Nicholas Wade

The male hierarchy is established by pure intimidation.

As a young male, you sort of work your way up.

First, you intimidate all the females, and then you start with the males.

They're basically sort of trials of strength.

Outright hostilities are avoided by sort of substitute effects, like you sort of...

There's lots of vocalizations.

There are lots of fascinating chimp behaviors, but basically when one male chimp meets another,

the degree of dominance has to be established.

So the inferior chimp will sort of kowtow or make a sort of particular pant-hooting noise or sort of present his rear to show he's sort of vulnerable to the male.

And so the hierarchy, however horrible it sounds to our ears, is good in the sense that it creates a stable society.

There aren't permanent fights because everyone knows who is boss.

So once you get to the top of the hierarchy,

then something very important happens.

As alpha male, you get to score most of the matings.

Now, you can't do this yourself.

You need a coalition.

So this is the beginning of politics, that the alpha male distributes mating opportunities to the guys in his coalition.

And human societies are just the same, because the autocrat, certainly in an early human society, will sort of distribute

land and wealth to his followers, which of course are the means to attract females.

So it's not sort of direct sexual award, it's an indirect sexual award, but toward the same end.