I'm wondering to which degree 'good fatherhood' can be encoded in genes at all
Why not? A male's genes do not succeed when he impregnates a woman -- they only succeed when the child grows to puberty and reproduces. If the presence of a father reduces e.g. infant mortality, that's a strong evolutionary factor.
But how significant did the the male father role used to be among hunter-gatherers for a good upbringing of a child? If that task was for example shared between the group members (which I think I’ve read before it was) then it’s questionable whether there would be significant differences in knowing one’s genetic father or not. One hint that this might have been the default mode among hunter-gatherers is that monogamy is a minority marriage type among human cultures today 1 (meaning if polygamy was prevalent, it would have been difficult to ensure that all ...
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