ABSTRACT
Sex behavior in the unmarried has long engaged the attention of scientists and moralists alike. The latter have countered with the allegation that it is precisely this distribution which indicates that the regulation of premarital sexuality is necessary for the attainment or maintenance of a high level of civilization. Under the circumstances, anthropologists have been inclined to regard standards of premarital sexuality as adaptive responses to varying conditions of cultural and economic life, which may in some societies favor the emergence of restrictive standards and in others of permissive ones. Intensive tillers display a strong tendency to exhibit restrictive norms of premarital sex behavior, whereas simple tillers and incipient food producers reveal an even stronger tendency toward permissive norms. Norms of premarital sex behavior have been compared with particular features of subsistence economy, technology, demography, political organization, religion, and social organization in 180 societies in the effort to ascertain correlations that might suggest important causal relationships.
