When you, as head of your family, end up with multiple inheritors (read: more than one child), there is a very high chance your inheritors will fight each other, sometimes violently, for the inheritance. This is still a problem today, too.
Sending the younger inheritors away to the clergy is a way of nipping such nasty family problems in the bud before they become problems. A man of the church can't inherit unless they are called back by their family.
TL;DR: None of this has to do with someone's sexual fitness, and everything to do with straightening out potentially complicated family inheritances.
> None of this has to do with someone's sexual fitness, and everything to do with straightening out potentially complicated family inheritances.
I think the research in this article points to a biological adaptation for handling this issue before the development of monasteries as a human institution. I.e., mice don't have monasteries
I am speaking strictly in regards to the human system of sending away children to become clergyman, which is a way of dealing with future inheritance problems regardless the sexual fitness of a given child.
That is to say, the family picks a would-be inheritor and sends away all the others to hopefully prevent family feuds.
I do not speak for mice and their culture, whatever it may be.
Sending the younger inheritors away to the clergy is a way of nipping such nasty family problems in the bud before they become problems. A man of the church can't inherit unless they are called back by their family.
TL;DR: None of this has to do with someone's sexual fitness, and everything to do with straightening out potentially complicated family inheritances.