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Promiscuity and Fertility: Comments on Greenfield's “The Bruce Effect and malinowski's hypothesis on Mating and Fertility”
Author(s) -
Nag Moni,
Bedford J. Michael
Publication year - 1969
Publication title -
american anthropologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.51
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1548-1433
pISSN - 0002-7294
DOI - 10.1525/aa.1969.71.6.02a00120
Subject(s) - promiscuity , fertility , mating , sterility , population , biology , demography , zoology , ecology , genetics , sociology
Recently, Greenfield has invoked the “Bruce effect‘ (pregnancy block caused by odors from a strange male) in mice and studies on antisperm antibodies in the serum of prostitutes as support for the hypothesis that promiscuity reduces the fertility of women. This paper disagrees with Greenfield's interpretation and explains why it is invalid to extrapolate such findings in mice to the human condition. Reference is made to studies of human populations that indicate veneral disease may be an important factor in any observed negative correlation between promiscuity and fertility in adults. The phenomenon of adolescent sterility seems likely to be determined mainly by adolescent endocrine imbalance and by immaturity of the female reproductive tract. [population, fertility, promiscuity, sexual relations, adolescent sterility]