Cherful:"share the women so at least every man had a woman."

In PNG, where small tribal groups abound, "bridal wars" have long been a feature to prevent in-breeding. I'm sure CJ will be able to enlighten us further on this topic.

Pelican

>But what about love in all this?

Good question.

The natural history of love is best explained in the excellent book that Yabby cites, and which I also highly recommend: Helen Fisher’s The Anatomy of Love, the natural history of marriage, adultery and divorce.

Fisher started from the proposition that if the standard social science model were true, and cultural mores were the main determinant of sexual and reproductive behaviour, then we should expect the rates of divorce to differ significantly as between different cultures with different values on marriage and divorce.

Fisher studied the best available statistics on divorce from the United Nations and found instead that, to the contrary, the general pattern is highly consistent across all cultures, despite the great cultural differences.

Contrary to popular belief, divorce is not mainly a middle-age phenomenon. It happens most commonly in relationships in the following order:
1. Childless couples together less than four years
2. Couples with one child together less than four years, and
3. then, with increasing children and time together, divorce becomes less and less probable.

Fisher also found that the infatuation phase of love – the ‘sweet madness’ phase – perhaps better known by the work of poets and musicians than by that of scientists, was scientifically demonstrated to be because of a certain hormonal brain-bath set off by courtship and sexual behaviour. It lasts about four years, after which, either the couple break up, or the love morphs into the more comfortable, companionable, attachment style love of long-married couples – still lovely, but not the original intense passionate emotion of romantic love - and catalysed by a different hormone set.

Fisher’s theory is basically that human sexual love evolved as a sexually selected adaptation to the need to care for infant children, which by coincidence, have a period of greatest dependence of about four years – in the foraging societies in which our evolution took place. Four years dependence of child, four year duration of infatuation love, and four year pattern of divorce. Love evidently evolved to make the relationship last about four years.

The man and woman form the smallest division of labour, a little private mutual-benefit association that is the sweetest thing, the wellspring of new human life, and the building block of much larger societies of humans. The woman specialises in supplying domestic and sexual services. The man specialises in supplying providing and protecting services, and is a kind of walking entertainment system for the amusement of the woman.

For a trait to be sexually selected means – as with the peacock’s tail - that the genes for it are passed on because they increase the chances of reproduction, rather than of survival itself. Like the peacock’s tail, the peculiar characteristics of the human mind: love, morality, religion, art, science, ethnocentrism, may actually decrease the individual’s chances of survival. But the sexually selected trait will still tend to be passed on so long as it increases the average probability of reproduction.

Cherful
“I wonder if there was not some advantage to the men in agreeing to share the women so at least every man had a woman.”

From the evolutionary point of view, once a woman is pregnant, she can’t increase her reproductive success by having more children, for at least nine months. But a man can double and triple his reproductive success with a second and third woman. It is the single most significant variable in his reproductive success.

Thus the incentive for men to compete for women is probably much greater than the incentive to share. The husbands who had not impregnated her would be devoting scarce resources to someone else’s offspring. And thus we see that polyandry is very rare among humans.

However a very common example of men sharing a woman is with female prostitutes; but the whole point is, they don’t share them as wives.

Mind you, people do things because they want, not because their genes want.

Reminds me of a story about a 19th century cowboy who queried a native American’s hospitality in lending his wife to guests for the night.

“She’s not made of soap.” said the hospitable native: “She won’t wear out.”

Dear Foxy, Love is a decision. Lust is a feeling. Don't confuse the two. When you make the decision to love one another forsaking all others till death do us part the feelings fall into line with the truth. If a job is worth doing it is worth doing properly. God is not mocked we reap what we sow. If you sow discord how can you reap joy and harmony. Sowing is an active or doing word not a negative or inactive word. Most people believe that they are being positive in self centeredness (reactive). (proactive) Serving your life partner brings joy to the giver for it is more blessed to give than receive. A kind word brings life. A harsh word kills joy. Studying the problem never fixes it. Study the answer.

Yabby and Peter H
The book looks interesting - so do some of her other works.

Many women growing up in my generation (born in the 60s) fell for the concept of the masculine knight in shining armour, the whole being swept off your feet scenario - probably from reading too many fairy stories. :) We probably had it reasoned out of us in the 70s with the advent of feminism, but speaking to other women, most women do crave to be loved, not necessarily cherished or put on a pedestal, but loved. Humans have a need to nuture as well, whether it be children, friends or other family members (or even pets).

Reality is our biology is interesting (and in anthropological terms) but as Peter H said, ultimately our behaviour is very much rooted in our brains and our decision making abilities including weighing up the risk factors.

As far as fidelity goes, there are risk factors - what might be lost, keeping one's promise or vows, and how much they love their partner. Even if it isn't that mad giddy passionate love but a more solid and enduring partnership type of love and respect.

Dustin Hoffman once said he was surrounded by temptation but never strayed because he loved his wife too much and did not want to hurt her. I would imagine most men and women would hope for that same reasoning, love and concern from their mate.

However, humans are a varied bunch, some people are into swinging and swapping. Not my cup of tea but if it is a mutual decision and transparent then it probably would not fall under the infidelity banner which usually implies deception.

Pelican, I think what has changed for the positive today, is that
people have choices and continue to do so, unlike 40-50 years ago.

Let's face it, when we were teenagers, we did not always make
the wisest decisions, hormones were raging etc. Yet I know of a
few cases, where parents virtually forced their daughters to stay,
because they had made an initial commitment, perhaps a mistake
in their teens. All that they forced on their daughters turned
out to be lives of continuing misery and often violence. For what?

So to me, commitment for life, if it then means misery, is rather
pointless. We only live once and are dead a long time etc.

OTOH I can't see a point in committing to a relationship, if
its not based on honesty, trust and communication. Once deception
sets in, there is not a hell of a lot left.

There are some relationships that do last a lifetime and last so
happily, not just to enforce the principle that they should.

They are wonderful, especially if people have met their soulmate
and best friend all in one. But in my experience they are
quite rare. Lots of people simply stay in the relationships
that they are in, because of fear of the unknown.