A new study takes a look at the rates of extramarital childbirth in Europe over the past 500 years. This includes children born as the result of adultery — and, spoiler, it’s much lower than you probably think.
The study, published in Current Biology, used genetic and historical data to estimate how often parents had children outside their primary relationship over the past 500 years in Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. The researchers found that overall rates of what they call “extra-pair paternity” (in essence, children born of adultery) are low compared with other historical estimates. However, the frequency varied by population density and social class, says Maarten Larmuseau, an evolutionary biologist at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium.
“We know it exists from gossip, jokes and stories, but real science on this topic is taboo,” Larmuseau, a paper coauthor, says. And as commercial DNA tests rise in popularity — and ...
