Tuesday, January 29, 2008
The Evolution of Desire: Chapters 8-10
Continuing on my merry way, here are the 5th, 4th, 3rd to last chapters in this book. Yes, finally.
Chapter Eight: Breaking UpChapter Eight starts off with an old proverb.
Women marry believing that their husbands will change;
Men marry believing that their wives will not change
They're both wrong.
Pretty well sums it up, eh? Moving right along, chapter nine covers... Well, not quite yet.
Buss follows the quote by citing the 50% divorce rate in the US, then delves into some historical info. Divorce is not a recent phenomena, nor is it confined to any particular cultures. Societies governed by religions or belief systems that discourage (or criminalize) marriage can control it, but humans are in no way naturally monogamous. Most primitive tribes that have been studied show high rates of divorce, and mate hopping is S.O.P. in some. "Among the Ache of Paraguay, the average man and woman are married and divorced more than eleven times each by the time they reach the ate of forty."
Humans have always had straying eyes and a desire to upgrade their mate. Even aside from that, life was perilous and short throughout much of human history, and death from disease, accident, and murder has long claimed one half of a couple. Death comes for men and women, but men have always been more prone to living a shorter life. Hunting accidents, warfare, fights for dominance within a tribe, and many other causes were taking out young men long before drunk driving was available, and as Buss points out, it must have made genetic sense for women to keep their eyes open for replacement options. After all, their husbands certainly were.
Changes in life or in one's partner don't necessarily trigger conscious, logical thoughts. People just start to realize that maybe they could do better. "Just as our taste preferences for sugar, fat, and protein operate without our conscious awareness of the adaptive functions they serve, so marital dissolution mechanisms operate without our awareness of the adaptive problems they solve." Large scale studies have been conducted across hundreds of societies, and while it's impossible to directly compare due to cultural differences, common themes can be agreed upon. As you will expect by this point in the book, the top causes of divorce are events tied to reproduction: infidelity and infertility.
Infidelity. This one is huge for both sexes. "The most powerful signal of a man's failure to retain access to a woman's reproductive capacity is her infidelity. The most powerful signal of a woman's failure to retain access to a man's resources is his infidelity." Of 43 categories that can cause divorce, adultery is #1 in more than half the societies studied, and in many of those men can opt for an immediate divorce if they find their wives are cheating. Women have that right far less commonly. Why the male bias on cheating? Especially considering that men are far more likely to cheat? Buss gives several reasons: 1) Men have greater power to impose their will, in most societies. 2) Women may be more forgiving of sexual infidelity so long as men do not withdraw their resources. 3) The costs of divorce might be so high that the woman can't risk it with children to support. Infidelity can also be used as a tool to dissolve an unwanted relationship; either by cheating and driving away a spouse, or spreading rumors of their infidelity to give yourself an excuse to move on.
Infertility. Just like animals, human couples often break up if there's an inability to reproduce. Infertility is exceeded only by infidelity as a leading cause of divorce all around the world. Even societies that do not permit divorce usually have mechanisms to allow a separation in the event of infertility. Having kids is worth the trouble, in some ways. Children strengthen a relationship, or at least greatly lower the odds of divorce. Couples with no children divorce much more often than those with two or more children, to a striking degree. According to a worldwide UN study, 39% of divorces happen to childless couples, 26% to couples with one child, 19% to couples with two children, and less than 3% to couples with four or more kids.
Age isn't often a factor cited in divorce studies, but when it is it's usually related to fertility. In no society do women commonly divorce older men. Yet in a number of societies men divorce older women, and it's a universal truism that men tend to marry younger when when/if they remarry. Cruel and unfortunate though this maybe, it's quite genetically logical, since female reproductive fitness declines so rapidly past age 40.
Sexual Withdrawal. Another highly-ranked reason for divorce, this one is unsurprisingly gender skewed too. In numerous societies men will divorce their wives if sexual access is denied for a period of time. There isn't any data to show that the opposite is true, at least not other than in isolated cases. Like infidelity, intentional sexual withdrawal can be a very effective tactic to dissolve an unwanted relationship.
