Attila the Hun, a product of a typical chauvinist world should be excused when he said, “Sacrifice is the passion of all great men” when it is equally true that it is the passion of all great women as well. Before getting ahead of ourselves though, I like the reader to consider this:
Enter “Inclusive Fitness” and “Reciprocal Altruism” —-We all share fifty percent of our genetic makeup with our siblings when we inherit half from each of our parents and it is logical that we share equally what had passed on to us from our parents with our siblings [sounds a bit cluttered and convoluted? I agree, it does, but later on, it will be clearer.] We can also deduce that; we share twenty five percent of our genetic makeup with our first cousins and half of that~~twelve and half percent with our second cousins and so on. The fitness becomes weaker and weaker when the pedigree is distances away from us till the relationship becomes between strangers. And that is precisely the reason we care more of our siblings as opposed to our first cousins and we care more about our first cousins than our second cousins…..and more about our distant cousins than total strangers. If the determining factor is the fitness of our genetics, then why do we bother to care about total strangers, one may ask? That’s where Reciprocal Altruism comes in.