Laura M. Bolt

Musical Matings: Sexual Selection and the Origins of Music Laura M. Bolt

Charles Darwin suggested that in the evolutionary past, women preferred to mate with musical men. Men made music in order to attract potential mates, and women chose the best musicians to father their children. Geoffrey Miller recently furthered Darwin's suggestions. However, the theories of both researchers are limited by their ethnocentric perceptions of musical behaviour. This book expands the theories of Darwin and Miller, evaluating music's origins from a cross-cultural perspective by examining the role of music in the courtship rituals of various cultures worldwide. The author constructs a nuanced social critique of Darwin's theory of music, placing it in Victorian England while identifying some fundamental difficulties with his evolutionary model, such as male bias and the conflation of music and animal signaling. This book is a valuable addition to the literature on music's origins, and goes a long way towards closing the open question of possible sexual-selective benefits of musical behaviours. It will be of interest to scholars in the fields of evolutionary musicology, sexual selection, sociology, evolutionary psychology, anthropology, Victorian history, and feminism.