7 ms·

Here's an uncomfortable thought: an effective 1-to-1 mapping between men and women probably doesn't exist. The fact of the matter is that women are primarily i

Here's an uncomfortable thought: an effective 1-to-1 mapping between men and women probably doesn't exist. The fact of the matter is that women are primarily interested in a top smaller percentage of high value men (this is called hypergamy). This smaller group of desirable men would most like to have multiple mates (this is called polygamy). Marriage, and the accompanying culture and customs, 'corrects' this by trying to create a 1-to-1 mapping. Both extreme strategies described are traditionally shamed and discouraged. Why? Because marriage (monogamous long-term bonding) is good for society. It incentivizes the largest amount of people to be productive, and reduces civil unrest by distributing sexual access to women across as many men as possible. For more on sex and society, check out J.D. Unwin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._D._Unwin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._D._Unwin Now, how this relates to the OP. The fact of the matter is that people become unhappy in a relationship of any kind when they think they are getting the short end of the stick, and could be doing better. They'll rationalize it six ways to Sunday, "my partner doesn't understand me", "my partner smothers me", "they don't do enough chores", "we don't understand ourselves", whatever, but at the end of the day they think they ought to have a better mate, and are fed up with their current one! This is especially true of women, who, by pure numerical inevitability, largely marry below what they would prefer. We know that women initiate most divorces too, at ~70% (fun fact: among college-eduated couples, that number rises to 90%). A smaller amount of men end up locked to one person too, when they know in another world they could have more mates. Such are the sacrifices for the monogamous society (often referred to as patriarchal, because women are more sexually restricted). So in conclusion, what bothers me about articles like this, who delve deep into rationalizations instead of simple mate value and attractiveness, is the implication of a 1-to-1 mapping between men and women. Is there a right person to marry, for most people? Probably not.

