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FUTA. Agric. Conference 20/2:
CUCKOLDRY: ITS INCIDENCE IN HUMAN AND ANIMAL POPULATION
*Aro, S.O., Omotoso, O.B. and Ayeni, A.O.
Department of Animal Production and Health
Federal University of Technology, Akure.
*E-mail Address: sarnbolarorgjyahoo.co.uk
ABSTRACT
It has been found out over the years that 10% of children are not biologically related to their putative genetic fathers
as a result of cuckoldry and this has posed a lot of problems to the society at large in.terms of broken marital
relationships and thuggery in the society. This has been attributed to sexual in-satisfaction of females by their
husbands due to either, their genetic make-up, age, socio-culture and means of survival. Physiological sexual
differences between men and women also support the cuckold relationship as the ideal for marriage. It is well known
that women don't reach their sexual peak until they are in their age thirties, while men peak by the time they are in
their twenties. In a typical marriage, a wife is generally younger than her husband or the same age. As a result, a
woman's increasing sexual appetite, due to her biologically age-based sex drive, gives her greater sexual needs than
her husband. She needs more sexual encounters, longer sexual encounters and more orgasms than her spouse.
Furthermore, some husbands are aware oftheir wife's infidelity and they do (husbands) derives sexual pleasure from
it in a way to arouse sexual excitement in the partner. Though cuckoldry is a rarity in animals, certain species of
birds like vultures and mammals like gibbons still form long-term bonds ·which could result in the males of such
bonds being cuckolded from time to time. In primates like the chimpanzees and bonobos, cuckoldry is a wel1
established phenomenon. This paper therefore reviews findings of incidence of cuckoldry in human and animal
population.
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Keywords: Animals, cuckoldry, humans, reproductive fitness, sexual appetite.
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Introduction
Cuckoldry is an historic derogatory term for a man who has an unfaithful wife (in which the wife engages in sexual
activity with a variety of men while her husband remains faithful). The word, which has been in recorded use since
the 13th century, derives from the cuckoo which gives up nurturing its own by laying eggs in other birds' nests
(www.wikipedia.com). In modem terms, a cuckold can also mean a male fetishist who gains sexual gratification
from watching his partner have intercourse with other people. It is often suggested that 10% of children are not
biologically related to their putative genetic fathers as a result of cuckoldry. Anderson (2006) distinguished between
studies of high and low paternity confidence samples, and found median rates of actual non-paternity (determined
from blood or DNA exclusion tests) of 2% and 30% respectively, with much variability across studies. This was
supported by fairly high rates of extra-marital affairs in both men and women. In a recent study of a random sample
of 9,852 Norwegians aged 18 to 49, 16% of men and 11% of women admitted to having had an affair during their
current relationship, with 50% not using any form of contraception (Traeen
et al,
2007). Cuckoldry is a real risk to
men's reproductive fitness, sperm competition may account for certain sex differences in human psychology and
morphology. For example, prevalence estimates of offspring from extra-pair copulations range from I% to 30%
across cultures, averaging around 10(% (Shackelford et al., 2005). Jolmson et al. (2001) also found that 9% of all
women and 15% of women between the ages of 16 and 24 years reported having concurrent sexual relationships and'
Gallup et al. (2006) reported 25% of women in an institution to engage in extra-pair copulation. Genetic studies'
have shown that promiscuity and socio-sexuality in humans have heritable components (Lyons et al., 2004). These.
findings sUPp0l1 hypotheses that suggest extra-pair copulation by women (cuckoldry) is an adaptive characteristic
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(Thornhill and Gangestad, 2008). However, among animals, cuckoldry is a rarity because majority of the animals do :
not fonn a long term relationship as it is found in human beings but in many (most) apparently monogamous
species, it is not uncommon for mating to occur between individuals that are not nominal mates and if at all, this is
done surreptitiously when the nominal mate is not in attendance. If males are successful in fertilizing eggs through
extra- pair mating, there will be a large benefit to his fitness because he will obtain reproductive output without
having to invest in parental care (Andcrsson, 1994). If the cuckolded partner eventually finds out, it could lead to
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social attrition in the form of marital conflicts and divorce in human population to infanticide and harassment to
inducejabortion in animals.
Cuckoldry in Human species
Psychologically, women are hardwired differently than men, A woman has a dual sex drive. The first is centered on
finding a mate for life to help support her and her offspring. This is why (and when) love is such an important part
of a woman's sexual desire, The second is a desire to obtain a variety of the best genetic material to produce the best
children. This second desire begins to grow once a woman has found her life mate and grows stronger as time with
him progresses. Eventually, this latter and more powerful drive overpowers her sexual desire for her life mate. This
is why a woman's sexual desire for her husband diminishes over time. At the same time, her sexual desire for other
men is increasing. This does not make her immoral or mean that she no longer loves her husband. It is simply part of
her genetic code (Susan, 2011), Compounding this is that, nature has not only given women a two prong and
exponentially stronger sex drive than men, it has also given women the ability to experience a far greater quantity,
intensity, and variety of sexual pleasure and orgasm than men. This is nature's way of motivating a woman to seek
out sexual activity considering the risk she bears in doing so.
