ABSTRACT
There is a growing movement of literary scholars, spurred on by the example of Frederick Turner, who are highly dissatisfied with the state of affairs in their discipline and want to utilize the insights of the evolutionary sciences. The dominant male or males attempted to monopolize breeding during female estrus, with more or less success. The peripheral males were engaged in a constant struggle to gain dominance status and so enter the breeeding arena, and meanwhile to attempt surreptitious intercourse with the females. Even if the more dominant males are not going to mate with the females themselves, control of the fertility of these females is still important since it is through this control that they control the armed and dangerous younger males, aided by initiation, education, and warfare. One of the more obvious Western examples is the great Spanish national epic, El Cid.
