The Truth about Cinderella: A Darwinian View of Parental Love

Fascinating, if true. Read it, and you'll never again think of a "children's fable" in the same way. It is a chilling example of the narrow line between civilization and savagery. In this case, the book asserts there is a "natural" tendency of males to kill the small children of their mate if they were sired by another father. Natural? It's a common occurrence in nature, and a reminder that "civilization" is truly a veneer, not an evolved quality. In brief, stepchildren don't have it easy. "Civilized" societies share a consensus that all children deserve respect, protection, support and love. This book cites numerous studies to prove the opposite is true when stepchildren are involved; it cites numerous studies of real and sometimes deadly violence against stepchildren. In other words, compared to the fate of real children in real life, Cinderella had an easy life with her cruel stepmother. The book deals with violence against stepchildren. It's why the Cinderella stories exist, to warn small children that life can be miserable. Unfortunately, there is no way to assess the impact of a quiet bias against stepchildren, the last of support compared to that received by a natural child. This book doesn't speculate on such intangibles. It does something far more valuable; it raises the fundamental question of "Why?" such bias exists, and the natural reasons for it. It offers a "Darwinian" view, even though Darwin may have been too optimistic in his faith in the results of evolution. It shows "Be yourself" is a formula for disaster. If it's "natural" to kill stepchildren, then civilization requires everyone to be better than their natural selves. John Dryden defined the freedom of Nature as "when wild in the woods the noble savage ran"; such freedom likely included a natural instinct to kill stepchildren. Dryden's "noble savage" was more savage than noble. Darwin said species evolve; this book says our evolution may be relatively minor. Some very primitive instincts remain, and are the opposite of civilized morals. At heart we may still be close to animal instincts. Killing babies is an example. How many other old habits exist, hidden from polite society except in "children's stories" such as Cinderella? Read it, and you'll wonder how much "savage" lurks in the heart of everyone . . . . . even today.

I just read this book again after five years. It is an engrossing read and can be done in one sitting in about an hour. I kept reading passages loudly to my family as I was reading it. I have two teenagers and I will make sure they read it as a basis of a well-read and thougthful consideration of their world. All of it should be intuitive to intelligent people but how often we fall pray to wishful thinking.

Before reading this book, I was already familiar with Daly and Wilson's work from Wright's Moral Animal, Pinker's How the Mind Works, and others, so frankly, this book did not contain a lot of new ideas for me. By no means do I intimate that The Truth About Cinderella is not worth reading. Definitely, definitely, read this carefully, especially if you harbor any doubts about the validity of their findings, as they very neatly refute critics. The authors provide an ingenious explanation for the prevalence of evil step-mothers in fairy tales: Mama's telling the bedtime stories. Much as I admire this explanation, I wonder if there isn't more to it than that. Let us leave fairy tales aside, and look at history, which abounds with stories such as that of Duke Wen of Chin/Jin (7th c. BC). As a prince, he was forced to flee for his life after his brother, the crown prince, had been coerced into suicide by his father, at his step-mother's connivance. You can probably provide similar stories. Now, please tell me a story about the mother who puts her own child to death at the step-father's insistence.... Does this reflect a sexist bias in historical records? Perhaps Daly and Wilson have tacity answered this question in another context: "the payoff coming in the form of an increased chance to sire the mother's next baby." Kids are easy (and fun) to come by once you've got a woman, so maybe earlier kids can be sacrificed to keep the woman (who may have cost a pretty penny) compliant.To their discussion of why step-families do generally work out after all (I call attention to the ubiquity of infanticide, as shown by Marvin Harris in Cannibals and Kings), I wish to add my speculation. Due to our big brain, human birth has always been a dangerous event for women. I suspect step-families were far more common in the paleolithic than now. Men outlived women ¡Xprobably outlived several wives. We know from the archaeological record that old people, unable to fend for themselves, were taken care of ¡Xobviously, by the young and healthy. What I suggest, without a shred of hard evidence, is that young men who looked after old men were aware that one day they might find themselves dependent on the younger generation. It made sense for them to tolerate step-children as well as their own gene-bearing children, because some old-age insurance is better than none at all. Finally, I would like to add that Weidenfeld & Nicolson's Darwinism Today series is thought-provoking, pleasingly designed, and well-printed, just the thing to stuff into your pocket to take somewhere to read and ponder. Have fun!

This study is a thorough inquiry into the natural biases a step-parent may have towards step-children, as illustrated in the tale of Cinderella (and countless other stories). The authors offer an evolutionary explanation for this (why would we want to invest our parental effort into someone else's progeny) as well as extensive empirical evidence (statistics on child abuse from several agencies around the globe). I'm surprised that I haven't seen this information pitched about by the media (it would make a compelling local news piece, along the same lines as "heat wave 2000", "is your terrier a terror in waiting?" or "How deadly are the bacteria under your fingernails?".) Except that this material is a bit more serious and scholarly. Its a quick read and well worth the effort, especially if you are a step-parent (or have one, or married to one).

In this nicely concise book (which can easily be read in one or two nights), the authors discuss the issue of step-parenting. Although we all have an intuitive sense that step parents are not the same as genetic parents, Daly and Wilson present more precise statistics, and provide an evolutionary explanation for why this might be the case. This book will go well with all the other evolutionary psychology books in your collection.