The male also has a much simpler sex drive than a woman. He simply wants to mate with any female he finds
desirable, The longer he is denied sex, the stronger his desire grows and the criterion by which he finds a woman
desirable lowers, Since it is the woman who decides if he will be allowed to have sex with her or not, his desire for
her sexually is also linked to the desire for her approval. As he becomes more interested in her, the desire to please
her as a wayto get sex can become overwhelming for him (Susan, 2011), Two anatomical influencers - the physical
size difference between the sexes and the other is the male's ratio of penis size to body mass. It was found that in
those species of primates (apes, monkeys) where the female was considerably larger than the male, the female would
have many sexual partners and bond with none. The second influencer is the ratio of penis size to body mass. In
species where the difference in physical size between the sexes was slight, (as it is in humans) the penis to body size
ratio increased female dominated sexual behaviour. The smaller the male copulatory organ (penis) to body size, the
more bonded males were restricted to activity with only their mate while females would engage in sexual activity
with a variety of non-bonded males (Susan, 2011),
Cuckoldry in Animal species
Instances of cuckoldry are relatively rare in the animal kingdom, primarily because males and females of most
species (over 95%) do not form long-term pair-bonds (Andersson, 1994) except in many avian species because they
form long-term pair-bonds, Males can compete for mates, but if two or more males have copulated with a female
within a sufficiently short period of time, males must compete for fertilizations. Psychological, behavioural,
physiological, anatomical, and genetic evidence reveals that ancestral female sometimes mated with multiple males
within sufficiently short time periods so that sperm from two or more males simultaneously occupied the
reproductive tract of one female. Also, species who have a dominant male taking over from an absent male want to
eradicate the current offspring in favour of their own, They have ~ number of tactics for doing this like competitive
infanticide and harassment to miscarriage (examples are baboons, equines). Also, the Bruce effect (behaviour seen
in rodents) when the new male arrives, he uses the pheromones in his scent to cause females to abort. There is no
need for contact as this can be done through urine marking etc. (Magic, 2011). The very few animals that do stick
together such as gibbons (long-armed ape) and swans (large long-necked water bird) are investigated to find the
biological basis of fidelity. Black vulture also has high ethics: when extra-pair copulation takes place nearby,
vultures will attack the philanderer. Vulture pair bonding must be strong, since both parents incubate eggs, each
taking a 24-hour shift, and for eight months, the offspring gets fed by both parents (Stefan, 2006).
Effects of cuckoldry
Sperm competition: Cuckoldry can lead to sperm competition in which the sperm of two or more males
simultaneously occupy the reproductive tract of a female and compete to fertilize her egg (Parker, 1970). Baker and
Bellis (1990) found that when women initiated an infidelity it often occurred around the time of ovuldtion and 7% of
the copulations during this time of ovulation were with an extra-pair man, and these relationships were less likely to
involve the use of contraceptives than were copulations with their social partner.
Reduced paternal investment: The benefits of paternal investment and the eo-evolution with paternity certainty
result in potential reproductive trade-offs for women, Because men vary in quality (e.g. health; Shackelford and
Larsen, 1997) and are readily available in multi-male, multi-female communities, women have the opportunity to
cuckold their social partner and can sometimes benefit from doing so. As with other species, men are predicted to
and do reduce their levels of parental investment when they are not investing in their own children or suspect they
have been cuckolded by their partner (Flinn, 1992). As a result, women must balance the costs ofreduced paternal
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investment or male retaliation against the benefits of cuckoldry; that is, having their children sired by a more fit man
while having their social partner assist in the rearing of these children.
Thunderbolt: Thunderbolt (Magun) (literally meaning "don't climb") is an old and notorious myth in the Yoruba
culture, and it has been credited for all the strange or spooky things that have happened to people engaged in illicit
affairs. The scientific verification of the curse is impossible since no one has ever claimed responsibility for its
activation, nor narrated experiences of its infection. The men concubines are supposed to die immediately
afterwards, and the woman shamed. Thus so far, it exists purely at the level of myths, literature, movies and
academic papers and thus has been found to reduce human population by 25% (Tun de, 2010).
Infanticide and induced abortion: This is common in animals like the baboon and the equines in which the
dominant male kills the current offspring belonging to the former dominant male in order to establish his own. If the
female is pregnant, the new alpha male may harass her to the point of abortion in order to make her lose the
pregnancy. In rodents like rats and mice, the Bruce effect works pherornonally to induce abortion in the pregnant
female (Magic, 2011).
Rarity of Cuckoldry
The issue of cuckoldry is complex; however, the rate varies significantly across cultural settings and socio-economic
status. Sasse et al. (1994) reported that non-paternity rates were 1% in Switzerland, but others have reported rates
greater than 20% in settings oflow socio-economic status (Cerda-Flores et al., 1999). It is also possible that some of
these men are aware of the non-paternity of the children they are raising, and thus have not been technically
cuckolded. In any case, human paternity certainty is greater than 90% and considerably higher in some populations.
