Tiger Woods, Part 2: Men and Monogamy
This series is an answer to the oft-repeated question, “Why do men get married men and then stray?” Short answer: he’s hard-wired to do both. For the long answer, keep on reading.
In part 1, I described the evolutionary reasons why nature selected for the genes of promiscuous high sex drive (PHSD) men while the genes of nonpromiscuous low sex drive (NLSD) men were weeded out of existence. All men living today have inherited much of those PHSD genes, which is why they find commitment and fighting the urge to cheat so difficult.
Some people in the comments section made a good point, such as Athol Kay:
In you example of PHSD men you completely neglect the importance of the father staying around to raise the child and protect it. No point fathering 10 kids if only 2 of them make it to adulthood and manages to breed.
Plus PHSD men tend to be a strategy for failure if the market becomes flooded with them. The average NLSD men will out perform the average PHSD men in that marketplace.
There is a natural dynamic that balances your PHSD and NLSD numbers.
I didn’t neglect the concepts Athol mentioned. I was just saving them for this post. Athol is right and wrong at the same time. He’s right that today’s human children need less promiscuous men who stick around and invest resources in them in order to survive. He’s right that there have been evolutionary selection pressures that made and still make purely promiscuous high sex drive behavior a strategy for reproductive failure.
What he’s wrong about though is the timing of these selection pressures that favored NLSD behaviors and genes. (This may get a little tricky so stay with me here) By the time such selection pressures favoring NLSD behaviors and genes began to play a role in human development, all the NLSD men were already weeded out of existence and only PHSD genes remained in the gene pool. So natural selection had to choose the most monogamous men out of a pool of men that only had extremely promiscuous men to choose from.
The mistake people often make in these analyses is what I call the pendulum fallacy. A pendulum is made up of three parts: the fixed point/pivot, the wire that hangs from the fixed point, and the bob/weight that hangs at the other end of the wire as you can see below.
What Athol was describing was something like the weighted bob at the bottom of the pendulum moving back and forth between promiscuity and monogamy. However the problem is that even though the bob is swinging back and forth from more promiscuous to more monogamous behavior, the entire apparatus, the whole pendulum, has moved to the promiscuous side. A similar thing happens with politics in this country. Even though the bob moves from liberal to conservative, the entire pendulum apparatus has gradually been moving leftward to the point where today’s conservative candidates are as far to the left as the liberal candidates of 40 years ago. The pendulum fallacy is when you spend too much time observing which direction the bob is swinging but fail to take into account which direction the whole pendulum apparatus itself is moving.
II.
Much of this is covered by Robin Dunbar in his very excellent, underrated evolutionary psychology book Grooming, Gossip and Language. He explains what occurred in human evolution that made paternal investment so necessary to successfully raising a child: increased brain size. As Dunbar states (emphasis added by me):
There were, however, hidden costs to developing large brains. If we plot the brain sizes of different species against their gestation periods in what is usually knows as “mouse-to-elephant” curve, we find that the two variables are closely related. Mice, with their tiny brains weighing only tens of grams, have a three-week pregnancy, whereas elephants, with their human-sized brains, have a 21-month pregnancy. The fact that all species of mammals lie close to the line between these two extremes suggests that brain tissue is laid down at a constant rate during pregnancy, at a rate determined by the mother’s ability channel spare energy into her foetus. In effect, it is the size of the baby’s brain that determines the length of pregnancy, and all species give birth when brain growth is more or less complete. Baby primates, for example, are born when their brains reach full size, with relatively little growth occurring after birth.
Humans, however, are an exception. A baby human is born when its brain is less than one-third its final size. The rest of its brain development continues over the first year of life. In fact, if we calculate the equivalent gestation period for a conventional mammal of our brain size, we arrive at a mind-boggling 21 month pregnancy. This corresponds exactly with the time it takes the human baby’s brain to complete its growth: nine months gestation in the womb plus an additional 12 months after birth.
