page_title: The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex
section_title: Darwin's background issues and concerns
hierarchical_section_title: The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex / Darwin's background issues and concerns
caption_attribution_description: Charles Darwin. 1 negative&#160;: glass&#160;; 5 x 7 in. or smaller. From a photograph by Elliott &amp; Fry. According to Gene Kritsky, maintainer of an archive of Darwin photographs, this was from a photography session at Darwin's home, Down House, and on another photograph from that session Darwin wrote "1879" on the back. It was later widely sold and distributed on heavy card stock by Elliott &amp; Fry, with a caption dating it "Circa 1880". It was later reproduced in a wide range of Darwiniana.
context_page_description: The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex is a book by English naturalist Charles Darwin, first published in 1871, which applies evolutionary theory to human evolution, and details his theory of sexual selection, a form of biological adaptation distinct from, yet interconnected with, natural selection. The book discusses many related issues, including evolutionary psychology, evolutionary ethics, differences between human races, differences between sexes, the dominant role of women in mate choice, and the relevance of the evolutionary theory to society.
context_section_description: It was Darwin's second book on evolutionary theory, following his 1859 work, On the Origin of Species, in which he explored the concept of natural selection and which had been met with a firestorm of controversy in reaction to Darwin's theory. A single line in this first work hinted at such a conclusion: "light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history". When writing The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication in 1866, Darwin intended to include a chapter including man in his theory, but the book became too big and he decided to write a separate "short essay" on ape ancestry, sexual selection and human expression, which became The Descent of Man.
  The book is a response to various debates of Darwin's time far more wide-ranging than the questions he raised in Origin. It is often erroneously assumed that the book was controversial because it was the first to outline the idea of human evolution and common descent. Coming out so late into that particular debate, while it was clearly Darwin's intent to weigh in on this question, his goal was to approach it through a specific theoretical lens (sexual selection), which other commentators at the period had not discussed, and consider the evolution of morality and religion. The theory of sexual selection was also needed to counter the argument that beauty with no obvious utility, such as exotic birds' plumage, proved divine design, which had been put strongly by the Duke of Argyll in his book The Reign of Law (1868).
caption: Charles Darwin's second book of theory involved many questions of Darwin's time.
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