Musical Matings

Charles Darwin suggested that in the evolutionary past, womenpreferred to mate with musical men. Men made music in order toattract potential mates, and women chose the best musicians tofather their children. Geoffrey Miller recently furthered Darwin'ssuggestions. However, the theories of both researchers are limitedby their ethnocentric perceptions of musical behaviour. This bookexpands the theories of Darwin and Miller, evaluating music'sorigins from a cross-cultural perspective by examining the role ofmusic in the courtship rituals of various cultures worldwide. Theauthor constructs a nuanced social critique of Darwin's theory ofmusic, placing it in Victorian England while identifying somefundamental difficulties with his evolutionary model, such as malebias and the conflation of music and animal signaling. This book isa valuable addition to the literature on music's origins, and goesa long way towards closing the open question of possiblesexual-selective benefits of musical behaviours. It will be ofinterest to scholars in the fields of evolutionary musicology,sexual selection, sociology, evolutionary psychology, anthropology,Victorian history, and feminism.