The same pattern—men being more sexually jealous, on average, than women—has beenreplicated in several other cultures (Buunk, Angleitner, Oubaid, & Buss, 1996). It has also beenevaluated in real-world contexts. If sexual jealousy has been designed by natural selection toreduce a man’s risk of cuckoldry, then men should respond to cues of such risks in jealousways. Flinn (1988) showed exactly this when he recorded, at regular intervals, the behaviour ofthose he came across in a Carribean village. A man mated to a fertile woman (i.e., a woman ofreproductive age and who was not currently pregnant, and could thus become pregnant)leads to more conflict within the relationship—especially if the relationship was not sexuallyexclusive—and more conflict with sexual rivals.This conflict over a man’s sexual exclusivity over his mate can escalate quite dangerously,leading to domestic assault and homicide. Sexual jealousy is a common motive for domesticviolence, and it is far more commonly the cause of male-perpetrated violence than female-perpetrated violence (Daly, Wilson, & Weghorst, 1982). Moreover, historical laws in a variety ofdifferent places consider adultery—a violation of sexual exclusivity—a crime against thehusband or male partner in a relationship, but often do not accord women the same legalprotection (Wilson & Daly, 1992). In fact, many legal systems once considered women to be theproperty of men—the property of their fathers before marriage and the property of theirhusbands once married. It is only as women have demanded and achieved a legal status
