Wednesday 21st October, Slick’s room, 16:55
Rumours of my demise have been greatly exaggerated!
By which I mean, I’m sorry I have not blogged for ages. I really do wish I could write with more consistency, but when the mood doesn’t strike me, it doesn’t strike me. I’d promise to update more regularly, but you all know I would fail, so I will promise simply, once again, to try my hardest. Also, I seem to have misplaced the notebook I was using to help inspire me… no matter, I’m sure it will turn up.
My personal mild guilt and being a terrible blogger aside, let us consider the question at hand. The blog I have in mind today stems directly from a conversation I had with Rebel lately. Rebel is a biologist, and he shared an interesting puzzle with me. All animals, he tells me, have specific breeding patterns. Some, like lobsters, some types of penguins, some types of seal, some types of bird, mate for life. They are faithful to their partner, and produce lots of offspring over a lifetime. This is a good, stable breeding strategy in a population which has roughly equal numbers of males and females. Some animals have an alpha male with a harem of women (lions, for example, and some species of deer/antelope). This is also a good strategy: the alpha male exemplifies the most successful genes, and these genes are passed on to the next generation. Genetic diversity comes from the fact that there are multiple females involved, and also the occasional crafty “satellite male” who gets his leg over while the alpha male isn’t looking, thus sneaking his genes into the gene pool. Some animals have many indiscriminate partners, which also ensures a good deal of diversity. There are many different strategies, but the main point is this: seemingly all animals have one cohesive mating strategy, and they stick to it.
Now here’s the relevant question: what is the human mating strategy? We appear to contain elements of all of them. Many people mate “for life”; settle down, get married, have kids, have grandkids etc. But we are all aware that the system isn’t that simple: many of those people cheat on each other. Many people choose one “mate for life”, and then subsequently change their minds and upgrade to a new “mate for life”. Many people choose to mate indiscriminately. Some people (rock stars, for example) act as “alpha males”, holding exclusive access to a “harem” of groupies. Once again, it seems that we humans, with our big brains and our big libido’s, are the exception to the rule.
Now, Hollywood, and society in general, will tell us that the way to “win” the game of life is to fall in love with that one special person, get married and settle down- so that would lead me to the suggestion that “mate for life” is really our thing. But, it must be acknowledged, hollywood, and society in general, are full of crap. Something like a third of marriages end in divorce (although, admittedly, that means that most of them do “succeed”); and in many of those marriages which do stay together, it must be acknowledged, statistically speaking, that someone has probably had an affair. Affairs outside marriage are so endemic in human history and imagination that they seem to be hardwired into our society, into the very notion of marriage itself (after all, the “forsaking all others” vow in the marriage service is aimed specifically at combating this insidious threat to good social order). Finally, it must also be acknowledged that the search for “the one” is a search fraught with perils, missteps, drunken one night stands, and all those people who you thought were “the one” but who, it turns out, were not. All of this leads me to the conclusion that, if humans are meant to mate for life, we really, really suck at it. Personally I’m inclined to blame our intellects: while a mate-for-life animal, seeing an available alternate partner, would simply not think to attempt anything, because they “know”/genetically intuit that it is more beneficial in the long run to stay with one partner, a human will think “hmm, I wonder if/how I can mate with this person with any negative consequences”. Our minds and our urges team up in a deadly tag team combo against our better judgements.
Of course, it is also possible to view the puzzle form another angle. Perhaps it is the case that humans are “meant” to have multiple, indiscriminate partners, and we have simply been lulled into this idyllic “partner for life” idea by the inscrutable machinations of society. Part of me is tempted to blame religion, but let’s not open that can of worms today. This would explain the human lust for cheating and philandering, and the position held by some that the whole “marriage+kids=happiness” deal is off anyway, and that eternal bachelorhood (or maybe celibacy) is an option to be equally considered. Of course, this position would have to explain those anomalous people who do stay together for life, and i’m not sure it can- other than dismissing them as anomalies, or explaining them via other socio-economic/religious factors.
As should be apparent, both solutions to this enigma I have proposed are incapable of explaining all of the facets: if we should mate for life, why don’t we stick with our partners? If we should mate with lots of people, why do some stick with one person? I think then, that the only response which can be offered is to say that humans are, unsurprisingly, unique in this regard. We are confused about what we want, and our massive intellects elevate us beyond the point where instinct would choose for us. We are at the mercy of the twin forces of nature and nurture. And personally, I quite like it like that- I don’t want to be told that there is one girl out there for me, who I should stick with come hell or high water- but nor would I like to be told that there is definitely not such a person, and that I will be forever adrift in a sea of promiscuity, or, at best, serial monogamy.
Does anyone else think the phrase “sea of promiscuity” conjures up rather unsavoury imagery?
You can thank me some other time.
Slick
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