Imagine the hunter-gatherer era, hundreds of thousands of years ago. There was no language, no writing, and perhaps the only form of human communication was through gestures and cries.
Babies were born and immediately protected by their mothers, while men protected them from members of their own groups, animals, rain, etc. No one knew the responsibility of being a parent to something so fragile, as they didn't know who or what generated them; they only understood that a baby would be born, as the woman's belly grew in a pattern similar to that of all women, but there were feelings, care, etc., which meant that the little ones would be protected and their lives preserved.
Part of the instinct to preserve the lives of the little ones was replaced by the previously scarce intelligence of their ancestors. Mothers breastfed instinctively, but they also learned, for example, that the crying of newborns was a sign of this need.
There are many unrecorded examples, which demonstrate the complexity of the behaviors necessary for the survival and well-being of children who are completely incapable of living alone in this world until they become masters of their own lives.
We are in Anthropology, a discipline in which it is relatively easy to deduce, think, etc. about how humans solve problems, invent solutions to embarrassing situations, etc. And it is precisely here, at the beginning of the human journey on Earth, that I can present to you, the reader, an idealized and surreal experience, without wanting to convince you of something that, if it were today, could be more complicated.
Remove all the feelings and emotions related to the behaviors of men and women in relation to the care of babies, and the human species would not exist on the planet today.
You would break the main link between them, and parents would abandon their children; there would be no one to take care of them, and that's it!
Feelings and emotions were present in animals older than humans, especially in mammals. Throughout history, as complexity increased in living beings, certain behaviors were selected by evolution. Following an arrow of increasing complexity*, from the first multicellular animals to mammals, these selected behaviors belonged to those who did not abandon their offspring and cared for their young.
Note
(*) See “The Growth of the Systemic Functional Level throughout the history of life”. Argos Arruda Pinto. https://argosarrudapinto.blogspot.com/2026/02/o-crescimento-do-nivel-funcional.html.
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