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Sex Difference on the Importance of Veiling: A Cross-Cultural Investigation

Veiling is an ancient cultural practice endorsed by religion, social institutions, and laws. Recently, there have been adaptive arguments to explain its function and existence. Specifically, it is argued that veiling women is a form of male mate guarding strategy, which aims to increase sexual fidelity by decreasing overt displays of his mate’s physical attractiveness, thereby helping to secure his reproductive success. Furthermore, it is suggested that such mate retention strategies (veiling) should be more important when child survival is more precarious, as cues to sexual fidelity support higher paternal investment. Using publicly available data from the PEW Research Center encompassing 26,282 individuals from 25 countries, we tested the hypotheses that men should be more supportive of women’s veiling and this support should be more important in harsher environments, particularly those with poor health and high mortality rates, where paternal care is presumably more important. Our results show that men were more supportive of veiling than women, and this support increased as the environments became harsher. Overall, these findings support the male mate retention argument as well as the idea that the practice of veiling is sensitive to environmental differences.