This week, my class reading was about evolutionary psychology. That is the branch of psychology concerned with how evolutionary influences have led us to current behaviors. One are that this school of thought studies is sexual promiscuity and reproduction.

Hardcore evolutionary psychologists believe that people have sex in order to fulfill the evolutionary need to reproduce and continue the species. Since back in the day, nearly 50% of all offspring died before reaching adulthood, it is genetically programmed into us to reproduce as often as possible. Or so the theory goes.

They gave this interesting example of this practice taken too far.

1. The woman with the most live births had 69 children. Let’s take a moment to think about this. If she was pregnant for 37 weeks (that’s full term) for 69 babies, that’s 53 years ( I said years) of her life that she was pregnant. What?!

3. The man with the record is unbelievable. The male reproduction number is 888. This paragon or parenting was a Moroccan Emperor who had many hundreds of concubines who were only brought to him when they were fertile. I guess he thought he had to single-handedly continue the Moroccan civilization. It makes me wonder if there isn’t a lot of accidental inbreeding in that country since they all seemed to have had the same great-great grandfather.