The author investigates the associations between production relations, the character of productive forces, and sexual life. A significant correlation was found between production relations and the character of productive forces. Results also showed that more sexual freedom is associated with higher level of development of productive forces and an absence of internal oppression.

Based on work by Rosenblatt (1966), this article tests a hypothesis relating sexual freedom to romantic love. Findings suggest a relationship between premarital and extramarital sexual permissiveness equality for women and men and romantic love.

This study relates female contributions to a variety of social variables. The author divides responses to high female contribution to subsistence into two categories: adaptive (i.e. increased exogamy, polygyny, and bridewealth) and attitudinal (i.e. increased valuation of girls and premarital permissiveness). It is proposed that where women contribute more, “they are perceived less as objects for male sexual and reproductive needs and more as a person in their own right” (149).

Prevailing anthropological theory holds that social norms restricting the promiscuity of women tend to be more prevalent in pastoralist societies, where the long periods of unmonitored separation between spouses that often arise as a result of animal herding tends to result in stricter repression of female sexuality. This article explores the relationship between several societies' historical reliance on pastoralism and their attitudes towards four topics related to female promiscuity: abortion, female mobility, female promiscuity and female genital mutilation. The author finds all for topics to be significantly correlated with historical reliance on pastoralism.

Given that research on female political representation tends to be overlooked across many societies, this study investigates whether historical female political leadership influences contemporary female political representation in Africa. The authors hypothesize that precolonial traditions of women in leadership persist in shaping present-day representation. Using two original datasets—one from cross-cultural samples and one from previous elections—they find that ethnic groups with histories of female leaders have more women elected today, with results also show that many institutional factors have shaped women’s traditional political roles, and that the effects of historical colonialism have reversed much of their influence. The conclusion is that historical female leadership continues to affect modern representation, though shaped by institutional change.

This study investigates the relationship between cultural complexity and female premarital sexual freedom among foragers. To explain the decline of premarital sexual freedom, the authors discuss a few key trends such as the growth of social control and the decline of female status, as well as other variables such as intensification of foraging, social stratification, accumulation of wealth, political integration, and fixity of settlement. A model relating these variables is presented.

In this master's thesis, the author seeks to understand the determinants of attitudes on Intimate Partner Violence (IPV). She does this by correlating data on socioeconomic status, age, and education against survey data about IPV attitudes from Demographic and Health Surveys that were conducted in 56 countries across the world. Additionally, for purposes of analysis, she also ran correlations between attitudes and ancestral plow use data some the Ethnographic Atlas as a proxy for the presence of patriarchal norms. Finally, and most uniquely, the author conducted relational analyses between couples in order to gauge how IPV attitudes were influenced by the attitudes of a person's partner. The author concludes with suggestions of how this information can be used by policymakers in order to reduced and ultimately eliminate IPV.

This dissertation discusses the divided theoretical approach to how reincarnation, animism, spirits, and general religious beliefs occur within societies cross-culturally. Matlock offers evidence to support Tyler, contradicting the generally accepted Durkheimian approach, arguing that the belief about souls and spirits may originate in dreams and other empirical experiences, in turn informing and shaping social organization. Durkheim argued the opposite, claiming that religious beliefs reflect social organization such as the clan and kinship. The author states 33 quantitative hypotheses to be tested using 30 of the first 60 sample societies available in the HRAF Probability Sample.

The present research inquires into the effects, if any, that male status and power have on extramarital sex, parental investment, and polygyny. Using sexual selection theory, the hypothesis is that males in higher positions of power and status are more likely to engage in extramarital sexual activities and be in polygynous relationships was supported. There was no support for an association between male extramarital sex and parental investment.

This study investigates the relationship between historical utilization of the plow and modern sex ratios. The authors argue that in societies without the plow subsistence is generally egalitarian with both men and women contributing. However, the use of the plow requires more physical strength which, they argue, leads to a preference for boys and, thus, men. Therefore, in cultures that use the plow, this is reflected in male-biased sex ratios which are negotiated by way of practices like sex-selective abortions, infanticide, and/or differential access to resources based on sex.