Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-20T05:19:51.409Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Presidents Preferred Sons

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2016

Laura Betzig  and
Samantha Weber
Laura Betzig
Affiliation:
University of Michigan, USA
Samantha Weber
Affiliation:
University of Michigan, USA
Get access

Abstract

Trivers and Willard (1973) argued that, in polygynous species, parents “in good condition” should bias investment toward sons, while parents “in poor condition” should bias investment toward daughters. Biographical evidence on men in the U.S. executive branch—including presidents, vice presidents, and cabinet secretaries—suggests they produced more sons than daughters in the first cohort (Presidents Washington through Garfield), but roughly equal numbers of sons and daughters in the second cohort (Presidents Arthur through Reagan). The same pattern holds for presidents' fathers and sons. Presidents' wills reflect the pattern again: men in the first cohort (Washington through Garfield) favored their sons, overall, slightly more than their daughters; for men in the second cohort (Arthur through Reagan), that bias disappears.

Type
Bias Toward Sons
Information
Politics and the Life Sciences , Volume 14 , Issue 1 , February 1995 , pp. 61 - 64
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Politics and the Life Sciences 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anderson, J. and Crawford, C. (1993). “Trivers-Willard Rules for Sex Allocation: When Do They Maximize Expected Grandchildren in Humans?” Human Nature 4:137–74.Google Scholar
Betzig, L.L. (1989). “Rethinking Human Ethology: A Response to Some Recent Critiques.” Ethology and Sociobiology 10:315–24.Google Scholar
Betzig, L.L. (1992). “Roman Monogamy.” Ethology and Sociobiology 13:351–83.Google Scholar
Betzig, L.L. (1993). “Sex, Succession, and Stratification in the First Six Civilizations.” In Ellis, L., (ed.), Social Stratification and Socioeconomic Inequality. Volume 1. Westport, CT: Praeger.Google Scholar
Betzig, L.L. (1994). “The Point of Politics.” Analyse and Kritik 16:20–37.Google Scholar
Betzig, L.L. (1995). “Medieval Monogamy.” Journal of Family History 20: in press.Google Scholar
Betzig, L.L. and Turke, P. (1986). “Parental Investment by Sex on Ifaluk.” Ethology and Sociobiology 7:29–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Betzig, L.L. and Weber, S. (1993). “Polygyny in American Politics.” Politics and the Life Sciences 12:45–52.Google Scholar
Boone, J. (1986). “Parental Investment and Elite Family Structure in Preindustrial States: A Case Study of Late Medieval-Early Modern Portuguese Genealogies.” American Anthropologist 88:859–78.Google Scholar
Boone, J. (1988). “Parental Investment, Social Subordination, and Population Processes Among the 15th- and 16th-century Portuguese Nobility.” In Betzig, L., Borgerhoff Mulder, M. and Turke, P., (eds.), Human Reproductive Behaviour. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Borgerhoff Mulder, M. (1987). “On Cultural and Reproductive Success: Kipsigis Evidence.” American Anthropologist 89:617–34.Google Scholar
Borgerhoff Mulder, M. (1989). “Reproductive Consequences of Sex-Biased Inheritance.” In Standen, V. and Foley, R., (eds.), Comparative Socioecology. Oxford: Blackwell Scientific.Google Scholar
Burke's Peerage, Ltd. (1981). Burke's Presidential Families of the United States of America. London: Burke's Peerage, Ltd.Google Scholar
Chagnon, N. (1988). “Life Histories, Blood Revenge, and Warfare in a Tribal Population.” Science 239:985–92.Google Scholar
Chagnon, N., Flinn, M., and Melancon, T. (1979). “Sex Ratio Variation Among the Yanomamö Indians.” In Chagnon, N.A. and Irons, W., (eds.), Evolutionary Biology and Human Social Behavior: An Anthropological Perspective. North Scituate, MA: Duxbury Press.Google Scholar
Champlin, E. (1991). Final Judgements: Duty and Emotion in Roman Wills. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Charnov, E. (1982). The Theory of Sex Allocation. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google ScholarPubMed
Clutton-Brock, T. (1988). Reproductive Success. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Collins, H. and Weaver, D. (1976). Wills of the U.S. Presidents. New York: Communication Channels, Inc.Google Scholar
Cowlishaw, G. and Dunbar, R. (1991). “Dominance Rank and Mating Success in Male Primates.” Animal Behaviour 41:1045–56.Google Scholar
Cronk, L. (1989). “Female-Biased Parental Investment Among the Mukogodo.” American Anthropologists:414–29.Google Scholar