Lack of Economic Support. This is the converse of sexual withdrawal. Something that causes divorce in many cultures, and is much more upsetting to women than to men. Humans have an inherent bias towards men earning more than their wives, and when this ratio is upset, so are couples. American marriages in which the woman earns more money than her husband are 50% more likely to divorce than those in which the husband is the primary breadwinner. This seems to upset both partners; men often feel inadequate, and women often feel their husband is lazy, that they deserve better, or they simply feel safer looking to upgrade when they do not rely on their husband's resources.
Conflict Among Multiple Wivess. Not something many of us will ever have to worry about, but it is a common difficulty in cultures that permit polygamy. Quite a few still do; 83 out of 853, in a worldwide study Buss cites, and plenty of men still try to pull it off in cultures that do not officially sanction the practice. Rules seem to help: the book details the strict rules found in some polygamous societies. For instance, among the Kipsigis in Kenya, each wife gets an equal plot of land and shares it with the husband. The Kipsigis men maintain a separate residence apart from the wives, and alternate days of the week with each woman, carefully allocating time equally. The best tactic for cooperative polygamy seems to be "sororal polygamy," in which a man marries two (or more) sisters. Yes, just like a Playboy photo fantasy come to life! Except for the "marriage" part...
Implications for a Lasting Marriage. On the whole, Buss recommends that married couples treat each other well, refrain from cheating, and have children if they want to stay together. A minute to learn; a lifetime to master!
Chapter Nine: Changes Over TimeThis chapter opens with a charming story about chimpanzees fighting for dominance in the zoo in the Netherlands. One male has long dominated the colony and gotten most of the sex. He ages, another male rises up and kicks his ass, and starts claiming all the women. The ousted male doesn't give up though, and forms an alliance with another male, teaming up to overthrow the new alpha male and regaining some access to the girls. The lesson, for animals as well as humans, is time passes, and there will always be physical and psychological changes that affect sexual access. Don't get too complacent, but don't give up hope if you get kicked out of bed, since there are ways to get back in!
Changes in a Woman's Worth. Not a tough one to figure out, in light of the information in the rest of this book. Women's reproductive value peaks in their early 20s and declines thereafter, dropping sharply past 40. Men who can trade up will often do so, if they give in to their genetic urges. This obviously doesn't happen in every case, and most 50 year old men don't have the looks or resources (or nerve) to claim a highly-desirable 20 year old. But the genetic urge will always be there.
Buss cites the case of a business man who had six children with a woman who died young. He remarried, to a woman 3 years older than him, and that second wife devoted her life to raising his children. Then when his kids were in college...
he divorced the woman who had raised them, married a 23 year old Japanese woman, and started a second family. His behavior was ruthless and not very admirable, perhaps, but his circumstances had changed. From his individual perspective, the value of his second wife lowered precipitously when his children were grown, and the attractiveness of the younger woman increased to accompany his new circumstances.
Buss conveys this reality with more than anecdotes. There are several pages of stats and surveys backing up the point. Tribal peoples pay much lower bridal prices for older women. Numerous worldwide surveys show that men and women rate female attractiveness with a strong correlation to age. On the whole, it seems that older women would do well to remain married. They can maintain considerable value -- emotional, economic, parenting, social -- to a husband, but much less on the dating market. For prospective suitors, older women have little to no reproductive value, their beauty is lessened, and their time and resources may already be devoted to their children and grandchildren.
Loss of Desire. An almost universal problem of marriage, this one illustrates clearly why sultans used to kick the 30 year olds out of their harems. Almost immediately after marriage, men begin to complain that their wives are less receptive to sex. 14% of newlywed men voice this complaint, and the figure rises to 43% by the fourth year of marriage. It's not just the time married either; the age of the woman factors in as well. Married 19 year olds engage in intercourse an average of 11.5 times per month. By age 30 that's dropped to 9 times a month. By 42 it's down to 6 times a month. Past 50 the frequency drops to less than once a week. "These results may reflect a lessened interest by women, by men, or most likely by both." Unsurprisingly, sexual satisfaction ratings decline with frequency of sex. More unsurprisingly, the arrival of a baby kills the sex life. Married couples with baby, after less than three years, have sex less than a third as often as they did during the first year of marriage.
