The grandmother hypothesis is a theory to explain the existence of menopause, rare in mammal species, in human life history and how a long post-fertile period (up to one third of a woman's lifespan) could confer an evolutionary advantage.
Holding longevity constant, a female that undergoes menopause should have a lower total fertility rate, making menopause intriguing from an evolutionary perspective.
See also: patriarch hypothesisRead more about Grandmother Hypothesis: Background, The Grandmother Effect, Evidence For, Evidence Against, Conclusion
Famous quotes containing the words grandmother and/or hypothesis:
“Time to plant tears, says the almanac.
The grandmother sings to the marvellous stove
and the child draws another inscrutable house.”
—Elizabeth Bishop (1911–1979)
“The hypothesis I wish to advance is that ... the language of morality is in ... grave disorder.... What we possess, if this is true, are the fragments of a conceptual scheme, parts of which now lack those contexts from which their significance derived. We possess indeed simulacra of morality, we continue to use many of the key expressions. But we have—very largely if not entirely—lost our comprehension, both theoretical and practical, of morality.”
—Alasdair Chalmers MacIntyre (b. 1929)