UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa., May 12 (UPI) -- A study of Waorani men in the Amazon basin found more aggressive men do not acquire more wives than milder men, U.S. researchers said.
Stephen Beckerman of Pennsylvania State University said aggressive, vengeful behavior of individuals in some South American groups has been considered the means for men to obtain more wives and more children.
However, a team of anthropologists working in Ecuador among the Waorani show that sometimes the macho guy doesn't have an advantage.
Beckerman said the Waorani Life History Project looked at how a man's participation in raiding correlates with his survivorship and that of his wives, the number of his wives and the number of children and their survivorship.
The study of 95 men, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science online, ranked aggression by the number of raids in which they participated, and found that warlike men have fewer children who survive to reproductive age.
The study also said that the more aggressive men do not acquire more wives than milder men, they do not have more children and their wives and children do not survive longer.