Lowered Commitment. Men and women complain that their partners show less interest in them, and less frequently express their love as time goes by. Women complain that their husbands don't express their love, don't listen to them when the talk, and ignore their feelings, even during just the first four years of marriage. Men complain about these things much less often, though it's unclear if that's due to men being less giving, or less sensitive to not receiving. Or both. The thing that men do complain about over time is their wife demanding more of their time. 22% of newlywed men say this, compared to 36% of fourth year husbands. Women do not share this complaint; only 8% voice it by the fourth year of marriage.
It's also clear that men spend less time, effort, and expense to please their wives, and are less vigilant and potentially violent in guarding them, as the women age. Men less often make threats and commit acts of violence on older wives, but they bring them flowers and tell them they love them less often, too. This also differs between the sexes; women remain just as protective of their husbands through the 30s and 40s, since the man's value as a resource provider is just as high as it was earlier, if not higher. Obvious changes in male guarding can also be seen when their wives are pregnant; men become less concerned with their wives' whereabouts, and behaviors that would cause acute jealousy at other times are not remarked upon.
Changes in Frequency of Extramarital Affairs. Discussion of this topic is made difficult by the unwillingness of subjects to provide honest answers. Questions on this subject were the ones most often not answered during Kinsey's initial surveys in the 1950s, and there remains a high reticence to discuss it to this day. Most researchers contend that extramarital affairs are systematically undercounted. Kinsey estimated that his figures were at least 10% too low. A large study (750 spouses) in 1974 resulted in 30% of the subjects admitting to cheating when initially questioned, and another 30% admitted it during subsequent "intensive scrutiny." Yes, that's a 60% cheat rate.
Whatever the actual percentage, the incidence of cheating is clearly tied to age. Women cheat rates by age:
16-20: 6%.
22-25: 9%
26-30: 14%
31-40: 17%
41-50: No number. Rapid decline with age.
51-55: 6%
56-60: 4%
These figures are somewhat odd; since men find women most attractive in their early 20s, the likelihood of a woman cheating is clearly not tied that directly to the amount of attention she receives from men other than her husband. Buss offers several explanations, including a lower intensity of male guarding of spouses past their mid-20s, lower penalties (from the husband) for older women caught philandering, and female desire to test their value in the dating market (and possibly trade up) as their reproductive value begins to decline.
Motivations for affairs vary as well. Men are much more likely than women to say they cheated simply for sex, and women are much more likely to cheat due to love or emotional connection (72% to 51%). Men are more likely to cheat even when they say their marriage is happy (56% to 33% of women). Men are also much more interested in cheating. In one 1985 study, 48% of American men expressed a desire for extramarital sex, compared to just 5% of women. (That 5% seems suspicious, since more than 5% of women cheat at every age lower than 56.) A 1970 survey of nearly 1500 men and women found that 72% of men, but only 27% of women, admitted to sometimes desiring extramarital sex. A 1971 study in Germany found similar figures: 46% of married men but only 6% of married women said they would take advantage of a casual sexual opportunity if one were available. These figures are borne out in practice, as nearly as can be determined. For 16-20 year olds, Kinsey found that 37% of men but only 6% of women had cheated. The incidence of affairs by men remains roughly steady throughout life, until declining at the elderly years.
These are not just one time things, either. Most of the men who cheat do it regularly, with prostitutes, mistresses, or side girlfriends. Extramarital sex comprises 20% of the average man's sexual outlets between 16-35. It rises to 26% from 36-40, 30% from 41-45, and 35% from 46-50. (I assume these figures are for men who are cheating, not an average for all married men, but the book doesn't make this clear.)
It's not known how these figures compare to polygamous societies. Logic would suggest that married men would have fewer affairs if they had several wives to alternate between, and that married women would have more with their husband's attention so often elsewhere, and so many single men around. However, such societies are usually quite repressive and controlling of women, so female opportunities should be lower, and penalties for being caught cheating (execution by hurled stones) higher, which would have to act as a disincentive. Apparently no one has dared try to conduct such a survey yet; at least none is mentioned in the text. Move to Saudi Arabia and go for it; publication of your research results is nearly guaranteed, assuming you survive long enough to write them up.
