A brief commentary on the sexes for Valentine's Day. Here's to another year of better understanding between them. Happy Valentine's Day Chrissy, now don't stuff yourself on those allsorts.
Here we see thousands of years of recorded human history, and untold editions of "Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus," a problem of mutual expectations. He expected one thing (and got it), she expected another (and didn't). But, the real problem is that evolution has programmed the sexes to be, well, let's face it, incompatible.
ÿ ÿ ÿ ÿLewinsky's motor-mouthed counsel said this week that his client was understandably upset about the prospect of betraying "someone she loved." (Violin music, please.) Among the earlier leaks from the Tripp-Lewinsky tapes was a report that Monica had said that the president (whom she dubbed "the Creep") had told her that he would have a lot more free time after he left office. A lot more free time, young Monica presumed, to spend with her.
The good news is that humans are designed to fall in love. The bad news is that they aren't designed to stay there.
ÿ ÿ ÿ ÿLadies and gentleman, I surrender. Here is a perfectly pleasant, moderately attractive twentysomething psychology graduate of Lewis and Clark College talking about the leader of what used to be known as the free world as though he were some fraternity scamp who stood her up on a Saturday night.
ÿ ÿ ÿ ÿHere is a former White House intern musing that she just might jog off into the sunset with a free Willie. I mean, the nerve, the chutzpah, the presumption. The gall of that young woman - to fall in love, of all things. Did any of the 10,000 virgins provided to Shaka, the 19th-century king of the Zulus, ever wonder if the king might give her a shirt-dress from the Black Dog on Martha's Vinyard? Why, Bill Clinton must be wondering, couldn't she just do her maidenly duty and let that be the end of it? But, alas, the love-sick Lewinsky is only following what's in her genes, and that goes for the fellow she also refers to as The Big He.
ÿ ÿ ÿ ÿYou see, it was evolution first (and Hallmark greeting cards second) that have shaped human love. The good news, says author Robert Wright in his fine book, "The Moral Animal," is that humans are designed to fall in love. The bad news is that they aren't designed to stay there. Wright is one among a new class of scientists known as evolutionary psychologists who peer through the mists of prehistory to find the antecedents for our behavior today. And what it all comes down to is that many of the comical things we do in 1998 are the legacy of the behavior that enabled our ancestors to get their genes into the next generation, which is the sole purpose of evolution.
ÿ ÿ ÿ ÿBiology is destiny. Women can push their genes into the next generation at best once a year for a limited amount of time. But men are programmed to potentially pump their genes into the next generation a half-dozen times a day for many more years. For each male, every new sexual partner represents another chance to get Junior into nursery school. Moulay ("the Bloodthirsty") Ismail, the last Sharifian Emperor of Morocco, who died in 1727, fathered more than 1,000 children. Every Tom, Dick and Harry can potentially sire as many. The president is simply programmed like Moulay the Bloodthirsty to get his genes into the next generation. Of course, there were no tabloids or independent prosecutors in Moulay's day.
Women can push their genes into the next generation once a year. Men are able to do it six times a day{ha, maybe some are, mmm my comment}
ÿ ÿ ÿ ÿWomen, by the same token, are programmed to find someone who has good genes and the power to protect their potential offspring. In the case of Monica, the ancestral woman inside of her saw an Alpha Male, a fellow who has already produced one child and is the most powerful provider in the immediate vicinity. (George Stephanoupolis was unavailable.) In other words, what her ancestral self saw was a Good Catch.
ÿ ÿ ÿ ÿBut here is the irony that keeps divorce lawyers in Armani suits. Both men and women are programmed to maximize their genetic investment. The problem is that that desire puts the sexes on a collision course. The way women maximize their investment is to find one powerful man to bond with. The way men increase their investment is to spread their seed as widely as possible. Message to Monica: Don't count on the Creep. Message to Bill: Even the humblest intern is looking for love in all the wrong places (in this case, the Oval Office.)
Here is the irony that keeps divorce lawyers in Armani suits. Both men and women are programmed to maximize their genetic investment.
ÿ ÿ ÿ ÿIn his book, Wright cites a study that sadly explains the disjunction in expectations between Bill and Monica. The study is of the minimal level of intelligence that men and women would accept in a person they were "dating." The most common response for both male and female was "average intelligence." But how intelligent would that "date" have to be before men and women would agree to have sex with that person? Women's answer: More intelligent. Men's answer: Gee, in that case, they could be less bright.
ÿ ÿ ÿ ÿAnd while Monica found her Rhodes Scholar, Bill probably didn't care all that much that she doesn't really understand the separation of powers.
ÿ ÿ ÿ ÿ
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rick Stengel is a senior editor at Time magazine and a regular contributor to MSNBC.
ÿ ÿ ÿ ÿ
ÿ
ÿ
|
