Civilization was built on Sex, Jealousy and Fear

Before love, before laws, before civilization itself, there was one brutal biological negotiation that shaped the destiny of men and women: paternity versus provisioning.

Men were obsessed with one thing above all: Are these children mine?
Women were obsessed with one thing above all: Will this man protect me and my offspring?

Everything else—romance, poetry, rituals, even gods—was decoration added centuries later.

Why Men Needed Paternity Confidence

From the very beginning, men faced a biological trap.

• A woman knows her child is hers. Her body tells her.

• A man never knows. Without modern science, he could never confirm whether the child he was feeding, fighting for, or dying for actually carried his blood.

This asymmetry shaped male psychology so deeply that every society across the globe developed jealousy, mate-guarding, and control of female sexuality.

David Buss and evolutionary psychologists call this “paternity uncertainty problem.” A man who invests in another man’s child is not just wasting time—it’s the ultimate evolutionary disaster. His genes die, while his resources fuel another bloodline.

That is why men, even in the earliest tribes, showed patterns of:

• Jealous violence when a woman was suspected of infidelity.

• Virginity tests or rituals before marriage.

• Punishments for adultery that were harsher for women than men.

It wasn’t culture first. It was biology screaming in their heads: secure your lineage or be erased.

Why Women Needed Resources

On the other side, women had a different biological trap.

• A man could walk away after sex.

• A woman, if pregnant, faced nine months of vulnerability and years of child-rearing.

Without help, she and her child could starve, be hunted, or killed.

So women evolved a hyper-focus on resources and protection. She did not simply need sex. She needed:

• A reliable provider.

• A protector from rival men and tribes.

• A man with status and strength, so her children had survival advantages.

Anthropologist Sarah Hrdy points out that female strategies were always about securing not just sperm, but support. This is why women historically preferred high-status men, warriors, hunters, kings, or men with wealth. It was not “gold-digging”—it was biological insurance for survival.

The Silent Contract of Marriage

So even before society, there was a silent contract:

• Man gives resources → Woman gives fidelity.

• Man offers protection → Woman offers loyalty.

• Man risks death in war or hunt → Woman ensures his children are his.

This was the first real social contract in human history. Not between citizens and rulers, not between tribes, but between man and woman.

How the State Emerged as Referee

Once groups became larger than families or clans, this private biological deal needed enforcement. Because left unchecked, it led to chaos:

• Men killing each other over women.

• Women switching partners secretly for better resources.

• Endless conflict over legitimacy of heirs.

The State emerged first as an enforcer of order in this chaos. Early chiefs and kings realized that stability of their tribe depended on regulating sex, fidelity, and inheritance.

• Who can marry whom?

• How many wives?

• What happens if a woman cheats?

• Who inherits property?

These rules were not about morality at first. They were about stopping blood feuds and guaranteeing lineage rights.

Anthropologist Jack Goody in The Development of the Family and Marriage in Europe shows how kinship rules were the first legal codes of early states. Before trade law, before taxation, there was marriage law.

Religion: The State’s Loyal Soldier

Now comes the second layer. The State could use force, but force alone is expensive and unstable. People resist.

So the State needed an ideological weapon—a way to make people police themselves. That weapon was religion.

Religion sanctified the biological contract:

• Fidelity became not just practical, but holy.

• Adultery became not just betrayal, but sin.

• Marriage became not just a deal, but a divine command.

When a man doubts his wife’s fidelity, it is no longer just his paranoia—it is “God’s law” that she remain pure.
When a woman demands resources, it is no longer just her need—it is “God’s will” that a man provide for his household.

The State and Religion together locked the biological contract into an unbreakable cage.

Historian Steven Pinker notes how early religious codes like the Code of Hammurabi or the Biblical Ten Commandments were obsessed with sexual conduct and inheritance. That’s not coincidence—it’s governance disguised as morality.

Why Men Became Obsessed with Bloodlines?

Kings, peasants, warriors—all men shared the same paranoia: Will my name survive? Will my bloodline continue?

This obsession with lineage created dynasties, family names, inheritance systems, and even wars of succession. Men killed brothers, cousins, and sons-in-law to secure paternity certainty.

Even ordinary men, with no land or kingdom, internalized this instinct. It is why jealousy in men is stronger around sexual betrayal than emotional betrayal. It is why across cultures, even in the most primitive tribes, women’s sexuality was policed while men’s was tolerated.

Because if a man’s woman strayed, his entire genetic legacy evaporated.

Why Women Became Obsessed with Security?

For women, survival was less about lineage obsession and more about protection and stability.

A pregnant woman or a mother cannot fight lions, hunt deer, or fend off invaders. She needed a man who would not abandon her, who would feed her and guard her.

This biological demand was so strong that even today, in modern dating, women unconsciously screen men for:

• Financial stability.

• Ambition and earning potential.

• Social dominance.

The feminist narrative tries to call this “social conditioning,” but evolutionary biology shows it is older than civilization itself.

🔹 Civilization = Marriage Enforcement

When you zoom out, it becomes brutally clear:

• Civilization did not create marriage.

• Marriage created civilization.

Why? Because without regulating this exchange of fidelity for resources, tribes would implode in violence and mistrust.

Thus the earliest function of civilization was not trade, not art, not literature—it was regulating the bedroom.

The State made the rules.
Religion sanctified the rules.
And men and women were locked into a biological contract that, for all its modern disguises, still rules human behavior today.

The First Prison, The First Foundation

Marriage was both a prison and a foundation.

• A prison, because it shackled men and women into roles enforced by fear of God and fear of the State.

• A foundation, because it stabilized lineage, property, and inheritance long enough for civilization to flourish.

At its core, however, the deal never changed:

• Men gave resources in exchange for paternity certainty.

• Women gave loyalty in exchange for protection.

This was not philosophy. This was not morality.
This was biology weaponized by power.

And from that weapon, human civilization was born.

by: Rajan Veda