Item Detail
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12386
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1
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0
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English
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The Relationship between Cultural Success and Biological Success : A Sociobiological Analysis of Marriage and Fertility Patterns in Nineteenth Century Mormon Utah
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University of Texas at Austin
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Ph.D. diss.
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"The author accessed genealogical and church archival records of 741 men who were early Mormon immigrants to Utah and who were born between 1821 and 1830. Data were analyzed in an attempt to determine whether socio-economic status variables were predictive of marital status and fertility in this polygynous society. The sample represents between 51% and 75% of the individuals of the target population, and the likely biases could not be the basis of the following findings. First, fertility differentials of these 741 men were positively related to (i) social status as measured by rank in the Church hierarchy, (ii) economic status, and (iii) kinship ties to men of power. Social status was the best predictor of reproductive success, better even than age at death. Taken together, these variables explained 24% of the variance in male fertility. Second, temporal analyses indicated that wealth exerted its greatest effect on fertility through a man's age at first marriage; Church rank was more important in his ability to attract plural wives. Kinship ties were in turn important in establishing high rank. The author interpreted these results from a sociobiological perspective, concluding that the social evaluation of a cultural trait (status) was positively correlated with the reproductive success that trait conferred. This interpretation suggests that at least some cultural attributes are valued and sought because of their ultimate biological consequences, i.e., increased reproductive fitness. It also supports a model of cultural evolution which posits that culture, like biology, evolves by natural selection acting on the reproductive success of individuals." [Author's abstract]