Menopause. This isn't mentioned in the book, but isn't this an odd word? I mean logically, pregnancy or getting into Olympic gymnast condition leads to menses "pause." What we call "menopause" should really be called, "menoend" or "menostop." At any rate, Buss points out an oddity of human menopause; how early in life it occurs. Most female animals die while still fecund, or live just 5% or 10% of their lives after they lose the ability to bear young. This is the case even in long-lived animals; only about 5% of elephants live until about age 55, but even then fertility is still about 50% of what it was at their peak, decades earlier. In contrast, most women go through menopause by age 50, and frequently live another 30 years. This is a genetic oddity, since human males can sire children while elderly, and since most animals live only to reproduce, and (might as well) die once they're not longer able to do so.
At one point in history, women were blamed for menopause, and it was thought they brought it on themselves with excessive luxury and sex. We now know that's not true, but it's still not clear why humans have evolved in this fashion. One theory is that better nutrition and medicine has artificially lengthened post-reproductive life. By this theory, our ancestors would seldom have lived past the reproductive age. There's little support for this though, since the dramatic increases in human longevity we've seen in modern days are largely due to decreased infant mortality. Humans have always lived into their 60s and 70s; it's just that far more people now survive childhood and make it past age 20 than used to, so the overall averages have increased. Also, consider the fact that a woman's reproductive capacity nosedives, while her other vital signs decline only slowly.
One theory is the "grandmother hypothesis," which states that menopause is an adaptation that prompts a shift from reproduction to parenting, grandparenting, and other forms of investing in kin. Older women build up useful stores of knowledge about children and childbirth, accumulate material resources, and can devote time to caring for others.
Another theory is that menopause is a trade off; rapid reproductive potential in early life for zero in later life. "Producing many high-quality children early may in effect wear out a woman's reproductive machinery; so that menopause is not in itself an adaptation but is rather an incidental byproduct of early and rapid breeding." The logic behind this is that a woman could only count on strong health and a resource-sharing mate for a decade or two, at best. Therefore, it was wise to pump out several children quickly, while a mate was around to assist in raising them. Chimps and other higher primates do not have their young in rapid succession, since there is no pair bonding and females must raise the children on their own. Such animals space out the births every few years for their entire adult lives, and do not experience menopause.
Nothing has been proven at this point, and it's likely there will never be any absolute answer; just competing theories with varying levels of support.
Changes in a Man's Worth. "While women's desirability as mates declines steeply with age, the same does not apply to men's." Buss boils it down to two key differences: 1) a man's resources and social status peak much later in life than a woman's reproductive value, and 2) a man's value as a mate varies much more than does a woman's. Men can have very high value and lose it all, go from low value to highly-eligible based on their financial or social status, and the difference in status between a billionaire and a beggar is enormous.
This is clearly illustrated in various tribal societies, where men in their teens or twenties seldom have the resources or political capital to marry one woman, much less take a second or third wife. Things are not much different in modern, cash-based societies. A large study in 1987 showed that men had negligible earning ability in their teens and early 20s. From 25-34 men were earning about 2/3 of their eventual peak, which was reached between 35-54.
As with most examples in this book, culture, modern society, and individual preferences allow for much more variety than we would see if humans simply followed their genetic logic, a fact every man below the age of 30 and not born to rich parents should be intensely grateful for. If women only married for resources and want of a stable mate, the average age difference would be at least a decade, and every well-off, balding, pot-bellied 50 year old divorced man would be living the sex life of a rock star. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your age/sex/wealth), women often vote with their hearts and not their heads -- there are plenty of penniless young couples, lots of women put off having children until well past their peak reproductive years, and other genetically suboptimal matings occur with great frequency.
