative social formula. Cross-cultural/cross-national data are presented which supports the existence and potency of this dynamic.$$cultural evolution, gender roles, education, birth rates, natural increase

Over the last half century, advancements in agriculture, medicine, & technology have been impressive. However, large segments of the world's population are underfed, sick, &/or pre-industrialized. The question is addressed: "Why does it take so long for the benefits of civilization to spread to everyone?" Using data from the UN (N = 165 countries), it is argued that cultural expectations that enhance fertility are aligned with cultural expectations that, in turn, do not emphasize tertiary education, especially for women. Accordingly, those areas of the world's population that do generate advances in agriculture, medicine, & technology represent a proportionately smaller segment of the world's population every generation. Thus, to remain "even" or to maintain their proportion of the world's citizenry, sizable numbers of individuals from higher fertility/lower technology areas must be systematically recruited every generation -- into a set of attitudes or cultural expectations that are not aspects of their early socialization experiences. The slower the recruitment is, the longer it will take for any putative advance to diffuse. It is further argued that the training & self-interests of behavioral scientists make such societal dynamics likely to be systematically underreported in academia, &, by extension, to the communities at large. 5 Tables, 23 References. Adapted from the source document.