the patriarch hypothesis is about powerful men. Specifically, men powerful enough to be able to have sex with younger, fertile women even as they get old. ‘Once males become capable of maintaining high status and reproductive access beyond their peak physical condition, selection favoured the extension of maximum life span in males,’ Marlowe explained in his paper, which was published in the journal Human Nature. Even a few high-status old men spreading their seed would have been enough to produce a difference in how long humans lived, he argued.