Earlier Death of Men. Men die faster and earlier than do women in all societies and cultures. American men live 6 to 8 years less, on average, than do women, are more susceptible to disease, have a 30% higher mortality rate from accidents during their first four years of life, and a 400% higher mortality rate from accidents before adulthood. Men are 3x more likely to be murdered, more likely to commit suicide, and from 16-28 men have a mortality rate 200% higher than that of women. These facts are not accidents or coincidences, and they in fact stem directly from male sexual psychology. Men take more risks and compete much more vigorously, and this is true across much of the animal kingdom. Everyone is familiar with scenes of male deer, sheep, goats, lions, etc, bashing heads, wrestling, chasing, attacking, and otherwise struggling with each other, while the females of the species sit around, grazing contentedly and waiting to see who comes out on top. As a rule, throughout the animal kingdom, the more polygynous the mating system, the great the differences between the sexes in terms of mortality. Polygynous mating selects for males who take risks -- risks in competing with other males, risks in securing the resources desired by females, and risks in exposing themselves while pursing and courting females.
Most humans do not live in a polygynous culture, but even in Western Civilization, the reproductive stakes are higher for men than for women. Buss makes this clear with some amazing stats. In America, in 1988:
29 year olds who had never been married: 43% of men and 29% of women.
34 year olds who had never been married: 25% of men and 16% of women.
True, reproduction is less and less limited by the bonds of matrimony, but I doubt the relative figures would change a great deal if we were talking about what % of women had given birth, vs. what % of men had fathered a child. And the stats skew like this despite the fact that women outnumber men at those ages. Clearly some men are outcompeting their fellow males, and taking more than their share of women. It's even worse in polygamous tribes, where there are literally zero unmarried women, and many men consigned to bachelorhood.
Furthermore, the competition and death rate amongst men is not evenly-distributed. Men with fewer resources and commensurately lower odds of mating are much more likely to engage in risky activities. Figures for homicides in Detroit in 1972 bear this out: 41% of adult male murderers were unemployed, compared to an 11% unemployment rate citywide. Also, 69% of the male victims and 73% of the male killers were unmarried, compared to a 43% unmarried rate in the city. This figures seem a bit cherrypicked, and I don't think guys getting shot robbing liquor stores or selling drugs can really be directly compared to male red-horned deer dying while jousting for female access, but it's not an entirely different situation.
The Marriage Squeeze. Despite the fact that more women than men get married, (the same men marry multiple times), there are always more unmarried women than men, in every age group. Men die earlier, die more often, emigrate more frequently, die in wars, are incarcerated more often, and so on. The situation is even worse for black women in the United States. Because there are more boy babies than girl babies, the women are in the minority for a time, but due to higher male incarceration and death rates, that doesn't last. Among black Americans, there are 108 adolescent males for every 100 adolescent females. A wise woman would pick then, and stick with her choice, because by the time she's 26-28 there will be 80 men for every 100 women, and by 38-42 there are only 62 available men for every 100 women. By 60 there are around 40 men for every 100 women.
The numbers do not tail off so rapidly for women of other ethnic groups, but across the board, women who wait to marry find it difficult, and women who get divorced are in even more dire straits. The numerical handicaps are supplemented by gender differences, since eligible 50 year old men will marry 25 year old women, if they can pull it off. The same is very seldom true of 50 year old women. A 1979 study in Canada found a great dissimilarity in remarriage rates.
Divorced men, ages 20-24: 83% will remarry.
Divorced men, ages 25-29: 89% will remarry.
Divorced women, ages 20-24: 61% will remarry.
Divorced women, ages 25-29: 40% will remarry.
These figures are representative worldwide, and they skew even further at older ages. Past the age of 50, men are exponentially more likely to remarry. Four times as likely in Egypt. Nine times more likely in Ecuador. Nineteen times more likely in Tunisia.
In closing, Buss points out that while most humans want to mate for a lifetime, few are so lucky. This isn't surprising; humans aren't very well suited for lifetime compatibility, with what men want and what women want diverging so often and so widely. Our physical processes are in no way complimentary either; women hit puberty earlier than boys, then lose the ability to reproduce decades sooner. And they know it.The urgency that some childless women feel as their remaining years of potential reproduction wane--the increasingly loud ticking of the biological clock--is not caused by an arbitrary custom dictated by a particular culture, but rather reflects a psychological mechanism attuned to reproductive reality.
