Since a man’s reproductive success depends on his ability to outcompete other men, male competitiveness may be expected to have been exposed to strong selective pressure throughout human history. Accordingly, the relatively low level of physical violence observed between men has been viewed as a puzzle. What could have limited the eagerness of men to out-compete each other? I study the evolution of male competitiveness in a model where men compete for both reproductive and productive resources. I show that high levels of male competitiveness are then consistent with evolution by natural selection if (a) the ecology is generous enough for men to supply little or no food to their children, (b) competing is not too costly in terms of productive resources, and (c) relatedness among males is low enough. While the main analysis takes women to passively accept the husband that emerges from the male-male competition, the results are qualitatively robust to allowing for female mate choice following the male-male competition game. Possible implications for our understanding of the evolution of marriage systems are discussed.

由于一个男人的生育成功取决于他战胜其他男人的能力，因此在整个人类历史上，男性的竞争力可能会受到强烈的选择压力。因此，男性之间观察到的相对低水平的身体暴力被视为一个难题。是什么限制了人们相互竞争的渴望？我在一个男性竞争生殖和生产资源的模型中研究男性竞争力的演变。我表明，如果 (a) 生态足够慷慨，男性可以为他们的孩子提供很少或根本没有食物，那么高水平的男性竞争力与自然选择的进化是一致的，(b) 竞争在生产资源方面的成本不太高, (c) 男性之间的相关性足够低。虽然主要分析让女性被动地接受从男性-男性竞争中出现的丈夫，但结果在质量上是稳健的，允许在男性-男性竞争游戏之后选择女性配偶。讨论了对我们理解婚姻制度演变的可能影响。