Excess rival males over scarce fertile females drove knightly combat in medieval Europe

Evidence

Of course, surpluses of pugnacious young males compete for the attention of females in human societies, too (the reason automobile insurance costs so much more for adolescent men than it does for women), and nowhere was this more apparent than in the European knights of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, when there was a severe limitation of eligible, reproductively ready women, and an excess of battling rival males. — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 169

Categorization

• XREF: Directly ties the animal sexual-selection mechanism to human warfare—core to the reader’s stated purpose of understanding how war evolved in both animals and humans. — connects to: Medieval lords sequestered women to monopolize reproduction — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 699; Clumped sparse resources make territorial fighting pay off reproductively; Male combat for mating access frequently causes serious wounds and sometimes death (+13 more)
• SEED: A short essay could compare bachelor-male competition across elephants, jacanas, and medieval knights as one unified evolutionary phenomenon.

Related

• Medieval tournaments replaced actual battle as the arena for sexual selection among knights (similarity 0.89)
• Male combat for mating access frequently causes serious wounds and sometimes death (similarity 0.86)
• Younger noble sons could only marry rare heiresses, intensifying mate competition (similarity 0.85)
• Monopolized reproduction drives males of many species to cheat (similarity 0.85)
• Sexual selection can be far stronger than natural selection and drives weapon extremes (similarity 0.84)
• Medieval lords sequestered women to monopolize reproduction (similarity 0.84)
• Social competition environments evolve in tandem with weapons, unlike fluctuating physical environments (similarity 0.82)
• Extreme skew in mating success drives arms-race escalation in weaponry (similarity 0.82)
• Rare localized resources translate fighting success into reproductive success (similarity 0.81)
• Weapon evolution needs both competition and economically defensible resources (similarity 0.81)
• Mating competition kills off most males before they ever reproduce. (similarity 0.81)
• In nearly all weaponed species, males carry the weapons, not females. (similarity 0.81)
• Sexual selection drives weapons to extremes because payoffs for winners are enormous. (similarity 0.81)
• Animal and human fights both hinge on whether duels or gang-ups occur (similarity 0.80)
• Competition for reproduction drives evolution of nature’s biggest weapons (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• Medieval tournaments replaced actual battle as the arena for sexual selection among knights #corroborates (0.85) — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 175
• Extreme skew in mating success drives arms-race escalation in weaponry #corroborates (0.80)
• Weapons evolved as signals so males could predict fight outcomes before risking battle #expands (0.75) — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 370
• Sexual selection can be far stronger than natural selection and drives weapon extremes #corroborates (0.70) — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 177
• Males evolve big weapons to defend resources that females visit #corroborates (0.65)
• Weapon size is favored when males defend resources females need #corroborates (0.65) — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 960