Monasticism has some evolutionary advantages for Tibetan monks

RELIGIONS NEWS AGENCY (REDNA) – A research done on the families of Tibetan monks regarding the celibacy showed celibacy might have some surprising evolutionary advantages.

According to “Conversation Weekly” Tibetan people living high up on the Tibetan plateau in a remote province of China called Gansu have their own human behaviors that are very costly to their chance of evolutionary success.

In the case of the Amdo Tibetan people, why would parents choose to send one of their young sons off to a life of celibacy in a monastery if it meant reducing the chance of having grandchildren? And by extension, reducing what they could pass down to future generations, be it genes, learning or cultural practices.

There are historical accounts of one in seven boys being sent to monasteries in this region of China, often at around the age of seven. “It has been described as mass monasticism,” explains Ruth Mace, a professor of anthropology at University College London in the UK.

After interviewing family members of monks in Gansu about their families and their livelihoods, Mace and her colleagues recently published research which found that people with a monk for a brother had higher reproductive success than others.