Secret Life of the Horse
The Equine Family
For many years animal groups or societies were portrayed as dominance oriented. Simply put, the suggestion was that the strongest, perhaps largest or most aggressive animal in a group rules by tyranny of force over the weaker members.
The idea supposes that this 'pecking order' continues on down through the members so that each has a place in the hierarchy of the group, and is subservient to all those of higher ranking. The durability of these ideas has a number of roots, amongst which the most beguiling is that such simple dominance structures do exist in some species, and also in some gender-specific sub-groups of others.
There is no question that bachelor groups of male horses operate on the dominance principle, in which the strongest, but not necessarily largest, male rules by right of force rather than of characteristics of leadership - but does this mean that the equine family or harem group has a similar structure?
To answer yes would not only deny the complexity of social interaction but also the findings of modern behavioural science. Computer modelling studies released in 2003 by Roper and Conradt from the University of Sussex, UK, opened up to scrutiny and discussion the possibility of democracy within the animal world.
While some scientists commented that the model was limited in scope and that the findings did not allow the real degree of complexity present in real-world cases, there was common agreement that it posed a serious challenge to the popular perception that the natural world operates on the basis of dominance and violence.
