Thomas, I read the same article, and thought it was very interesting. I was struck particularly with the fact that while a majority of women were more threatened by the outside emotional attachments of the men they were in relationships with, and men were more threatened by outside sexual attachments in women they loved, there were distinct minority views in both men and women in every culture they included in the study. In other words, how we view outside threats to the fidelity of our relationships may be based quite a bit on how secure and confident we feel, and on our own early models.
This is all very complicated. I personally have found that men I have known become emotionally attached to women just as quickly, if not more so, than women do when they enter a sexual relationship. I have never found the stereotype that men can have sexual relationships without significant feelings involved to be true at all.
Pair bonding seems to last without significant effort for about three years in every culture, long enough to conceive and bear a child, and see the child through its infancy. The effort involved in maintaining a romantic relationship beyond that point requires a lot of work!
I think it is possible but difficult, and the societal emphasis on commitment, as well as subtle ostracism if the bond collapses, exerts pressure of which we may not even be fully aware.
One theme I notice is that a lot of the men in the circles around me lose much of their interest in sex and romance in their forties. The women seem to get more interested!! Men wanting friendship, security, routine, women wanting more!! This is a very hard problem to solve. I wonder what the biological imperative is in men reaching the peak of sexual interest in their midteens, and women perhaps twenty years later.
Does anyone know the answer to this question?
Christine |
