Factors of sexual freedom among foragers in cross-cultural perspective

Among the negative predictors of sexual freedom, cultural complexity always has been mentioned as most important. However, regression analysis revealed the existence of a reverse trend within the interval between 11 and 22 points of Murdock's Cumulative Scale of Cultural Complexity. This suggests that it is senseless to try to find a general set of regularities regarding the correlation between cultural complexity and sexual freedom. One would expect to find different sets of regularities for simple, medium-complexity, complex, and supercomplex cultures. In this article we begin with a summary analysis of research conducted on simple societies, suggesting a model of relationships between cultural complexity and female premarital sexual freedom among foragers. We suggest that the underlying variable in this model is foraging intensification.