Inclusive Fitness and the Practice of Polyandry Among the Skidi Pawnee

Authors

Thomas E. McGinnis, Nebraska State Historical Society

Date of this Version

1983

Document Type

Article

Comments

1983. Transactions of the Nebraska Academy of Sciences, XI:9-12. Copyright © 1983 McGinnis

Abstract

The ethnohistorical record of the practice of polyandry among the Skidi Pawnee of the 19th century is examined from the perspective of the inclusive fitness model. The practice of temporary polyandry may have allowed males to maximize their inclusive fitness by insuring high paternity certainty. Younger brothers and nephews may have guarded the wives of older male relatives to prevent the wives from bearing children of unrelated males.