"In our culture, women are expected to be beautiful. We are judged by current standards of comeliness, but nature prefers the male's vanity. There females have no need to outshine each other. They are in demand simply by being them. Males, on the other hand, must attract, woo, and compete. There is an innate desire in every male, driven by their genetic code, to draw attention to himself, to compete with others, and most importantly, to win."
"Or think they've won."
"Or say they've won."
"Certainly it's all part of their nature. They can't help it."
"What about guys that don't do nothing?" Too Kay asked. "That sit around, drunk or high, day after day, complaining, blaming, excusing themselves from the whole game. They don't even try to play. Where's the peacock there?"
"I know women that do that." Pit said.
"Well women are not programmed to be competitive," The Doc answered. "Not to the same extent, anyway. And yes, Too Kay, some men aren't energetic. There are various levels, otherwise society couldn't work. Well, our society, anyway; we have equal numbers of males and females. In the grand scheme of things, there aren't really that many males. Not much need for them after all. But long ago, in our species, we developed higher brain function and a choice to override innate tendencies. We developed culture. Culture dictates rules of behavior. Other species have few, strong short-lived males. They mate a lot in their brief span; live fast and die young. And they're very, very pretty; peacocks for instance."
"And lions."
"Most birds."
"So how come female humans are the pretty ones?" Lilya asked.
"Like I said, higher brain function in humans allowed ideas to pop into our heads. We discovered death and with it the desire to overcome it. Males especially; they have such short lives. They saw that their competitive spirit was killing them. Long ago they made an agreement with the females who, for their part, were rather unconcerned with death since they had long healthy lives, relatively speaking. The males offered to help with their womanly tasks if only the females promised to be available to them without them having to do battle amongst themselves every mating season. One of the roles males already provided was protection. That was the role that often got them killed. In addition to the protection, this new bargain provided for help in the established women's tasks, mostly the raising of the young. Not only sisters, aunts, and older siblings would be helping now, the males would help as well. Or so they said. Mostly what happened was they agreed amongst themselves to not fight each other off and not go after another males' female or her children. That was the point that finally got the women to sign on the dotted line. They didn't necessarily need help raising the young uns. What they needed was for rival males to stop killing their children. There was much energy required from the female to raise her children, so to lose them periodically was a terrible waste of her time. They were more than willing to give up the revolving door of sireship that resulted in a constant battle for their children's lives.
"As a result of the compact, the number of males grew. Social structures were changed to accommodate the numbers of men. Monogamy developed. For if all men were to mate fairly, they couldn't have many partners. Only one each so each could have one. Men agreed to not kill off rivals' children mostly because they agreed to not have rivals. At the same time the cry went up, "I'll be damned if I'll live with another man's brats." So they came up with laws that prevented women from having numerous partners as well.
"Culture developed, religion along with it, to help out with the unpredictability of climate now that an agrarian society was possible since the tribe was settling down. Gods were to be appeased, ensuring a good season. If the gods became angry, sudden floods or droughts or fires or pestilence would ensue. There had to be a way to get the gods to back off. Priests with the power to know the gods' minds came into being.
"Somewhere along the line all those extra men with nothing to do but play dominoes all day long came up with a self-preserving strategy so no one could question just why they were all here when they clearly weren't needed. They came up with a set of rules for proper living which over the years became more and more like some sort of unquestioned natural law. 'This is the way it is; the way it's supposed to be; the way God wants it,' was the common assumption.
"And what were those rules? Well, they all had to do with the behavior of women. Sure, a few guidelines for men's behavior, such as don't kill my children and I won't kill yours, but for the most part, the rules simply stated that no woman was allowed to mate with anyone but her old man.
"You can't imagine how superfluous these men were. The most important thing a species does is procreate. The male's contribution is approximately 15 minutes, compared to the females' nine months for gestation and countless years after that for rearing. The males, in large numbers, sat around twiddling their thumbs and feeling guilty. They needed rules to control the women so that no one would question their idleness.
"The women, of course, did not participate in the legislative process. They were too busy."
"Yes, but why are women the beautiful ones?" Lilya asked.
"That's easy," Pit said. "50/50 split; you still have to have that 15 minute sperm dip."
"More precisely the tacit agreement to not have children by more than one father in exchange for letting her children live means men and women must choose for life. A woman must now attract someone she can live with a very long time. And in spite of the fact that men are superfluous, culture did emerge and men did in fact offer more support. They are gathering the food now so women can stay in the nest and spoil the child, that is, teach it who its daddy is. The woman must attract a good food-gathering man. He must be beautiful as well as stout. There are many grades of men, but a woman must attract the best. And the priests and their followers slowly changed laws to diminish women and create a dependency in them on men, real or psychological. Society scorns an independent woman.
"Now the tables are turned and woman must attract someone she can live with for her entire life. Someone who looks good and is 'steady.' And because this is simply a superficial turning of the tables, where the women must attract the men, the males retain their biological need to be aggressively competitive."