Institute of Psychology, University of Wrocław, Wroclaw, Poland.
Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, India.
Sci Rep. 2017 Aug 31;7(1):10127. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-10484-x.
The effect of free mate choice on the relative magnitude of fitness benefits has been examined among various species. The majority of the data show significant fitness benefits of mating with partners of an individual's own choice, highlighting elevated behavioral compatibility between partners with free mate choice. Similarities between humans and other species that benefit from free mate choice led us to hypothesize that it also confers reproductive benefits in Homo sapiens. To test this hypothesis, we conducted a study among three indigenous societies-the Tsimane', Yali, and Bhotiya-who employ natural birth control. In all three samples, we compared the marriages arranged by parents with the non-arranged ones in terms of number of offspring. Here, we show that there were no significant relationships between type of marriage and the total number of alive children and number of dead children among the three sampled groups. The presented study is the first to date to examine the fitness benefits of free mate choice in humans. In discussion we present limitations of our research and discuss the possibility of love having a beneficial influence in terms of the number of offspring.
自由择偶对适应度增益的相对大小的影响已经在各种物种中进行了研究。大多数数据表明，与个体自身选择的伴侣交配具有显著的适应度增益，这突出了具有自由择偶的伴侣之间更高的行为兼容性。人类与其他从自由择偶中受益的物种之间的相似性使我们假设它也赋予了智人生殖上的好处。为了检验这一假设，我们在三个采用自然节育的土著社会——Tsimane'、Yali 和 Bhotiya 中进行了一项研究。在所有三个样本中，我们比较了父母安排的婚姻和非安排的婚姻在子女数量方面的差异。在这里，我们发现，在三个抽样群体中，婚姻类型与活产子女总数和死产子女数之间没有显著关系。本研究是迄今为止首次在人类中检验自由择偶的适应度增益。在讨论中，我们提出了我们研究的局限性，并讨论了爱情在生育数量方面可能具有有益影响的可能性。