Cronk, L. (1991). “Preferential Parental Investment in Daughters Over Sons.” Human Nature 2:387–417.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dickemann, M. (1979a). “The Ecology of Mating Systems in Hypergynous Dowry Societies.” Social Science Information 18:163–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dickemann, M. (1979b). “Female Infanticide and the Reproductive Strategies of Stratified Human Societies: A Preliminary Model.” In Chagnon, N.A. and Irons, W., (eds.), Evolutionary Biology and Human Social Behavior: An Anthropological Perspective. North Scituate, MA: Duxbury Press.Google Scholar
Duby, G. (1953). La Société aux Xle et Xlle siècles dans la région maconnaise. Paris: Armand Colin.Google Scholar
Ellis, L. (1995). “Status and Reproductive Success: A Review.” Ethology and Sociobiology, in press.Google Scholar
Fisher, R. (1958). The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection. Second edition. New York: Dover.Google Scholar
Frank, S. (1987). “Individual and Population Sex Allocation Patterns.” Theoretical Population Biology 31:47–74.Google Scholar
Gaulin, S. and Robbins, C. (1991). “Trivers-Willard Effect in Contemporary North American Society.” American Journal of Physical Anthropology 85:61–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hanawalt, B. (1986). The Ties that Bound: Peasant Families in Medieval England. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hartung, J. (1982). “Polygyny and the Inheritance of Wealth.” Current Anthropology 23:1–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hrdy, S.B. (1987). “Sex-Biased Parental Investment among Primates and Other Mammals: A Critical Examination of the Trivers-Willard Hypothesis.” In Geleles, R. and Lancaster, J., (eds.), Child Abuse and Neglect. Hawthorne, NY: Aldine.Google Scholar
Hrdy, S.B. and Judge, D. (1993). “Darwin and the Puzzle of Primogeniture.” Human Nature 4:1–45.Google Scholar
James, W. (1987). “Human Sex Ratio I.” Human Biology 59:721–52.Google Scholar
Judge, D. and Hrdy, S.B. (1992). “Allocation of Accumulated Resources among Close Kin: Inheritance in Sacramento, California, 1890–1984.” Ethology and Sociobiology 13:495–522.Google Scholar
Mackey, W. and Coney, L. (1987). “Human Sex Ratios as a Function of the Woman's Psycho-Dynamics.” Ethology and Sociobiology 8:49–60.Google Scholar
Mealey, L. and Mackey, W. (1990). “Variation in Offspring Sex Ratio in Women of Different Social Status.” Ethology and Sociobiology 11:83–95.Google Scholar
Müller, U. (1991). “Social and Reproductive Success: Theoretical Considerations and a Case Study of the West Point Class of 1950.” ZUMA: Zentrum für Umfragen, Methoden und Analysen.Google Scholar
Müller, U. (1993). “Social Status and Sex.” Nature 363:490.Google Scholar
Norton, H. (1940). “Note on Woods' Paper on Parental Instinct.” Journal of Heredity 31:29–32.Google Scholar
Pollock, F. and Maitland, F.W. (1895). The History of English Law Before the Time of Edward I. Second edition. Reprint 1968, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Quinn, S. and Kanter, S. (1983). America's Royalty: All the Presidents' Children. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.Google Scholar
Shammas, C., Salmon, M., and Dahlin, M. (1987). Inheritance in America from Colonial Times to the Present. New Brunswick, CT: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Sieff, D. (1990). “Explaining Biased Sex Ratios in Human Populations.” Current Anthropology 31:25–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, M., Kish, B.J., and Crawford, C. (1987). “Inheritance of Wealth as Human Kin Investment.” Ethology and Sociobiology 8:171–82.Google Scholar
Stone, L. and Stone, J.C.F. (1984). An Open Elite? England 1540–1880. Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Trivers, R. (1972). “Parental Investment and Sexual Selection.” In Campbell, B., (ed.), Sexual Selection and the Descent of Man. Hawthorne, NY: Aldine.Google Scholar
Trivers, R. and Willard, D. (1973). “Natural Selection of Parental Ability to Vary the Sex Ratio of Offspring.” Science 179:90–92.Google Scholar
Vinovskis, M. (1972). “Mortality Rates and Trends in Massachusetts Before 1860.” Journal of Economic History 32:184–213.Google Scholar
Voland, E. (1984). “Human Sex-Ratio Manipulation: Historical Data from a German Parish.” Journal of Human Evolution 13:99–107.Google Scholar
Who's Who, Inc. (1947). Who Was Who in American History. Chicago: Marquis Who's Who, Inc.Google Scholar
Winston, S. (1931). “Sex Ratio and Socioeconomic Status in the United States.” American Journal of Sociology 37:1–29.Google Scholar
Woods, F. (1939). “The Inheritance of Strong Parental Instinct.” Journal of Heredity 30:237–44, 313–20.Google Scholar