Grandmothers are the last in our list when it comes to factors in our relationships. Their obliviousness to our generation and naivety in modern relationships make us think that our dear old grandmas have nothing to do with how we people have come to know the monogamy and lasting relationships. Unknown to us, grandmas have been helping us for decades now, on how to build and satisfy our psychosocial needs, but after all, our grandmas have always been there to help and comfort us, right?
Have you heard of the Grandmother theory? A group of researchers conducted a study with the closest species to us in the animal kingdom, the primates and with the native tribes in Africa. According to Kirsten Hawkes, anthropologist from University of Utah and one of the researchers, "our hypothesis is that human pair bonds evolved with increasing payoffs for mate guarding, who resulted from the evolution of our grandmothering life history."
The study stated that grandmothers helping their children in taking care of the family resulted in less stress and more time for recreation and mating with the male and female. With the observation in chimpanzees, where the fertile female population outnumbered the males that in order to populate, they either mate with several females or mate with one female only in numerous occasions.
However, it has been known that mating after an offspring has been born will be a long shot as the female would need look out for the offspring until they are stable. This would post as a problem for the time the male and female is not mating would be a wasted opportunity. Then grandmothers came into the equation, providing help for the female in looking after the offspring, giving the necessary time and space for the couples.
The nourishing nature of grandmothers was helpful and has evolved the nature of human from being known to mate with several partners to staying to nourish a single nuclear family with the female and offspring.