One consequence of this is that human babies are born prematurely and incapable of fending for themselves. A baby monkey or ape is capable of walking within hours of its birth. Within a matter of weeks it is a competent member of its social group. The average human baby, by contrast, can barely muster even a gurgle to keep its long-suffering parents happy. By its first birthday, however, its brain is sufficiently developed to allow it to learn to walk and begin the serious business of living.
Our premature births became necessary because the human brain size took off at a time when we were actually getting smaller. We needed larger brains to cope with our bigger groups, but we were getting slimmer and shorter in response to other ecological pressures. This wouldn’t have been a problem were it not for the fact that the birth canal through which the infant passes as it is being born was only increasing as the square of body length whereas the brain size was increasing as the cube. Trying to squeeze an ever bigger head through what was becoming an ever smaller hole creates inevitable problems. Something had to give.
What gave was the timing of birth. Instead of giving birth to infants whose brains had completed their growth (as is typical of most other mammals), we compromised and gave birth at the earliest possible moment at which the baby could survive, and allowed it to complete its brain growth outside the womb. We give birth to appallingly premature babies. And this is why true premature babies, those born after only six or seven months of pregnancy, have such a difficult time; they really are teetering on the brink of survival – because even when they are on time, human babies are premature.
The costs of growing a large brain were thus considerable for our ancestors. The whole business of successful reproduction, of investment in one’s offspring, became drawn out and magnified. The human child takes proportionately longer than the 5 to 10 years typical of monkeys and apes to absorb all the necessary information and experiences into that little brain to allow it to cope with the social world into which it has been born. In humans, the learning process extends over a 15 to 20-year period. In effect, as brain size increases, so everything from pregnancy and the age at weaning to sexual maturation and the business of reproduction gets slowed down and strung out over a progressively longer period.
An increased parental role for males may well have become essential, because the females (can we now call them women?) could not bear the full costs of child care while foraging on their own. In other words, it must have been at this point that the unusually intense pair-bonding that occurs between human males and females first evolved.
Dunbar makes it clear that it took quite a while for humans to develop these huge brains we currently have. As a result, human children for quite some time didn’t require much paternal involvement to survive. Less resources were required for a child to thrive and survive. It’s during this era in human development that promiscuous high sex drive men thrived and out-reproduced nonpromiscuous low sex drive men until the latter’s genes were weeded out of existence because at that point it was still just a numbers game.
By the time brai
n size grew and the bob of the evolutionary pendulum moved back toward selecting less promiscuous men, it was too late. The entire pendulum had totally shifted in the direction of PHSD men and their genes. So the end result is that natural selection first favored the genes of the most polygamous, high sex drive men available. Then later on natural selection favored the most monogamous and responsible men out of that pool of PHSD men.
Which leaves us with the pathetically conflicted man we have today. If he was purely promiscuous, he’d be less tortured because he’d just run around fucking all day carefree without guilt. If he was purely monogamous he’d also be less tortured because he’d just spend his whole life with one woman and not feel any temptations to stray or cheat. But because of the process I’ve described in this series, modern man not only has a high sex drive but is also cursed with both a strong polygamous streak and a strong monogamous streak. He has evolved with the instinct to spread his seed and a nesting instinct to boot.
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Would you say then that modern men should find promiscuous (preferably high sex drive) women for open relationships?
That fits both the nesting and spreading instinct..
“But because of the process I’ve described in this series, modern man not only has a high sex drive but is also cursed with both a strong polygamous streak and a strong monogamous streak. He has evolved with the instinct to spread his seed and a nesting instinct to boot.”
I don’t think the two urges necessarily have to pull against each other. I mean, I thought it was pretty much established that human beings are by nature ‘serial monogamists,’ meaning that even the most alpha philanderer will naturally feel some urge to stay and take care of his kids for some period of time (albeit less than the omega male schmuck who, if he manages to reproduce with a female, will try to hold on to her as long as possible since there’s no telling if or when he’ll land another).
I think things get complicated when American society tells us “It’s all or nothing!,” essentially pressuring all men who get married to live like omegas. In Japan for example, it’s pretty much expected that after a man gets married and has kids and has settled down, he’s going to start playing around again. The wives’ attitude there is pretty much ‘As long as he’s taking care of his financial responsibilities and coming home once in a while, I don’t care what he does.’
