The Evolutionary Advantage of Falling in Love

As a group, yes, that's true.

You laughed too quickly ...without thinking.

Married men are almost always older than their spouses.

Legal responsibility is the big difference.

Baron Max

 

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So how does that differ from Sam's statement? I'm not saying she, or you are wrong. It just contradicts what I've read in the past, which also may not be accurate either.

No no. I wasn't talking about the age difference. I was talking about who straight up typically dies first, which is the man.

From who's standpoint, the bride/groom or the legal system?
I really don't think legal standpoint is the first thing on a woman's mind when she is planning to get married.

 

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After i wrote that i thought: women are possessive too. this makes the scenario even less likely. HUMANS...HUMANs are possessive.

 

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Which sources?

Single/married women live longer than single/married men; single women live longer than married women (apparently).

 

Various little articles online and in magazines (like msn.com, etc.). It made perfect sense, since married couples have a more stable and less stress lifestyle (typically) than single people do.

You know why men tend to die earlier than the women?
They want to!!

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Well, remember, apes and gorillas are possessive, too. But the alpha male still keeps the females in his harem. Why would early man be any different?

I think as humans, we desperately want to think of humans as "different" to the animals, but they ain't ...we're all just animals.

Baron Max

 

Interesting thoughts.
Let me attempt to answer that, although, my analysis goes right against anything and everything that the West believes in.

Have you ever seen mammalian males in the wild fall in love with females and bond with them? O.K. there are instances but they are so rare that they constitute the exception, not the rule -- according to Bruce Bagemihl, just 5%.

I mean, male-female love occurs only in birds (I can't think of any other species where this happens). In mammals, particularly, there is only lust in the male for female, and that too is not a constant, exclusive kind of desire that the Western society claims is typical of men. It is highly periodic, (in the wild these periods are called the mating season), and in most cases by the time the male spills his stuff into the female the male interest is already over. I mean I have seen instances on Discovery channel, e.g., where the male Cheetah did not even wait for the sex to be over, when he saw 'food'. He left the female alone to grab the food, and when the female wanted a share of it, he chased her off. Not surprisingly, the programme described him as the most dominant male in the area, the alpha male.

On the other hand, the few cases of male-female bonding that has been observed in the wild has been between females and queer males. There too, at least the females keep the males only as long as she needs him to rear the young, like in the case of 'red fox', where a rare kind of male is observed, which likes mating with females but doesn't fight with the rest of the males for the chance to mate. When the males who want to mate have done so after winning fights, some females, who do not have other females to help raise their young ones, allow this 'queer' male to live with them till the young ones grow up and leave (around six months, if I remember correctly). Although, he too may get a chance to mate with the female during this period, in all likelihood he ends up raising the kids of the more masculine males. But his reward is the bonding with the female that this allows him. Such rare heterosexual behavious has also been witnessed in sea lions, where a particular kind of rare, 'different' male, seeks to bond with a female in the mating season... and away from the hustle and bustle of other sea lions, quietly finds a female with which he spends the entire mating season. Often, he comes back to meet the same female again and again. It seems, it is heterosexuality which is the alternate sexuality in the wild.

Male-female love is not only a peculiarly human phenomenon, but actually a Western phenomenon, with its base in Christianity. In the rest of the world, in the rest of the societies, men were supposed to fall in love with women. They were only seen to lust after women, and this lust was by no means limited to women. The rest of the world insisted that men marry but that had to do nothing with love but with the need for reproduction. And that is the difference between the West and the non-West.

I believe, any kind of natural bonding can only happen between two men, two women or two queers... however, women and male queers too can bond well, because they're both feminine. And perhaps by the same logic some masculinised women and men. But it is not normal for men and women to bond under natural circumstances. The West completely breaks men from men, and so they have no where else to go but invest all their emotions into women, especially when they are pressurised to. Although, admittedly, some men do fit into this role more readily than others, and some start to dig it too... I have observed, during my work, males who fall in love with women, and those that just seek them for sex or do not have girlfriends at all. I am positive that those who tend to fall in love tend to be on the effeminate side. Whereas, on the other extreme macho men don't seem to be comfortable in female company at all. Of course, its a different thing that they may keep females as social symbols of manhood in Western countries. In non-Westernized spaces they would just hate to do it. In fact, in these cultures, too much intimacy with women whether it is physical, social or emotional is seen as "queer".

I mean I remember in 2000, when I was a college trainee in an office, in a small Indian town, there was a guy in my office who was head over heels in love with a girl, and would spend most of his time with the girls, in order to be with his love. The macho guys started to call him a "Queer" or "Eunuch" (in Hindi 'Shikhandi'). He was a bit effeminate too.

In traditional, non-Westernized societies, men marry because that is what is expected of them socially. However, both in the West and in traditional societies, men typically are seen as running away from marriage (not to desire it), and to see it as something that is extremely uncomfortable for them. You have all those marriage jokes as a testimony to that.

Marriage is also a 'social manhood' role for men. In non-Western societies, if you're not married, people start questioning your manhood. You are seen as 'impotent'. Therefore, that is why men marry. Marriage is also a religious as well as social duty, and if you don't do it you're seen as a 'waste', of no use to the society, and don't really have a social space. You have no means of social support when you get old. And that's the third reason for men to get married -- (1) threat of losing manhood, (2) A religious/ social duty and, (3) fear of losing all social space and being isolated.

