Animal societies may have originated from sibling bonds rather than parent-child ties
Evidence
It is in this sense that it has been argued that social relations among the animals originated not in conjugal or filial ties, but rather in sibling ties alone, since the latter allow much greater freedom to the individual than do the former; hence, they make the individual more inclined to attach itself closely to the larger circle, which certainly first proffers itself in the individual’s siblings. Being confined in an animal family has thus been viewed as the greatest hindrance to becoming involved in a larger animal society. — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 627
Categorization
- QUESTION: This origin-of-society claim is intriguing but uncertain—flagged for verification against actual ethology.
- XREF: connects to: Kin selection explains cooperation only among genetically related relatives; Oedipal and filiation theories fail to describe meshed extended-family societies — Édouard Glissant, Poetics of Relation, 342