If our norms were more in line with reality, I don’t think most alphas would have much of a problem with taking a breather for 3-5 years to ‘nest’ with one lucky female, if having kids was what he wanted to do. It’s only when we’re told that once you say “I do,” you’re done, that the problems arise.
The basic evolutionary psychology viewpoint of where we fall on the monogamy vs promiscuity spectrum is that humans fall between gorillas and chimps based on the studies done on testical size and sperm count and nature.
Don’t forget that female sexual selection plays a role here as well.
.-= Athol Kay: Married Man Sex Life´s last blog ..Sour Grapes vs Practice Makes Perfect =-.
Very insightful.
My grandpa balanced the two extremes very well. He fathered three children with my grandmother and cared for them all, but he also had numerous affairs and fathered at least one child with a mistress. I think I’ve taken after him; I love kids and have wanted to be a father since the time I was a child, but even my grandpa was impressed when he found out my notch count.
“Even though the bob moves from liberal to conservative, the entire pendulum apparatus has gradually been moving leftward to the point where today’s conservative candidates are as far to the left as the liberal candidates of 40 years ago. ”
Can you elaborate on this? Yes, we’ve moved leftward on certain social issues like women’s rights and homosexuality, but overall I would say we’ve moved far to the right from where we were 40 years ago. One obvious example is the retiring Justice Stevens – when he was appointed to the bench 35 years ago, he was considered a conservative; now, he’s probably the most liberal judge on the court. Similarly, starting with Nixon (and really going into full swing under Reagan) our representatives have methodically rolled back the liberal elements of the New Deal, replacing them with strongly corporate-oriented policies.
Actually politics is very weird right now. We definitely have moved towards the left in terms of the entire Welfare State that has sprung up. But at the same time politics is essentially funded and owned by special interest groups – of which huge corporations are some of the more prominent players. So that’s a move to the right.
All in all I just have an increasing sense that the Presidency is really just the Director of Human Resources and that’s about it. The Welfare State is just the health plan that the company offers. I have a vague sense that we all have “owners” in the bluepill sense of the word.
I mean supposedly it’s all about checks and balances, but if you have a big enough check you can usually find a way to the balance you need.
.-= Athol Kay: Married Man Sex Life´s last blog ..What I Suggest For My Own Daughters For Further Education. =-.
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Your post assumes that the human condition is homogenous. In actuality, humans have a genetic system of castes, in a similar way as do the social insects. We have the provider males, and the cads. Women have a dual mating strategy, and opt to mate with the providers, while cuckolding children with the cads.
The family man has his innate predisposition due to genetic influences, while the risk taking cad is also so influenced. Both rely on separate mating strategies. The former usually takes a provider role, while the later relies on seduction skills to mate with no commitment. Women are more attracted to the cad for sex, but try to not let that be known to the Dad type. In fact women are so adverse to self knowledge about their dual mating strategy that they are unable to tell when they are being turned on – as is documented by scientific studies that measure vaginal moisture while they look at various pictures.
The dual mating strategy of women, and the dual mating strategy of men is a fact of life that is taboo to talk about. Even more taboo are our genetic caste systems.
No it doesn’t.
It states that certain things, like the promiscuous urges of men, are universal, sure. What it doesn’t state is that all men express those urges the same way, hence your examples of alpha cads and beta providers, a concept I agree with but in no way goes against anything I said. that goes beyond the I’m not sure why you think explaining that evolutionary psychology concept somehow refutes what I said or fills in something I missed.
It’s extra information that goes beyond the scope of this specific article but was covered in previous posts I’ve done here.
My position is that the promiscuous urges of men are not homogenous, but are informed by genetically induced predispositions.
For example, risk taking is a genetically induced predisposition. My position is that the sexual strategy of dad or cad is pre-set at birth. Well, before birth. It’s inherited.
