La vuelta de la sociedad patriarcal

Algunos pensarán que nunca se fue, pero no vamos a entrar en esa discusión. Phillip Longman, autor de The Empty Cradle: How Falling Birthrates Threaten World Prosperity and What to Do About It, acaba de publicar el artículo "The return of patriarchy" en el último número de Foreign Policy (no parece que esté todavía en la edición en español). La tesis es bastante heterodoxa:

Throughout the broad sweep of human history, there are many examples of people, or classes of people, who chose to avoid the costs of parenthood. Indeed, falling fertility is a recurring tendency of human civilization. Why then did humans not become extinct long ago? The short answer is patriarchy.

Patriarchy does not simply mean that men rule. Indeed, it is a particular value system that not only requires men to marry but to marry a woman of proper station. It competes with many other male visions of the good life, and for that reason alone is prone to come in cycles. Yet before it degenerates, it is a cultural regime that serves to keep birthrates high among the affluent, while also maximizing parents’ investments in their children. No advanced civilization has yet learned how to endure without it.

Through a process of cultural evolution, societies that adopted this particular social system—which involves far more than simple male domination—maximized their population and therefore their power, whereas those that didn’t were either overrun or absorbed. This cycle in human history may be obnoxious to the enlightened, but it is set to make a comeback.

Es decir, vuelve el patriarcado, así entendido. Y el mecanismo de vuelta es biológico o demográfico:

The greatly expanded childless segment of contemporary society, whose members are drawn disproportionately from the feminist and countercultural movements of the 1960s and 70s, will leave no genetic legacy. Nor will their emotional or psychological influence on the next generation compare with that of their parents.

Meanwhile, single-child families are prone to extinction. A single child replaces one of his or her parents, but not both. Nor do single-child families contribute much to future population. The 17.4 percent of baby boomer women who had only one child account for a mere 7.8 percent of children born in the next generation. By contrast, nearly a quarter of the children of baby boomers descend from the mere 11 percent of baby boomer women who had four or more children. These circumstances are leading to the emergence of a new society whose members will disproportionately be descended from parents who rejected the social tendencies that once made childlessness and small families the norm. These values include an adherence to traditional, patriarchal religion, and a strong identification with one’s own folk or nation.

Para los que duden de la idea de que las actitudes morales o políticas se heredan, les recuerdo mi anotación "Del origen genético de las actitudes políticas".

Se supone que en Europa también acabaría pasando algo parecido, aunque aquí los que más se reproducen no son sólo (un suponer) los católicos, sino gentes venidas de fuera, de sociedades, precisamente, patriarcales (quizá en el peor sentido de la palabra).

El artículo está lleno de ejemplos históricos muy sugerentes, como el de la Grecia decadente derrotada por la demográficamente pujante Roma. Léanlo entero.