FITNESS TRADEOFFS IN THE HISTORY AND EVOLUTION OF DELEGATED MOTHERING WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO WET-NURSING, ABANDONMENT, AND INFANTICIDE

Although thresholds for maternal investment may be set by evolved motivational processes, adjustments in parental investment are consciously calculated to achieve economic and cultural as well as biologically-based goals. Maternal decision-making is played out in specific demographic, ecological, and cultural contexts where maternal options are also constrained by the fitness tradeoff's concurrently being made by other (sometimes more powerful) individuals in the same population. In this reflective review, I examine retrenchments in maternal investment ranging from mild neglect to abandonment and infanticide within the framework of culturally imaginable, and ecologically or institutionally available options actually open to the mother.