When Darwin flopped: The rejection of sexual selection

Abstract

Charles Darwin considered sexual selection as integral to evolution as natural selection, but the theory of sexual selection was rejected by most scientific and lay audiences. This article argues that sexual selection theory clashed with biases prevalent in the 19th-century—about culture and nature, mind and body, male and female—in ways that Darwin’s first sketch of evolution did not. Whereas the 1859 The Origin of Species tracked the development of bodily structures, the 1871 The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex focused not on form but function—on behavior. In Darwin’s view, “mind is function of body,” and the mind was the seat not of reason but of sex. Also, when he postulated that female choice sculpted the male form, he conflicted with the long-standing cultural assumption that men controlled women. And, in discussing female beauty, Darwin showed a fascinating ambivalence about its implications for human gender relations. Finally, he was at odds with his culture in the premium he placed on desire. In short, his theory landed on a cultural fault line, causing upheaval and mayhem, and then it fell into an abyss it had helped to create.