[1, 2, 3]
Infidelity
Chapter 2
It is also important to differentiate between the two major types
of infidelity. The classic one night stand, and the lasting affair.
One night stands tend to be frowned upon, but are not considered
socially unacceptable. Thus, the existence of prostitutes. They
thrive on the male desire for sexual pleasure without the strings
attached. Very few marriages ever end in divorce because of a one
night fling. Affairs on the other hand, are much less tolerated.
They tend to be messy things, in which it is guaranteed that no
one will come out unscathed. Someone always has to be the loser
in this game, and the marriage is quite likely to crumble as a result.
Are men and women genetically engineered to be faithful in marriage?
Well, that depends on how you look at it. On one hand, Desmond Morris
and other acclaimed zoologists claim that humans fall into the category
of being a "pair-bonding" species. They claim that love
between man and woman, and consequently human sexuality exists as
an evolutionary need to have a male around to help raise children,
thus strengthening the pair-bond relationship.
On the other hand falls natural selection. The premise of this
widely accredited two part theory consists firstly of women seeking
mates with the best possible genes and the most to invest in offspring,
and secondly, the man mating with as many females as possible to
ensure that his genes survive. Unfortunately, this causes a bit
of conflict between man's and women's natural tendencies as humans.
There are numerous biological indications that suggest fidelity
is not as "natural" as we might wish it to be. Some interesting
examples include:
- Women are much more likely to become pregnant from intercourse
with a lover than her husband, even if she has sex more often
with her husband.
- There is a correlation between testicle size and occurrence
of extra-marital sex.
- Males have a much higher sex drive than women because their
potential rate of reproduction is significantly higher than women's.
- Studies show that men produce more sperm when they are apart
from their wives, if they were together all day, the amount of
ejaculate is less then when they have been apart all day. The
theory behind this being that one man's sperm is another man's
spermicide, thus improving the chances of the husband's genes
surviving, in case his wife had had sex with another man while
he was away.
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