Differing from the typical strategy of threatening potential suitors with castration, scientists speculate that phermones from fathers delay their daughters sexual development:
Chemical cues from fathers may be delaying the onset of sexual maturity in daughters, as part of an evolutionary strategy to prevent inbreeding, according to researchers at Penn State.
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"Recently, experts elsewhere discovered a little-known pheromone receptor gene in the human olfactory system, linking the role of pheromones on menarche, or the first occurrence of menstruation," said Matchock, whose findings are published in the recent issue of the American Journal of Human Biology.
Researchers, including Elizabeth Susman, the Jean Phillips Shibley professor of biobehavioral health at Penn State, collected menarcheal data from 1,938 college students to explore the link between girls' social environment and their sexual maturity. The data included information on factors such as the girls' family size, social environment, and how long the father had been absent.
"Our results indicate that girls without fathers matured approximately three months before girls whose fathers were present," Matchock said, adding that the data seem to suggest a relationship between length of the father's absence and age of menarche - the earlier the absence, the earlier the menarche.
Results from the study additionally suggest that the presence of half and step-brothers was also linked to earlier menarche. Girls living in an urban environment also had earlier menarche compared to girls in a rural environment, even when fathers were present for both groups, and had similar levels of education.
Matchock speculates that urban environments provide greater opportunities to get away from parents' inhibitory pheromones, and encounter attracting pheromones from unrelated members of the opposite sex.
That is pretty badass. Whenever your daughter is heading out, you can just be like "Hey. Wait there just a second. You can't go out dressed like that without taking a good whiff of my cheek...OK, have a good time."
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# Lee-Boot effect - when female mice are housed together, their estrous cycles slow and stop
# Whitten effect - if the group of females is then exposed to odor of male, they start cycling again in synchrony
# Vandenbergh effect - acceleration of onset of puberty in female rat when exposed to odor of male
# Bruce effect - failure of recent pregnancy of female rat when exposed to male who is not the father
So, what is the name of this effect?
Castration? Naaah. I'll just be sitting at my chair cleaning my rifle whenever suitors come by for my daughter in a few years.
Great post!
This has a smell to it. What are they using a sexual maturity? The onset of the menstrual cycle correct? This has been dropping for several decades now and 3 months is relatively insignificant in human reproductive cycles.
HELLO!
Jake didn't have ME in his study --- I grew up in a rural environment, in a small house with four sisters and my mother as well as my father present. My onset of mentrual cycle was at age 8! I kept a very regular cycle of the "curse" until I was fifty.........am very glad to be rid of it now! My siblings and cousins were similarly cursed; although I do think I hold the record for early onset in my extended family.