The postulates set forth in preceding chapters lead to a view of hunting-gathering society which, if correct, means that the mating system of paleolithic man varied little in different regions of the world. With the aid of some additional elaboration on this model, to be given in this chapter, we should be able to specify the effects of this mating system on cultural and genetic processes. Further, some consideration will be given to the expected results of relaxing some of the conditions underlying the model presented.

Implicit in Postulates Five and Six is the idea that marriages will not be contracted over such distances that the bands brouglit into connubial relation cannot visit one another occasionally even if rarely. It was assumed, therefore, that these usually involved the bordering band territories. Among these bordering bands, the size of each as visualized in the model is such that each must contract marriages with most, if not all, neighboring bands to provide wives for the band males. But this is true only if they are all of equal size. As they will not often all be of equal size or exactly equal in offspring production in any given age period, there must be provisions to insure that alliances, once established, are not subject to random loss.