Mate Guarding

Mate guarding includes behaviors that function to reduce the likelihood of a partner’s defection from an ongoing long-term relationship. Some mate-guarding behaviors function by enticing a current partner’s continued investment in the relationship through the provision of gifts or other benefits. Other mate-guarding behaviors function by removing a partner’s alternatives to the ongoing relationship through subjugation or violence and the infliction of costs sufficient to remove a partner’s ability to defect from the relationship. Mate-guarding behaviors represent evolved responses to the costs of losing a long-term partner. However, as the potential benefits of relationship defection persist despite a partner’s guarding, there is an arms race between attempts to maintain the opportunities afforded by extra-pair relationships and a partner’s attempts to thwart those opportunities and avoid the costs of that defection.