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"Having a husband ensures that a woman's gathered foods will not be taken by others; having a wife ensures the man will have an evening meal. According to this idea, cooking created a simple marriage system; or perhaps it solidified a preexisting version of married life that could have been prompted by hunting or sexual competition. Either way, the result was a primitive protection racket in which husbands used their bonds with other men in the community to protect their wives from being robbed, and women returned the favor by preparing their husbands' meals. The many beneficial aspects of the household, such as provisioning by males, increases in labor efficiency, and creation of a social network for child-rearing, were additions consequent to solving the more basic problem: females needed male protection, specifically because of cooking. A male used his social power both to ensure that a female did not lose her food, and to guarantee his own meal by assigning the work of cooking to the female." Richard Wrangham