Manhood is the most precious thing for masculine gendered males, and the most important reason for men to get married.

In the West, however, where the pressures to get married have weaned a lot, men today hardly marry... I think, I read a study somewhere which said only around 20% men got married in Western Europe.

However, men in the West are under extreme pressure to be heterosexual, which has replaced 'marriage' as the role of 'social manhood'. If you don't prove your constant, undying and exclusive sexual interest in women, you will almost certainly be denied manhood (that is the 'straight' identity) and be placed with the 'queers' (as a homosexual).

That is one strong reason, why so many Western men have girlfriends. If you don't have a girl in your social space, then your 'sexuality' (which the West confuses with gender) starts to be questioned... and questioning your sexuality in the West tantamounts to questioning your 'manhood', since 'manhood' (or straight) is defined as 'heterosexual', while queerness is defined as 'man to man desire".

Unless men have a girl alongside them, in their group, men don't feel secure with their manhood. Keeping girls around you, as an individual, enhances your 'manliness' in the eyes of the heterosexual society which relentlessly propagate 'heterosexuality' as 'masculine' and 'macho', especially through media and entertainment, which influences the youth particularly intensely, who do their best to fit in.

References:

 

I suggest you have a look at Matt Ridley's The Red Queen. You will find your answer there.

See here: http://books.google.com/books?id=fHnBMyxYXX4C&printsec=frontcover

See here: http://books.google.com/books?id=fHnBMyxYXX4C&printsec=frontcover

See here: http://books.google.com/books?id=fHnBMyxYXX4C&printsec=frontcover

 

Masculinity does not have much or anything to do with marriage. I think the reasons are the same for both men and women. One reason is security both general security and secure in believing that the person you are involved with will be faithful or cannot walk away from the relationship without putting some effort into it.

 

You're right if we consider the Western society. In the West, marriage has little to do with manhood. But remember, in the West, heterosexuality has replaced 'marriage' as the criteria for granting social manhood by the forces that control manhood.

In India and other non-Western countries, if you refuse to get married, you better have solid, acceptable reasons, otherwise, your manhood is always questioned. It doesn't matter if you have no sexual interest in women at all. What is required for marriage and hence, for manhood is that you can do the needful and produce kids. Traditionally, marriage is not a heterosexual institution, nor for heterosexuals. It is an institution to help in producing and raising kids in a controlled fashion -- quite unlike mammals, but in the same way as 'birds'.

 

How could you possibly prove that an animal is in love with another? I don't see why you picked out birds from the cornucopia of life; wouldn't apes be more likely to share in human characteristics?
Females are more selective with their mates, yes, as they have the most to lose from a sexual encounter. This means that males are the ones who show off and initiate courtship most of the time. However, I still fail to comprehend how sexual eagerness indicates love.

 

Well, I guess there can be some indicators. Like long term committment. Pair bonding for a significant period of time. Caring and tendering for the other.
All of these are missing from the sexual interactions between mammalian males and females. Furthermore, males do not ever take part in offspring rearing.

Because, birds are the only species where heterosexual bonding takes place. I mean males and females set up pairs, live together and raise their kids together. I think the marriage institution was inspired by observing 'bird' behaviour.

Just as a side note, romance between couples in Hindi films often compare love between man and woman with that of birds. Probably that is also how the term 'love birds' was coined.

Yes. However, I have yet to read a documentation of pairing between male and female apes for any significant duration. Like other mammals, apes too either tend to live in all-male and all-female groups (there is also a third sex group), or in all-male groups and harems.

I don't think sexual eagerness or lust constitutes love.

 

How can you possibly prove that a human animal is in love with another human?

Coyotes mate for life, as well as some fox. When the mate dies, the other literally wastes away until death comes. That's pretty conclusive, ain't it? Even humans don't love that well or deeply, do they?

Baron Max

 

Huh? How could anyone know something like that? And then, Fraggle, to repeat it in your own post leads me to question your good sense.

I know that you're a wordy old fart, but surely even you, even covering it all up with ooddles of words, can't possibly believe that anyone could know that.

It takes months for a woman to "show", so how could a male, in a communal, tribal-like setting, possibly know it was his child? Makes no fuckin' sense!

Baron Max

 

No, because it is completely unheard of for humans to waste away into despair after their spouse dies. Have you ever heard of voluntary Sati?

We can prove humans fall in love because it is humans who invented the concept in the first place.

 

So humans just saying something makes it proof?

Humans may have "invented" love, but what is it? Just words? Or do we hav any proof that such a thing exists? And, of course, if humans can love, then animals must be able to love, too. Afterall, we're just animals, right?

Baron Max

 

Humans have created poetry, music, novels, art and film which all depict the agony and joy of falling in love - as well as our attempts to make sense of it. If we prove something, we prove it to the human race, and most of us don't need to be told what love feels like.

As for your last point - so animals can do everything humans can? What if other mammals' aren't as developed in their cognitive abilities as us?