This double standard is a prime example of the sexism of society and is usually dismissed as no more than that. Yet the law has not been sexist about other crimes: Women have never been punished more severely than men for theft or murder, or at least the legal code has never prescribed that they be so. Why is adultery such a special case? Because man 's honor is at stake? Then punish the adulterous man as harshly, for that is just as effective a deterrent as punishing , the woman. Because men stick together in the war of the sexes? They do not do so in anything else. The law is quite explicit on this: All legal codes so far studied define adultery
' in terms of the marital status of the woman. Whether the adulterous man was himself married is irrelevant. '' And they do so because 'it is not adultery per se that the law punishes but only the possible introduction of alien children into the family and even the uncertainty that adultery creates in this regard: Adultery by the husband has no such consequences. '48 When, on their wedding night, Angel Clare confessed to his new wife, Tess, in Thomas Hardy 's
' Forgive me as you are forgiven!
' You—yes you do.'
'But do you not forgive me? '
'0 Tess, forgiveness does not apply to the case! You were one person; now you are another: My God—how can forgiveness meet such a grotesque—prestidigitation as that! '
Clare left her that night:
COURTLY LOVE
Human mating systems are greatly complicated by the fact of inherited wealth. The ability to inherit wealth or status from a par-MONOGAMY AND THE NATURE OF WOMEN
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ent is not unique to man. There are birds that succeed to the ownership of their parents ' territories by staying to help them rear subsequent broods: Hyenas inherit their dominance rank from their mothers (in hyenas, females are dominant and often larger); so do many monkeys and apes. But human beings have raised this habit to an art. And they usually show a much greater interest in passing on wealth to sons than to daughters. This is superficially odd: A man who leaves his wealth to his daughters is likely to see that wealth left to-his certain granddaughters: A man who leaves his wealth to his sons is likely to see the wealth left to what may or may not be his grandsons. In the few matrilineal societies there is indeed such promiscuity that men are not sure of paternity, and in such societies it is uncles that play the role of father to their nephews: 49
Indeed, in more stratified societies the poor often favor their daughters over their sons. But this is not because of certainty of paternity but because poor daughters are more likely to breed than poor sons. A feudal vassal 's son had a good chance of remaining childless, while his sister was carted off to the local castle to be the fecund concubine of the resident lord. Sure enough, there is some evidence that in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in Bed-fordshire, peasants left more to their daughters than to their sons.'°
In eighteenth-century Ostfriesland in Germany, farmers in stagnant populations had oddly female-biased families, whereas those in growing populations had male-biased families: It is hard to avoid the conclusion that third and fourth sons were a drain on the family unless there were new business opportunities, and they were dealt with accordingly at birth, resulting in female-biased sex ratios in the stagnant populations.'
But at the top of society, the opposite prejudice prevailed.
Medieval lords banished many of their daughters to nunneries.'
Throughout the world rich men have always favored their sons and often just one of them. A wealthy or powerful father, by leaving his status or the means to achieve it to his sons, is leaving them the wherewithal to become successful adulterers with many bastard sons. No such advantage could accrue to wealthy daughters.
This has a curious consequence: It means that the most
successful thing a man or a woman can do is beget a legitimate heir to a wealthy man. Logic such as this suggests that philanderers should not be indiscriminate: They should seduce the women with the best genes and also the women with the best husbands, who therefore have the potential to produce the most prolific sons: In medieval times this was raised to an art: The cuckolding of heiress-es and the wives of great lords was considered the highest form of courtly love: Jousting was little more than a way for potential philanderers to impress great ladies: As Erasmus Darwin put it:
At a time when the legitimate eldest son of a great lord would inherit not only his father 's wealth but also his polygamy, the cuckolding of such lords was sport indeed: Tristan expected to inherit the kingdom of his uncle, King Mark, in Cornwall. While in Ireland he ignored the attentions of the beautiful Isolde until she was summoned by King Mark to be his wife. Panic-struck at the thought of losing his inheritance but determined to save it at least for his son, he suddenly took an enormous interest in Isolde. Or at least so Laura Betzig retells the old story: 54
Betzig's analysis of medieval history includes the idea that the begetting of wealthy heirs was the principal cause of Church-state controversies: A series of connected events occurred in the tenth century or thereabouts: The power of kings declined and the power of local feudal lords increased. As a consequence, noblemen gradually became more concerned with producing legitimate heirs to succeed to their titles, as the seigneurial system of
