In this Youtube video, Bret Weinstein, an evolutionary biologist, states that marriage is an evolutionary adaptation that stems from a behavior known as mate guarding. The phenomenon of marriage is obviously far more elaborate, filled with symbolic gestures. At the beginning of the video, Dr. Weinstein suggests that we could “repurpose” some aspects of marriage that evolved as gestures that an individual, either male or female, could contribute to providing offspring. The implication here is that because people now have a say over whether they will have kids and if so, when they will have them, we have the freedom to construct marriage in a different light.
He goes over the different types of marital/sexual relationships that have existed throughout history. He summarizes these as monogamy, polygyny, polyandry, and promiscuity/polyamory. He proceeds to discuss how delusions about what marriage is supposed to be like leads many people to condemn the concept of marriage as a whole. One primary error comes from people confusing infatuation and love. While society does sometimes have the wrong impression of marriage, there are people who don’t want marriage out of life.
Later, at around seventeen-and-a-half minutes into the video, he says more, I guess, controversial, things regarding differences in men and women. He states the pretty well known biological fact that males have a much higher variance in the number of offspring they can produce. However, he goes on to say that as a result, females evolved to develop a kind of far-sightedness into the wellbeing of the population at large while males have developed wisdom regarding risky (high risk, high reward) situations. He then talks about how though society should make both forms of wisdom accessible to everyone, he is skeptical as to whether or not all men and all women will choose to “pick up” the other form of wisdom right away.
I don’t think that men and women are identical, so I think Weinstein is correct when he makes a claim that society pushes the message that for women to enjoy the same freedoms as men, they have to be exactly like men. However, I don’t know how I necessarily feel about his claims when he states that society has failed to democratize the “virtues of masculinity.” He definitely has a point when he says the form of masculinity promoted by society now is not the best form of masculinity. He believes a more traditional, responsibility-oriented form leads to a much healthier society when compared to the far less mature form promoted now. I would agree with these claims as well as the more basic biological statements he makes at the beginning of the video.
A lot of Weinstein’s arguments stem from his own hypotheses and speculations based on research in evolutionary biology. I really liked his personal opinion on the difference between infatuation and love. Unlike infatuation, love is a sustainable state because it is based off placing one’s partner on a level playing field. Towards the end of the video, he speculates that the kind of polyamory we see today will devolve into polygyny, where few people are actually happy.
I thought it was incredibly thought-provoking, but it is important to remember that it is speculation as to what might be the case. Overall, it was a great video because it featured a biologist talking about various forms of gender and sexuality, topics we have discussed in class. Though at times he sounds like a traditionalist, I think he is actually addressing misconceptions people have about the causes of gender expectations and various forms of sexuality. To my knowledge, he has the same goal of using what we learn from evolutionary biology to make a world that is more free for all people. However, that doesn’t certain groups of people must be exactly the same. It just means they have to respect each other as equals.
Works Cited
“Marriage as an evolutionary phenomenon.” Youtube, uploaded by Bret Weinstein,
21 Dec 2017,