And Scelza contends that men not only are aware of this pattern, but they also have a system of social norms that support the practice. However, her team shows that Himba men and women are highly accurate at detecting extra-pair paternity in their children. A high percentage of couples (70%) had at least one child who was fathered by someone outside the marriage.Įxtra-pair paternity is typically thought to occur at the expense of the husband, who is ostensibly being “tricked” into caring for a child who is not biologically his, Scelza said. Having children with non-marital partners was widespread among this group. The rate of extra-pair paternity found among Himba is 48%, far exceeding the 1% to 10% range previously thought to be typical for humans. She found that Himba have the highest recorded rate of what researchers call “extra-pair paternity.” The term refers to an instance in which a child is born to a married couple, but the husband is not the biological father.
Scelza’s study, published in the journal Science Advances, uses data from a long-term anthropological study in Namibia with Himba pastoralists. A new study from UCLA professor of anthropology Brooke Scelza invites geneticists and sociologists to think more broadly about human fidelity and paternity.
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