This level of paternity certainty is much closer to that found in gorillas (>95%) than in chimpanzees and bonobos
where there is little certainty ofpatemity given that females have multiple mates.
Women's cuckoldry strategies
The dynamics of extra-pair relationships are likely to involve a mix of implicit (i.e. unconscious) and explicit (i.e.
conscious) psychological processes (e.g. attention to symmetric facial features) and social strategies. In fact, women
in particular, as a group, show systematic changes in sexual fantasy and attractiveness to extra-pair men, among
other sex-related traits, around the time of ovulation (Macrae et al., 2002). Women are not only more likely to
fantasize about and sometimes engage in an affair during this time, they are also more sensitive to and attracted by
male pheromones (Gangestad et
al.,
2002). Thornhill and Gangestad, (1999) found that the scent of facially
symmetric and thus physically attractive men was rated as more attractive and sexy than was the scent of less
symmetric men, but only during this fertile time frame. Penton-Voak and Perret (2000) found that women rate
masculine faces, those with a more prominent jaw, as especially attractive around the time of ovulation. Scent, facial
symmetry, and a masculine jaw bone may, in turn, be proximate cues to the man's genetic fitness and social
dominance (Shackelford and Larsen, 1997).
•
Strategies for Prevention of Cuckoldry
Relationship jealousy
Jealousy is an affective experience that is ttiggered by risks to a central relationship, especially relationships with
parents and mates. The most salient trigger for men's jealousy in adulthood is predicted to be real or imagined
threats to paternity certainty; that is, a risk of partner infidelity (Buss et al., 1992). The psychological manifestation
is sexual jealousy, which has a near-universal influence on the dynamics of men's and women's relationships (Buss
et al., 2000). So, one of the mating strategies examined as an early prevention method is violence against women
within partnered relationships. This is considered to be the first line of defense. in cuckoldry-avoidance, in that men
are expected to engage in behaviours that will reduce the likelihood that their partners will be unfaithful in the first
place. Men use mate retention tactics (i.e. behavioural manifestations of sexual jealousy) and violence towards their
partners. When triggered, jealousy often results in a variety of behavioural responses, including male-on-female
aggression, divorce, monitoring and attempted control of the social and sexual behaviour of their partners,
enhancement of their attractiveness as a mate, and the monitoring of and aggression toward actual or perceived
sexual rivals (Buss and Shackelford, 1997).
Mate guarding
This is intra-vaginal anti-cuckoldry tactics employed when a man has failed at preventing his partner from being
unfaithful, and attempts to avert fertilization by another man that may result from extra-pair mating. Indeed, mate
guarding by men but not women was found to be a common feature of long-term relationships, although the
guarding varied with the pregnancy risks of the man's partner (Sagarin et al., 2003). Women had reported that their
partner engaged in more mate guarding during the week when the women were most likely to ovulate, the time
frame when these same women reported an increase in sexual fantasy and interest in an extra-pair man, which their
partners will likely monitor. The intra-vaginal anti-cuckoldry tactics also focuses on sperm competition, providing
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«;
fascinating descriptions of the semen-displacement hypothesis and the psychobiology (the study of biological bases
of behaviour) of semen.
Paternity cues
The final line of defense involves assessing the likelihood of paternity of the child post-parturition and adjusting
investment accordingly. The post-parturition assessment of paternity and sex di fferences in locating of resources
based on facial similarities. As noted by Burch et
al.,
(2002) a man's ability to determine physical resemblance is
dependent on that man having seen his own face - something that may not have been possible before minors.
Furthermore, emotional and behavioural anti-cuckoldry biases are evident in men and these largely operate prior to
pregnancy. Men in particular should be sensitive to cues of resemblance to their putative offspring and invest more
heavily in children they perceive as resembling themselves.
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CONCLUSION
Cuckoldry incidence are likely to vary between countries, and to vary within countries by age-group, cultural or
ethnic group. region, and age and duration of partnership. Also, in animals, cuckoldry is rare because there is no
long term mate-pairing in most of them which could predispose them to cuckolding. Although awaiting definitive
results, cuckoldry rates across human populations appear to be about 10% for humans as compared with less than
5% in gorillas. As is found in other species with the facultative expression of pate mal investment, women appear to
be much more likely to cuckold lower-quality social partners or partners with whom a long-term relationship seems
unlikely than they are to cuckold other men. Considering the disadvantages of cuckoldry over its advantages in areas
of paternal investment, divorce in marriage, unwanted pregnancy among others which may leads to atrocities both at
home and in the society at large, and also the 'ill-effects of cuckoldry in animals like infanticide, harassment to
induce abortion, Bruce effect, etc, we hereby recommend that though its incidence is not that high but attention
should be given to it and all hands must be on deck to reduce it to barest minimum.
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www.wikipedia.comlcuckoldry/
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