A study published in Evolutionary Psychology investigated feminine honor as an ideological form of mate guarding, shaped by sexual jealousy and mating strategies.

The concept of feminine honor is centered around societal expectations for women to maintain a reputation of sexual purity, manifesting through behaviors like modest dressing and virginity before marriage. On the other hand, masculine honor has focused on traits such as toughness and formidability. Honor norms are deeply embedded in cultures around the world, and are linked to social and reproductive constraints on women. Violation of such norms has led to serious consequences for women, such as intimate partner violence or honor killings. Despite the impact of this concept, research on the origins of feminine honor is limited.

In this work, Tom R. Kupfer and Pelin Gul diverged from the traditional view of feminine honor as a means of protecting masculine and family honor, or a way of upholding male dominance, and instead proposed that feminine honor may serve as a method of ideological mate guarding.

Study 1 included 291 heterosexual male participants between ages 19 to 76. In random order, participants completed measures of sociosexual orientation (e.g., “I can imagine myself being comfortable and enjoying ‘casual’ sex with different partners”), dispositional jealousy (e.g., “I worry that X [my partner] may be attracted to another man”), support for feminine honor (e.g., “How bad would you feel if she had sexual relations before marriage”), as well as political orientation and religiosity which were included as control variables.

The researchers found that dispositional jealousy and a monogamous mating strategy (as indicated by lower sociosexual orientation) were associated with men’s support for feminine honor norms in both short- and long-term relationships, even when controlling for political orientation, religiosity and age. Interestingly, the association was stronger for long-term mates.

Study 2 expanded the scope of Study 1 and included both male and female participants, with a final sample of 598 individuals ages 18 to 82. In addition to the measures used in Study 1, this study included a full measure of sociosexual orientation, and a comprehensive assessment of various honor norms. The findings were similar to that of Study 1, revealing that both men and women who exhibit higher levels of dispositional jealousy and more monogamous mating strategy are more likely to to support feminine honor norms.

For men, this held true even after accounting for factors such as religiosity, political orientation, age, and other forms of honor. However, among female participants, the link between sexual jealousy and feminine honor was not significant when controlling for these additional variables.

A limitation to this research is its correlational nature; thus, causal conclusions cannot be drawn.

Kupfer and Gul conclude, “the current findings provide, to the best of our knowledge, the first empirical evidence that sexual jealousy is associated with ideologies that serve to control female sexuality.”

The study, “Ideological Mate-guarding: Sexual Jealousy and Mating Strategy Predict Support for Female Honor”, was authored by Tom R. Kupfer and Pelin Gul.