Focusing on 61 preindustrial societies that have information on fertility, the author asks what factors may explain variation in fertility, what devices are used to control fertility, and whether differences in fertility appear to be in line with the societies' environments.

An early cross-cultural study that sought to establish correlations between "stages" of economic culture and a variety of different social and political institutions, such as form of government and justice, marriage and kinship, and behaviors during warfare.

Researchers examine marriage patterns of 186 societies from the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample (SCCS). The eleven predictor variables are pathogen stress, arranged female marriages, population density, father roles during infancy, temperature, social stratification, wealth inequality, internal warfare, assault frequency, female agricultural contribution, and sex ratio. The two outcome variables measuring polygyny are cultural rules constraining polygyny and the percentage of married men who are polygynous. Controlling on phylogeny using a global supertree of the languages, analysis of marriage patterns reveals that assault frequency and pathogen stress are the strongest predictors of polygyny. These findings offer additional support for the theories of harem-defense polygyny and male genetic quality.

This article refines previous research on marriage transactions and offers descriptions of new types of marriage transactions. First, the authors examine the frequency and distribution of marriage transactions. Second,the authors use a bio-cultural approach to examine how differences in male and female reproductive strategies and the kin selection theory are associated with marriage transactions.

This article examines the relationship between pathogen stress and polygyny. Results indicate that there is a positive association between the two that is not confounded by geographic region, latitude, population density, male-male competition, or presence of brideprice. In particular, pathogen stress precicts higher levels of non-sororal polygyny and capturing women for wives or concubines.

This article seeks to examine the distribution and frequency of bride-theft. Tylor's (1889) findings between various forms of marriage by capture and certain other social instituions are confirmed.

In this article, the authors reconsider the polygyny threshold model in order to account for the "polygyny paradox." This paradox, as the authors define it, is the trend away from polygyny as societies adopt stratified agricultural economies. This is despite an increase in both the importance of material wealth and greater leaves of wealth inequality both of which would otherwise suggest increased polygyny. The authors develop a new model that does account for this paradox.

This study attempts to reconstruct ancestral marriage practices using hunter-gathers' phylogenies based on mitochondrial DNA sequences. Data suggest that arranged marriages and brideprice/bridewealth likely go back at least to the first modern human migrations out of Africa and that early ancestral human societies probably had low levels of polygyny.

This article presents two evolutionary models that may explain relationships between war and socialization of children: the "environmentally contingent reproductive strategy" (ECRS) model put forward by Draper and Harpending (1982), and a model put forward by Carol and Melvin Ember. Results do not provide support for the hypotheses involving father-infant sleeping proximity derived from the ECRS model. The authors also find some inconsistencies with their own model.

The second and third parts of this book classify the economic systems of foraging and agricultural societies in the SCCS based on correlations between their institutions of property an distribution. These economic types are then examined for relationships with other social, political, demographic, and environmental factors in order to draw tentative conclusions regarding the origins of the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions. The fourth part of the book uses cross-national data to examine similar associations in industrial/service economies, and is not included here.