Originally posted by
Cordelia Fine
Frances Burton has pointed out that, just like us, primate societies have norms regarding which sex does what: who gets food, rears the young, moves the troop, protects the troop, and maintains group cohesion. But, these norms are different across, or even within, primate species. Male involvement in infant rearing, for instance, ranges from the hands-off to the intimate. For example, "a specially intimate relation between adult males and infants" has been seen in some troops of wild Japanese macaque monkeys (the species Macaca fuscata fuscata) during delivery season: males protect, carry and groom one- and two-year-old infants. Yet different troops of the same species, in different parts of the country, show less of this paternal care, or even none at all. Similarly, in another species of macaque (Macaca sylvanus) Burton has seen extensive and lengthy male care of young in a Gibraltor troop. Indeed, so important is male baby-sitting in this troop "young females are kept away from infants so that young males may learn their role." Yet among the very same species on Morocco, male care is much less significant.
As Burton argued, "while hormones are the same" throughout these different species, there is no "universal pattern" to how the different tasks of society, including infant child care, are divided.