Over a set of hereditary predispositions human society lays down a kind of stencil that permits some to be fully expressed, some partially, and some hardly at all. In cultures where women have roughly comparable political power with men rape is rare or absent.25 However strong any genetic propensity toward rape might be, social parity appears to be a highly effective antidote. Depending on the structure of the society, many different brews of human proclivities can be elicited.
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Chimpanzee society has an identifiable set of rules that most of its members live by: They submit to those of higher rank. Females defer to males. They cherish their parents. They care for their young. They have a kind of patriotism, and defend the group against outsiders. They share food. They abhor incest. But they have, so far as is known, no lawgivers. There are no stone tablets, no sacred books in which a code of conduct is laid out. Nevertheless, there is something like a code of ethics and morals operating among them—one that many human societies would find recognizable and, as far as it goes, congenial.
* Among the males. Among their own gender, females may carry grudges for years, and refuse to be reconciled.* That this might have something to do with sex was first proposed, in the face of considerable Victorian skepticism and unease, by the ever-insightful Charles Darwin.6* Similar behavior is known among other social animals—in gorillas, for example, where the alpha permits a female to mate with lower-ranking males, but only if she’s pregnant. Among wolves, only the alpha male and the alpha female breed, but the female mates with other members of the pack when she’s not in heat.8* This is not just an unpleasant circumstance of chimpanzee life; it occurs among gorillas, baboons, and many other apes and monkeys. Over a fifteen-year-long study of gorillas near the Virunga volcano in Rwanda, more than a third of all infant mortality was directly due to killing by gorilla males. Infanticide for them is a way of life.11* Something similar is observed in other, quite different non-monogamous species—for example, hedge sparrows. The alpha male works hard to prevent copulation by betas, but only in the females’ fertile period. However the female, even in the fertile period, may dart away on occasion for surreptitious matings with the betas. Only in this case will a beta help feed her chicks. Again the females are using male preoccupation with sex to induce them to help her little ones.12* A sperm that carries the smaller Y chromosome—the one that makes a male—weighs slightly less than one that carries the bigger X chromosome that makes a female; if lighter sperms travel faster, this may be why slightly more males are conceived than females.
Chapter 17
ADMONISHING THE CONQUEROR
Perhaps no order of mammals presents us with
so extraordinary a series of gradations as this
[step by step, from humans to apes to monkeys
to lemurs]—leading us insensibly from the
crown and summit of the animal creation down
to creatures, from which there is but a step, as
it seems, to the lowest, smallest, and least
intelligent of the placental Mammalia. It is as if
nature herself had foreseen the arrogance
of man, and with Roman severity had provided
that his intellect, by its very triumphs, should
call into prominence the slaves, admonishing
the conqueror that he is but dust.
T. H. HUXLEY
Evidence as to Mans Place in Nature1
The Archbishop of York is Primate of England. The Archbishop of Armagh is Primate of Ireland. The Archbishop of Warsaw is Primate of Poland. The Pope is Primate of Italy. The Archbishop of Canterbury is Primate of the planet, at least as far as his Anglican communicants are concerned. These ancient titles come from the medieval Latin word primus, which in turn derives from older Latin words meaning “principal” and “first.” The ecclesiastic use was straightforward: A primate of a region was the chief (“first”) of all its bishops. In recent centuries the title has devolved often to little more than an honorific. Other titles have taken precedence. But “Prime Minister” and “President” and “Premier” come from similar linguistic roots, all meaning “first.”
When Linnaeus was drawing up the family tree of life on Earth he was, as we’ve noted, afraid to include humans among the apes. But despite widespread opposition, it was impossible to deny some deep connections of monkeys, apes, and humans.* So all were classified into the order (for him, one taxon higher than genus) that he called primates. Scientists who study non-human primates—of course, they’re all primates themselves—are called primatologists.
This other meaning of “primate” also derives from the Latin for “first.” It’s hard to see by what standard a squirrel monkey, say, could be considered “first” among the lifeforms of Earth. But if a case is made that humans are “first,” then the tarsiers, bushbabies, mandrills, marmosets, sifakas, aye-ayes, mouse lemurs, pottos, lorises, spider monkeys, titis, and all the rest are dragged in along with us. We’re “first.” They’re our close relatives. So they, in some sense, must be “first” also—an undemonstrated and suspect conclusion in a biological world that runs from virus to great whale. Perhaps, instead, the argument goes the other way, and the humble status of most members of the primate tribe casts doubts on the lofty title we have appropriated to ourselves. It would make things so much easier for our self-esteem if those other primates weren’t—anatomically, physiologically, genetically, and in their individual and social behavior—so much like us.
Surely there is at least a hint in the word “primate,” not just of self-congratulation, but of the idea, fully realized in the practices of our own time, that we humans arrogate command and control of all life on Earth into our own hands. Not primus inter pares, first among equals, but just plain primus. We’ve found it convenient, even reassuring, to believe that life on Earth is a vast dominance hierarchy—sometimes called “The Great Chain of Being”—with us as the alphas. Sometimes we claim that it wasn’t our idea, that we were commanded by a Higher Power, the most Alpha of Alphas, to take over. Naturally, we had no choice but to obey.
About two hundred species of primates are known. Conceivably, in the quickly dwindling tropical rainforest another species or two—nocturnal or elegantly camouflaged—may have so far escaped our notice. There are about as many species of primates as there are nations on Earth. And like the nations, they have their different customs and traditions, which we sample in this chapter.