Why No Built-in Paternity Testing?
Pair mated species, such as humans and many birds, follow a mating pattern of monogamy tempered by adultery. The female pairs with the best male who will pair with her then, given the opportunity, gets pregnant by the (genetically) best male available. Males spend time and effort attempting to engage in extra-pair copulations while preventing their mates from doing so.
A simple solution to the problem faced by males, and one now provided by modern technology, is paternity testing. If a male can tell which of his mate's children he fathered he can decline to help support the others, giving his mate a strong incentive not to cheat on him. My question is why that solution was not long ago implemented by Darwinian evolution. Why do males in such species not have some way of identifying their offspring?
One possible answer is that here, as elsewhere in evolutionary biology, we have an arms race. It is in the interest of males for them to be able to identify children born by their mates to other males but in the interest of females for them not to be able to do so; more precisely, it is in the interest of the female to be able to fool the male into thinking that another male's children are his. It is not clear to me why the females could be expected to win this particular conflict, but perhaps there are reasons that have not occurred to me.
Can anyone point me at relevant literature? Offer plausible answers?