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Her findings -- that the male monkeys weren't pathological, they were killing the infants as a means of forcing the females into sexual receptivity -- were controversial. The idea that infanticide -- even among monkeys, even committed by males -- could be a purposeful behavior was considered morally unacceptable. Since then, 35 species have been shown to practice similar infanticide.

Mother Nature: A History of Mothers, Infants, and Natural Selection By Sarah Blaffer Hrdy Pantheon Books, 752 pages Nonfiction Buy this book at B&N.com

At the same time, anthropologists were doing more and more field work, rather than studying captive animals in labs. This change meant that females -- up until then, studied with their young in isolation from larger communities -- were suddenly seen in social and even "political" contexts. Female rats behave differently in the wild; kept in cages with only their babies for company, Hrdy points out, they behave a lot like suburban housewives did in the 1950s.

Despite her feminist credentials, or perhaps because of them, she weaves a careful path between those who insist that maternal behaviors are genetically programmed and those who argue equally forcefully that mothering consists of a set of learned skills. She seeks to break free of both the Darwinians and the feminists, then meld the best from both.

Her own history as a mother -- she has three children -- is a mix, she says, of ambivalence, devotion and ambition. She gave birth to her first child in a euphoric flush (no doubt under the influence of oxytocin, a naturally occurring opiate that also plays a role in birth contractions), and was then stunned both by the lusciousness of her daughter and the magnitude of her own parental responsibility. Knowing what she already knew about an infant's need to attach to a caretaker, what could she do, she asks, "but turn my life over to her?"

Instead, she and her husband adjusted their work patterns, put their faith in the resilience of children, and relied on the support of alloparents -- anyone, male or female, who helps care for a child -- so that each could pursue careers in anthropology. (She lives in Northern California "as a hermit, scratching in my garden.")

"As I would learn, mothers have worked for as long as our species has existed, and they have depended on others to help them rear their children," she says.

Hrdy's book is an exhaustive -- and sometimes exhausting -- weaving of the scientific literature on innate and learned maternal behaviors, liberally spiked with explorations into the social history of human motherhood. It is about using whatever tools are at hand to probe a deeply unfathomable mystery, one both universal and deeply personal. Her use of Darwinism with a twist of feminism will no doubt raise the hackles of critics who believe that Hrdy has chosen flat and overly convenient tools for her probe. But even her detractors will have a hard time denying the volume of her research.

Hrdy has outlined a vast mosaic of mothering behaviors, a mosaic that she acknowledges has large areas that aren't yet completed. Of course, it's not that easy to study human parenting patterns, so the picture is built in large measure on animal studies. As the science of these studies gets more complex, so do the potential interpretations. (And the potential for disastrous misinterpretations: The pre-Dr. Spock philosophy that children should be breast-fed on a schedule, rather than on demand, was based on research on pigeons, which had no relevance to humans -- a revelation that hasn't discouraged followers of the fundamentalist "Babywise" parenting gurus, who advocate a return to scheduled feedings.)

"Mother Nature" offers hundreds of scientific examples and plenty of Hrdy's opinion (backed by studies), such as: "Wherever women have both control over their reproductive opportunities and a chance to better themselves, women opt for well-being and economic security over having more children."

Such sweeping and controversial conclusions are likely to provoke new storms of apoplexy among the fans of the Victorian "good mother" stereotype, people like Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., who became so emotional in his arguments against late-term abortion -- his face turning crimson and his voice rising to a high pitch -- that colleagues intervened to keep him from blowing a gasket.

(Santorum was, Hrdy offers slyly, acting as a "high-status male primate intent on controlling where, when and how females belonging to his group reproduce.")

Hrdy acknowledges the hot-button nature of her topic, calling the issue of motherhood a mine field: "The topic was safe only so long as people took the centuries-old view of self-sacrificing motherhood for granted," she writes. Why, she asks, would a society with the sophistication and technology to explore the solar system display "such primitive behavior when it comes to the female reproductive system?"
salon.com | Dec. 9, 1999

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