Married couples start out great, with lots of sex, but the amount declines steadily, due largely to a man's genetics causing him to grow tired of the same partner, and to find her less attractive as she ages. With less attention paid to her, and less affection given, wives get bored and begin to cheat more as they age; though they never practice infidelity at anywhere near the rates their husbands do. "Long attributed by traditional scientists to the fragile male ego, to psychosexual immaturity, to 'male menopause,' or to a culture of youth, men's effort to mate with younger women as they age instead reflects a universal desire that has a long evolutionary history."
With all these issues, it's remarkable that somewhere near 50% of marriages do last "'til death do them part." This fact demonstrates how completely humans can triumph over their biological urges, if they put their minds to it. (And overlook their spouse's occasional strayings.)
Chapter Ten: Harmony Between the Sexes
Much of this chapter serves as a summary of what's come before. It starts off with a few paragraphs that essentially serve as a disclaimer for the entire book. Genetics are not fate. Humans can choose their own destinies. Men almost always desire it, but can resist seizing younger poontang. Women can love men who aren't great providers. And so forth. This isn't just a sop to the critics, but an introduction to Buss' version of harmonious living; each spouse learning to do things their partner will appreciate, or at least managing to resist their genetic urges to upgrade or order out when things (inevitably) don't go quite so well.
Differences Between the Sexes. Men and women have very different wants and desires. "To assume that men and women are psychologically the same, as was generally done in traditional social science, goes against what is now known about our evolved sexual psychology." Men and women differ in the qualities they desire in a mate, in their expectations for behavior in marriage, in their economic priorities, and so on. Some people rail against these differences, denying that they exist or wishing that they would cease to exist. But wishes and denial will not make psychologically sex differences disappear, any more than they will make beard growth or breast development disappear. Harmony between men and women will be approached only when these denials are swept away and we squarely confront the different desires of each sex.
A Feminist Viewpoint. Buss clearly enjoys a conundrum in this section. He points out that most feminists object to patriarchy; the male oppression of women through their control of resources. And yet, one of the major reasons men strive so vigorously to control resources is... because women select men with money. "Ancestral men who failed to acquire such resources failed to attract women as mates." He says, no doubt itching to add, "Pwned, you bra burners!"
Women have always, and will almost certainly continue to, prefer men with more resources. This is found cross culturally, in every society. "In any given year, the men whom women marry earn more than men of he same age whom women do not marry." Buss isn't arguing with or disagreeing with feminists; he's fully in agreement that men try to control resources and dominate women; he just stresses that this is due to genetics, and that women continue to reinforce that sort of behavior by their mate selection habits.
Diversity in Mating Strategies. Scientists long thought that men and women were largely identical in their mating strategies and interests. Women were thought to be almost entirely passive and interested only in a long term, monogamous relationship. We now know that this is not true, and there seem to be some clear evolutionary trends acting on women's mate selection criteria.The fact that women who are engaged in casual sex as opposed to committed mating change their mating desires to favor a man's extravagant life style and physical attractiveness tells us that women have specific psychological mechanisms designed for temporary mating. The fact that women who have extramarital affairs choose men who are higher in status than their husbands tells us that women have specific psychological mechanisms designed for temporary mating. And the fact that women shift to brief liaisons under predictable circumstances, such as a dearth of men capable of investing in them or an unfavorable ratio of women to men, tells us that women have specific psychological mechanisms designed for temporary mating.
Competition and Conflict in the Mating Arena. This section begins with a quote, "An unpleasant act of human mating is that desirable partners are always outnumbered by those who desire them." That's true, but it's only unpleasant if you're not one of the "desirable partners," I'd think. Men with high resources are desired by many women, but only the most attractive succeed. Beautiful women are desired by many men, but the women can pick only the best from their many suitors. "The combined qualities of kindness, intelligence, dependability, athleticism, looks, and economic prospects occur in the same person only rarely. Most of us must settle for someone who has less than the full complement of desirable characteristics." Thus is competition and conflict born.
Cooperation Between the Sexes. For all the conflict we deal with, men and women have always had to depend on each other to pass their genes onto the next generation. Each gender gains some benefits from infidelity, but each takes great risks in the process. Committed partners can give each other more and more valuable benefits than any series of casual sexual encounters. We just need to find a partner who will fulfill our needs, and allow us to fulfill theirs.Labels: psychology, the evolution of desire
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