If you have come across the work of Bob Altmeyer and his book The Authoritarians, and if you’ve come across the research that shows that humans are genetically divided into two moral camps (google “genetic basis for morality), you can put those two concepts together to see that humans are very similar to the social insects, in that we are not homogenous at all in our innate predispositions.
I suspect that the authoritarian camp, who have the two “extra” moral codes that liberals lack – those of purity and respect for authority, also have the sexual strategy of being family oriented, and the males take the sexual strategy of being providers.
The opposite strategy is to not be a provider, and to cad around. The cads are risk takers who don’t have the same appreciation for authority – some will even play back-door man.
It should be no surprise that various game-theory sexual strategies should wind up being genetically encoded and give rise to predispostions.
Okay, this is what I don’t get. Both part 1 and part 2 of this series were all about how evolution created a genetic induced predisposition toward promiscuity. That’s the sole subject matter of the whole series: why men are genetically predisposed to want to bed multiple women.
That’s why I don’t understand why you say, “Your article’s premise is wrong, men actually act the way they do because of genetic predisposition,” when the actual sole premise of the article is just that: that men act they way they do because of genetic predisposition.
Yes. I agree. What in my articles suggest anything contrary to this? I say male tendencies to desire multiple partners is genetically induced predisposition. You add that so is risk taking. Fine. I don’t see how one is somehow mutually exclusive or disproves the other.
We both agree that men have a genetically induced propensity towards promiscuity. I’m not refuting that. I’m saying that this propensity is not distributed homogenously, and that it is so uneven that it makes sense to talk about an alpha and beta class, or a cad class and a family man class, or a bohemian class and an authoritarian class, etc.
I agree with your fundamental idea, but my addition to it is that the male condition is not one of deciding which strategy of dad or cad to take, but of being hugely influence by our innate predispostions, which vary among men, based on genes. Some men really want kids, some don’t. Some of us have high sex drives and want to be promiscuous, some don’t. I think this isn’t merely environmental conditioning, but genes playing out different sexual strategies and highjacking our brains into thinking we are making choices.
Dude…this whole series was about how sexual predispositions are genetically inherited. That was the ONLY thing this series was about. You’re refuting my premise by restating the exact same premise, but using an another compatible example.
Okay, that’s all well and good…and I’ve discussed those very concepts in other posts at length…but how does any of that refute my point that men are genetically inclined to desire a wide variety of partners?
The alpha cad may do his strategy and the beta provider may do his strategy but at the end of the day they are both motivated by a the genetic desire I described to bed a variety of women.
All this extra stuff you’re adding is accurate but its refuting nothing I’ve set forth.
I kind of see where you are going, and I agree with it for the most part, but it’s beyond the scope of this article. Going into what motivates and causes the beta provider vs. alpha cad dilemma and why some men choose one route and others choose the other would require a whole other article.
But I never said the beta provider vs. alpha cad dilemma stemmed solely from environmental influences, because I didn’t really touch on that topic at all. That’s why I don’t understand why you seem to be trying to refute some point I didn’t make about alpha cads and beta providers being wholely a result of environmental conditioning.
If you must know, I think genetic conditioning and environmental conditioning both work together as a reinforcing loop and that anyone who tries to solely blame one or the other is missing the big picture.
Yes, I’m adding extra stuff and not refuting what you set forth, as mentioned in the post I wrote above. We were writing at the same time.
I’m just emphasizing that men are not men, as a group. We are like social insects – we have worker men, police men, artist men, etc.
I think this idea will eventually become mainstream, and I’d like to help get it there. It’s very interesting to me that what seems to be a moral discussions winds up really being underpinned by game theory strategies being played out by our genes.
So yes, we agree, I’m just putting forth my pet theories about the human condition being a condition of castes, rather than a condition of various reactions to circumstances.
xsplat, i follow you now. fair enough, i can agree for the most part.
Is there a difference between monogamy and pair bonding. As we have seen with rates of adultery there is a difference. I see monogamy as being with one person for most of your life. i think what a lot of people do in our culture with divorce rates and mutiple ltr’s is serial pair-bonding is there a difference?