What can evolution tell us about domestic violence? Two researchers in the US suggest such violence has ancient origins and that establishing evolution’s role could help to better identify those at risk. Others argue that the research makes simplistic assumptions, and warn that some people will interpret the research as an excuse for violence.

Each year more than 500,000 women in the US alone report to the police violent attacks by current or former male partners. There is a reason why domestic violence is so widespread, says David Buss, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Texas in Austin: it carries a selective advantage, tied with reproductive success. In other words, men who are violent are trying to make sure that their partner has his child and not another man’s.

Buss has previously suggested that jealousy is an adaptation to keep couples together.

“There are very predictable circumstances in which violence occurs,” says Buss. “For instance, with the threat of sexual infidelity or the threat of relationship termination.”


Buss and his colleague Joshua Duntley at the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey in Galloway say that several studies support the link between violence and reproductive success.

For instance, a small study of 65 pregnant women in North Carolina found that those whose partners attacked them were more likely to be carrying another man’s child (Journal of Family Violence, vol 19, p 201). Another study involved quizzing 8000 women in Canada about their partners. Some 14 per cent of those with a history of domestic violence agreed that their partner “is jealous and doesn’t want you to talk to other men” – less than 1 per cent of women who experienced no violence agreed with the statement (Current Directions in Psychological Science, vol 5, p 2).

Mate value

Buss thinks that future studies will further support the link. He predicts that domestic violence will be more likely when a man has a female partner of higher “mate value” – a woman who earns more, is more intelligent or is considered more physically attractive than him. He says men in such circumstances may resort to violence to deter the woman from straying, or else to reduce her own perception of her value by lowering her self-esteem.

“Buss’s hypotheses are certainly plausible,” says biologist Barbara Tschirren at the University of Zurich in Switzerland. “We know from studies in animals that conflicts among family members are ubiquitous.”

But Heather Douglas at the University of Queensland in St Lucia, Brisbane, Australia, who researches the effects of criminal law on women, is less convinced. “There seem to be lots of assumptions inherent in the theory. For example, that couples are focused on having children, that couples are heterosexual, that women are attracted primarily to men who will provide,” she says. “We know that intimate partner violence goes outside of these categories.”

Robert Brooks, an evolutionary biologist at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, thinks that research on such a sensitive subject is always likely to be controversial. “For many people, saying something might have been adaptive in the past is difficult to separate out from saying it is good or right or natural,” he says. “But we are the product of the traits that made our ancestors good at reproducing, including many quite abhorrent traits.”

Buss says that a greater understanding of the causes of domestic violence could help to identify those at risk and provide better protection. Brooks says that if he is right “then [research] like this is worthwhile”.

Journal reference: Aggression and Violent Behavior, DOI: 10.1016/j.avb.2011.04.015