Summary: Eunuchism - a widespread global practice in ancient times - may have been a means for stabilizing a hypergamous society, where the alphas get harems and the betas get scraps. It reduced sexual competition/jealousy, whilst simultaneously retaining eunuchs as productive members of society.

Yes, you read the title right. Keep reading.

There seems to be a consensus that monogamy - no matter how artificial it may be - is good for civilization, because every male is thus invested in the society he lives in and its future. Such a society is therefore stable. Many of us are rightfully concerned about the death of marriage and the unleashing of hypergamy, because in a natural setting, all the females end up with the top males, leaving little or none for the rest. The conventional thinking goes that polygamous/hypergamy-positive societies fail because of sexless lower-value males checking out, self-destructing, and/or turning against their society. Yet there are many examples worldwide and throughout history of successful civilizations where the rich and powerful had harems galore. How did they do it? How did they placate the lower tiers and maintain them as productive members of society?

I have a theory. You're not gonna like it.

They castrated them.

Think about it. Check out the Wikipedia page on eunuchs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eunuch). It has been practiced since before recorded history, and virtually all known major civilizations did it (Greece, Rome, Middle East, China, India, etc).

Of course, nobody knows just how prevalent eunuchism was; the only eunuchs we know about were ones that served powerful and famous people, or had a measure of influence themselves. Some places may have practiced it more than others. It's possible it was just a specialized niche practice, but it could've been common. After all, they would've left no descendants of their own to keep the record.

It was often done early in the boy's life, typically just before puberty, and the boy had no choice in the matter1. Eunuchs were often given productive, prestigious roles in society: priests, bodyguards (especially for royalty and their harems), public officials/attendants/advisors, etc. For those in power who retained their manhood, they were the perfect people to entrust with power/responsibility: less sexual competition (women wanna fuck a powerful man, but they can't if he has no dick!), less aggression (drastically reduced testosterone, after all), no conflict of interest (especially with harem-guarding lol). Basically, eunuchs were men forcefully deprived of their manhood at an early age so they could obediently fulfill a lifelong social role (In the Gervais Principle hierarchy, they would've been the Clueless). Since it happened before puberty - before they could experience sexual attraction - they likely had no clue what they were missing out on, nor any desire to find out2.

As a virile, anatomically-intact male, the whole idea repulses me3. But if you're a powerful alpha from Antiquity, who wants to keep his power and his harem all to himself, how do you limit competition/hostility from your subordinates while keeping them as productive members of society?

Lessons Learned: Eunuchism has been practiced for thousands of years, virtually worldwide, and may or may not have been a nefarious plot for rulers to maintain sexual supremacy. This is all just my own theory, but the prevalence of the practice and the functions eunuchs served suggests it really was a crucial practice for any society where the elite kept many women for themselves.

[1]: This does bring up the question of how eunuchism was enforced. After all, what family would willingly have their bloodline cut off, and their son made a eunuch? I think institutional power (i.e. religion, government) would've been a big part of it. Maybe persuaded them with some feel-good religious/political bullshit ("your son can be closer to God with his dick out of the way"), maybe compensated them for their trouble, who knows.

[2]: Interesting sidenote: on the Wikipedia page on eunuchs, it mentions the Egyptian poet Orion of Thebes. Orion describes eunuchism as being "good for the mind," because eunuchs are "deprived of male-female intercourse, the thing that the ancients used to call irrational/mindless." If you're MGTOW and want nothing to do with women, seems like "the ancients" agree that you're giving up an irrational endeavor.

[3]: Since eunuchism has been around for many millennia, I wonder if this is where castration anxiety originates. Involuntary castration was a known warfare tactic, probably also practiced for millennia. There's also a theory that circumcision - the oldest known surgical procedure, dated at 15,000 years - began as a means for punishing/emasculating captured enemies. Never realized this was all so prevalent in human history before I looked it up.