ArticleProceedings. Biological sciences2022
Religious celibacy brings inclusive fitness benefits.
Article in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 9 papers.
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 25 citations in OpenAlex.
- Religious parents receive more alloparental aid in rural Bangladesh.Evolutionary human sciences · 2026Article
- Crusaders, monks and family fortunes: evolutionary models of male homosexuality and related phenomena.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Having a monk in the family and all-cause mortality: a seven-year prospective cohort study.Evolutionary human sciences · 2025Article
- Skewed sex ratios and violence against women in Pakistan.Evolutionary human sciences · 2025Article
- Article
- Studying human culture with small datasets and evolutionary models.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- No evidence that religious celibacy confers inclusive fitness benefits: a comment on: 'Studying human culture with small datasets and evolutionary models' MichelettiProceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Post-marital residence patterns and the timing of reproduction: evidence from a matrilineal society.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Religious celibacy brings inclusive fitness benefits.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
7 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The influence of inclusive fitness interests on the evolution of human institutions remains unclear. Religious celibacy constitutes an especially puzzling institution, often deemed maladaptive. Here, we present sociodemographic data from an agropastoralist Buddhist population in western China, where parents sometimes sent a son to the monastery. We find that men with a monk brother father more children, and grandparents with a monk son have more grandchildren, suggesting that the practice is adaptive. We develop a model of celibacy to elucidate the inclusive fitness costs and benefits associated with this behaviour. We show that a minority of sons being celibate can be favoured if this increases their brothers' reproductive success, but only if the decision is under parental, rather than individual, control. These conditions apply to monks in our study site. Inclusive fitness considerations appear to play a key role in shaping parental preferences to adopt this cultural practice.
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