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But here was clear evidence that females would actively engage in “adulterous solicitations” with males from other societies. As Hrdy revealed to a scandalized scientific community, the genetic benefits that came from seeking extra-pair matings—while maintaining the support of an existing partner—meant that evolution could favor females who choose to cheat.
Yet women do have affairs, a phenomenon that, up until now, has been explained by the ‘good genes hypothesis’: the concept that women have evolved a dual mating strategy – securing investment from one man while mating on the side with men who have better genes than their regular partners.
But the good genes hypothesis fails to explain why, in the wake of infidelity, so many women literally stray, throwing over a current mate for the affair partner. My team’s new concept – the mate-switching hypothesis – fills the gap in scientific understanding, explaining what we observe in the real world. The mate-switching hypothesis posits that women have affairs to extricate themselves from a poor mateship and trade up to a better partner.
For both sexes, the hypothesis explains what we commonly observe: a year after publicly declaring her marriage vows, a woman finds herself sexually attracted to her co-worker. After changing his child’s fifth diaper of the day, a man wonders whether he made a terrible mistake and fantasises about his high-school sweetheart that got away. After six years of marriage, a woman finds that she’s the primary breadwinner and her husband’s laziness has eroded her confidence in their union; she notices that her co-worker lingers longer in the doorway of her office than strictly needed. After years of living a life of quiet desperation, a man starts a passionate affair with his next-door neighbour. A woman confesses to her best friend that she’s in love with another man and surreptitiously lays the groundwork for leaving her husband – a separate bank account and a deposit on an apartment.
These diverse scenarios stem from a common cause – humans have evolved strategic adaptations for mate-switching, a phenomenon that is widespread across species. The simplest such adaptation is the ‘walk-away’ strategy, in which organisms simply physically separate themselves from costly cooperative partners. The mate-switching hypothesis proposes a version of the walk-away strategy underpinned by human psychological adaptations designed to detect and abandon costly mates in favour of more beneficial ones.
Many in modern cultures grow up believing a myth about lifelong love. We are told about falling for the one and only. We learn that the path to fulfilment is paved with a single glorious union. But the plots of fictional love stories often come to a close upon the discovery of that one and only, and rarely examine the aftermath. The story of Cinderella ends with her getting the prince. After overcoming countless obstacles, a union is finally consummated. Few romantic fantasies follow the storyline of committed mating – the gradual inattentiveness to each other’s needs, the steady decline in sexual satisfaction, the exciting lure of infidelity, the wonder about whether the humdrum greyness of married life is really all life has to offer.
In fact, we come from a long and unbroken line of ancestors who went through mating crises – ancestors who monitored mate value, tracked satisfaction with their current unions, cultivated back-ups, appraised alternatives, and switched mates when conditions proved propitious. To understand why, we must turn our gaze to those ancestors and uncover the mating challenges that they confronted.
In the context of these struggles, humans evolved a menu of mating strategies, of which long-term committed pair-bonding became central. A committed mate could provide meat during cold winters when no berries were blooming. A long-term partner could offer protection from hungry predators and hostile humans. Life mates could nurture one’s children, the invaluable vehicles that carried precious genetic cargo into the future. Long-term mating, in short, offered a bounty of benefits, aiding in combat against all three classes of human struggles.
But something could always go wrong. An initially promising hunter could get hobbled by injury or infection. A regular partner could get bitten by a poisonous spider, wounded in battle, or killed in inter-group warfare. Or his status within the group could plummet, decreasing his privileged priority for access to the group’s critical resources. A partner’s mate value, initially promising an upward path, could suffer calamitous setbacks. Long-term mate selection is all about future trajectory, and the future often carries with it treachery and tragedy.
The vagaries of life provided new prospects for our ancestors to trade up in the mating market
Another challenge facing a committed mateship is that more valuable mates, initially not present or not available, sometimes appear on the scene. Your mate value might rise, rendering you attractive to potential mates who were initially uninterested. A previously unavailable potential mate could suddenly become unencumbered due to the death or desertion of their own partner. The fusion of two separate tribes could present a fresh wealth of mating opportunities. In short, the vagaries of life provided new prospects for our ancestors to trade up in the mating market.
And on the flip side, individuals could find themselves on the losing end of a partner who becomes disenchanted. A husband might start an affair, diverting valuable family resources to another woman and her children. A man might feel that his status entitles him to a second wife, halving the initial wife’s share of his resources. Or he might divorce her entirely, abandoning her and her two dependent children just as advancing age drags down her mate value and dims her own prospects for re-mating.
All of these ancestral challenges favoured the evolution of strategic solutions. Some solutions involve tactics of mate retention, motivations to fend off mate poachers, and hold on to an investing partner. These tactics range from vigilance to violence. But there existed another important suite of solutions – adaptations for mate-switching, to which we now turn.
Women are no more built for monogamy than men are. They are designed to keep their options open.
Evolutionary explanations have focused on the fitness benefits both men and women may gain by cheating. For men, "spreading their seed" among secret paramours provides a form of genetic insurance since they cannot know for sure that their pregnant partner is actually carrying their offspring. Women, seeking their own advantage, may be motivated to secretly poach high-quality sperm from testosterone-heavy types and bring it back to be raised by loyal and caring types, or use affairs as preparation for "trading up" for a more fit male if the current relationship sours.
Evolutionary psychology also predicts that:
- Men would be motivated to guard more against sexual infidelity since it puts at risk their access to the woman’s womb.
- Women, on the other hand, supposedly are more sensitive to emotional infidelity on the part of their partner, since they stand to lose the most if their male partner leaves for good and takes his resources elsewhere.
Sexual Conflict in Human Mating | David Buss | TEDxVienna
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"A lady saw a woman in the street whom she believed (probably correct) was having an affair with her husband. She attempted to walk on by, ignoring the other woman; however, as she passed her, she noticed what she took to be a look of self-satisfaction on her face. This provoked a sudden surge of anger, and she turned and grabbed the woman's coat. Holding her firmly by the collar, she warned the woman to keep away from her husband. In gripping hold of the woman's clothing, she somehow caused a degree of constriction around the woman's throat, who began to make choking noises, presumably in an attempt to breathe against the constriction. The sound of the other woman's attempt to breathe triggered in the jealous assailant an association with the heavy breathing and cries of orgasm. For her, the grasping for breath became the sounds of the woman's orgasm with her husband. At this point, she lost control and in truth throttled her unfortunate rival." (The Dangerous Passion)
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