Uncertainty surrounds the impact of inclusive fitness interests on the development of human institutions. For instance, religious celibacy constitutes a puzzling institution that has often been seen as maladaptive. After all, reproduction is at the very heart of evolution, shaping all living organisms.
Yet many religious institutions around the world require celibacy, which makes anthropologists wonder how it could have evolved in the first place. A new study suggests a surprising advantage of celibacy — it serves its own selfish or family interest.
Researchers Study Surprising Benefits of Lifelong Religious Celibacy in Tibetan Monks
What is Celibacy?
According to WebMD, celibacy is the practice of not having sexual relations with any person. However, it is practiced differently among individuals. Some abstain from all kinds of sexual contact, while others refrain only from sexual intercourse. On the other hand, some use masturbation in place of a partner.
Celibacy is often associated with religion, although there could be other reasons people decide to be celibate. For some people, abstaining from sexual activities helps their mental health by keeping their minds clear.
Benefits of Celibacy on Tibetan Families
Regarding religious beliefs, researchers conducted a study on Tibetan monks living in Western China to understand how lifelong religious celibacy has helped them, Science Alert reported. Until recently, each Tibetan family sends one of their sons to become monks and celibates forever.
Anthropologists from University College London collaborated with researchers from Lanzhou University in China to interview 530 households in 21 villages on the eastern Tibetan plateau. They reconstructed family genealogies and gathered information from each family's history.
The area is inhabited by the patriarchal Amdo Tibetans in which wealth is passed down to the male line. They found that men with a brother who is a monk tend to be wealthier and own more yaks compared to other men without a monk for a brother. However, there is little to no benefit for sisters of monks, most likely due to the competition for paternal resources.
Interestingly, being a monk benefits family members because parents can end the fraternal conflict. Since firstborn males inherit the parental household, second or later-born males become monks.
Furthermore, the team also found that men with a monk brother had more children than their counterparts. Their wives tend to have more children at an earlier age.
The team concluded that the practice of sending sons to become monks is dependent on the parent's reproductive interests.
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How Does Celibacy Evolves?
Given the benefits mentioned above, the team wrote that this hints celibacy evolves through natural selection. Using a mathematical model of the evolution of celibacy, they found that monks remaining single means that there are fewer men who compete for marriage to women in their village.
However, they were still left wondering as it does not answer how celibacy evolved. Since men with celibate brothers tend to become wealthier, researchers hypothesize that this might have made them more competitive in the marriage market. In that sense, celibacy could evolve by natural selection since the monk is helping his brother to gain more.
Although the choice to become a monk is not very advantageous from the individual's perspective, the mathematical model they developed showed that celibacy becomes common only if the parents decide who it should happen by weighing their children's fitness.
They added that boys were sent to become monks at a young age and they were celebrated. Otherwise, they will be dishonored if they abandon their role. This shows how parents play a huge role in their children's celibacy.
The team noted that their model could also clarify the evolution of other forms of parental favoritism.
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