This comment suggests methodological flaws in Gaulin and Schlegel’s (1980) article on male parental certainty and investment practices. The authors take issue with multiple coding decisions and suggest that the findings from the 1980 study ought to be rejected; data does not support a positive association between male parental certainty and investment practices.

This study tests possible explanations for sexual dimorphism in human post-reproductive life-spans. The author focuses on explanations involving male paternal investment and finds that men in agricultural societies are more likely to invest in their offspring than men in hunter-gatherer societies.

This study tests competing theories about whether it is men, women, or parents who benefit most from restricting female premarital sex (FPS) in a global sample of 128 non-industrial societies. The study found support for the idea that multiple parties benefit from restrictions on FPS -- specifically FPS is more restricted in societies intolerant of extramarital sex and where men transfer property to their children (male control), as well as where marriages are arranged by parents (parental control). They also found that major predictors of FPS appear to be paternity uncertainty and parent-offspring conflict. Furthermore, the study found that multiple factors such as social roles, rather than stereotyped sex roles, are a more useful approach in understanding FPS restrictions and these restrictions.

This article examines the results of a study (Gaulin 1980) on male parental certainty and subsistence type. Methodological errors are assessed and the hypotheses are retested.

This article examines direction of succession and inheritance as they relate to culture area and kinship system. Several hypotheses are presented and all are supported.

This article presents a reanalysis of the theory put forth by Hartung (1981) regarding the relationship between inheritance and paternity confidence. The authors take issue with the original sample used and retest the hypothesis.

This study discusses many variables that may influence the direction of altruism within a family. Significant relationships were found between paternity certainty, conjugal instability, marital residence, cross-cousin marriage preferences, and direction of altruistic behavior. Special emphasis is placed on the importance of the mother's brother.

Textor summarizes cross-cultural findings on extramarital sexual relations pertaining to cultural, environmental, psychological, and social phenomena.

This article focuses on parents’ investment of material resources at the time of their child’s marriage. Two patterns emerge from the data: wealth is generally transferred from the groom’s family to the bride’s and from the couple’s parents to the bride and groom. Social and ecological factors are also examined. Multiple regression analysis shows that paternal confidence level, societal polygyny rate, and level of pathogen stress can affect the aforementioned wealth transfer patterns.

In an effort to better understand variation in jealous response cross-culturally, the researchers of this study surveyed 11 different populations, eight of which were small-scale societies on five different continents (Mayangna, Shuar, Tsimane, Himba, Hadza, Karo Batak, Mosuo, and Yasawa) and three of which were in urban settings (Los Angeles, CA, "urban India" (online), and Okinawa, Japan). Looking at the differences between sexual and emotional infidelity, researchers found that greater paternal investment and lower frequency of extramarital sex are associated with more severe jealous response.