epimetheus 11y ago
>but at the end of the day they think they ought to have a better mate, and are fed up with their current one I don't know if this is true across the board. I don't feel that way entirely, more along the lines of "I'm stuck in this situation; kids, a marriage where I get no real benefit, I just want to be free and do what I want and not have to bow to their whims." I know several people, right now, that have been divorced for some time (5+ years, and in one case 10+ years) and don't even date or have interest in dating. Their motivations seem aligned more with mine than wanting a better mate - In fact, If I end up getting a divorce (we have agreed to try and work it out, again), I have no interest in dating again, at least not for a while. FWIW, I'm 38, and the people I'm referencing are older than me, some as much as 12+ years older, so maybe it's an age thing.
- zxcvvcxz 11y ago
  Maybe an age thing, hormones do die down I hear! But I doubt these people you're talking about (yourself included) are all celibate though. > "I'm stuck in this situation; kids, a marriage where I get no real benefit, I just want to be free and do what I want and not have to bow to their whims." Unless you're celibate, then this is equivalent to wanting to be with another mate, as that is what will happen. Not to discount the rationalizations, by all means freedom beats family for a lot of people. The latter is necessarily a sacrifice of the former.
  - noselfrighteous 11y ago
    No, that rings hollow to me. Humans are sophisticated enough to genuinely have other needs aside from primal mating urges. Self-actualization is a huge one and more than sufficient to be the primary motivator for someone seeking to leave a family/marriage situation.
    - gohrt 11y ago
      And yet, statistically, very few people have self-actualization urges beyond using them as a means to attract a mate and reproducing.
      - ionised 11y ago
        Few, not zero.
      - noselfrighteous 11y ago
        You say statistically but you don't have any references to support that statement. My anecdotal experience says otherwise.
  - epimetheus 11y ago
    >Unless you're celibate Pretty much, rough marriage, sex with each other isn't something they want even if you do. Needless to say, more than 12 months go by between 'action.' Right now we are together for finances and the kiddo. But I still have to deal with all of the negatives. I might hook up with others once everything is normal, but really the primary motivator isn't sex or a better mate, it's just freedom to better my career and myself. Right now it's all about her career and me dealing with the kid.
manyoso 11y ago
"The fact of the matter is that people become unhappy in a relationship of any kind when they think they are getting the short end of the stick, and could be doing better." This is such a pithy statement, used with such simple compelling force, that I applaud it even while disagreeing. Some points that counter this message: 1) What percentage of partners that end up leaving the marriage do so with another partner lined up? 2) Of the percentage that do not - a sizable set I would assume - how many exited after long-term (years?) relationships? 3) Of the percentage that did - another sizable set I would assume - what caused the reasoning process to take so long? Why didn't they conclude they could do better earlier? I would argue most people go into marriage with at least some amount of good faith effort to make it last. Why do they make such a good faith effort in the first place if they are operating as you would say?
- zxcvvcxz 11y ago
  Thanks, I've been working on my over-the-top writing style as it sparks discussion and draws attention. > 1) What percentage of partners that end up leaving the marriage do so with another partner lined up? According to [1], surveys show that 55% of people say infidelity is a contributing factor in the divorce. And that's probably just the ones that know (as it is often kept a secret), so we can take this number as a floor of the actual. "Lined up" - implying future relationship - doesn't matter so much as "other partner involved" which is to what this refers, and is my point. Even without infidelity, the exiting partner could have potentials "lined up" that they'd rather date (than stay married). > 2) Of the percentage that do not - a sizable set I would assume - how many exited after long-term (years?) relationships? I don't know. I'm sure it's possible to be repulsed by someone you're married to without knowing exactly who you'd go out with next. > 3) Of the percentage that did - another sizable set I would assume - what caused the reasoning process to take so long? Why didn't they conclude they could do better earlier? Marriage is (was) a very hard contract to annul. That's the point of it. These people are often fighting these feelings for years: weighing their natural biological impulses against higher-level rational thought. Rational thought that has been crafted from the narratives of a culture, encouraging marriage as a virtue. The impulses come from diminished pair bonding chemicals and more enticing (and realistically accessible) mating opportunities. > I would argue most people go into marriage with at least some amount of good faith effort to make it last. Why do they make such a good faith effort in the first place if they are operating as you would say? Of course. The key is that they don't know how they're operating. They don't understand that we've evolved multi-year chemical bonding capabilities to help us raise young children, and that after those fade, shit gets tough, and the lure of bonding with someone new/better (new is a form of better, genetic diversity and all that) becomes more attractive. The bond dies quicker if a better partner is easily accessible, btw. These types of mechanisms are necessary to help women select for better genes. [1] - http://www.divorce.usu.edu/files/uploads/lesson3.pdf http://www.divorce.usu.edu/files/uploads/lesson3.pdf
cryoshon 11y ago
In practice biologically, sure, you're right, but it's tough to look beyond the tribal-cultural ingrainment of marriage into people's psyches... sure, people may always fantasize about doing better than they currently are, but in how many people will those thoughts turn into actions? There's too many contented or at least not actively dissatisfied people to support the idea you're discussing in practice, though I agree it's theoretically plausible. Rather than a question of sexual access relative to resources, I'd reframe it for the 21st century as a mutual understanding of shared needs and shared solutions to those needs. Sure, not everyone can fill every need for every other person, but it's probably better than going without, which is why the pragmatic mate choice also provides genuine positive emotion, even if it's not the "maximum" need fulfillment possible.
shostack 11y ago
Is it odd that a lot of this logic could probably be applied to the job market as well?
bambax 11y ago
Yes, monogamy is usually framed as being good for women and detrimental to men when in fact it's been invented so that non-alpha males could mate; in a "natural" world, most (all) women would mate with the alpha male of the group, and all other males would not mate at all. Therefore it shouldn't be unexpected that women who didn't get to marry the alpha male, are unhappy and eventually want out.
- robotresearcher 11y ago
  It's a little much to present an untestable hypothesis as 'in fact...'.
- awl130 11y ago
  ironically, women's empowerment could eventually lead a society back to pre-historic times in a genetic sense. imagine a society where women no longer need husbands or fathers for either income or childcare (which is the current trend in the OECD). imagine further that there is no more stigma towards artificial insemination. then women will pick the fittest sperm from the bank (let's say an Olympic athlete with a Nobel Prize). thus we have reverted back to a time when the alpha males sire a far greater proportion of progeny. what kinds of long term effects are there on a society's gene pool? does this society then have less diversity, and thus decreased overall fitness as a whole? what happens to the vast majority of prospectless men? mass immigration of females is one solution. but eventually the donor country will bar them from doing so. so imagine a country where 80% of single men will not get a chance to produce offspring. is that a recipe for civil unrest? without any traditional patriarchy, it is in the female's best interest to get inseminated by multiple alphas. maybe there will be a social movement that that says for every alpha baby, a female must bear a baby with her beta partner?
  - IndianAstronaut 11y ago
    One thing people forget is that in historical societies, the number of men would be less than women. This is due to war, other violence against men, etc. This left surplus women who were more inclined to the alpha males/royalty and fewer men without partners.
LeifCarrotson 11y ago
Your same arguments apply in the other direction, you know. It's not just women interested in the most desireable men, it's also that men are interested in the most desirable women.
- gohrt 11y ago
  There are more desirable women (#1 young, #2 pretty) than men (#1 wealthy, #2 pretty)
  - Vraxx 11y ago
    I'd say that is quite the oversimplification you have there. You might want to check some of your base assumptions like how women only desire wealth and looks as well as men only desiring youth and looks. Generalizations tend to be wrong more often than they are right in my experience, and this seems no exception.
rayiner 11y ago
I don't think your theory jives with the evidence that men and women are equally likely to initiate breakups of non-marriage relationships: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/women-more-likely-than-men-to-initiate-divorces-but-not-breakups-study-finds_us_55d61f03e4b0ab468da049bb http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/women-more-likely-than-m.... If it was about access to better mates, you'd expect to see the disparity extend to non-marriage relationships too, but you don't.
- graeme 11y ago
  I checked the paper, an unpublished draft. The sample size of non-marital breakups is 279. Also, the question asked was "who wanted the breakup more" not "who initiated the breakup". 85 breakups were reported as mutual. That leaves only 194 breakups which were reported as wanted more by one side. 112 is the total number of breakups reported as wanted more by the woman. 82 is the number of breakups reported as wanted more by the man. 112/194 = 57.7%. Of a very small sample. With the wrong question asked. Is this the best data we've got? If so, I am not sure we can conclude anything about breakup initiation outside of marriage. Link to the paper: http://web.stanford.edu/~mrosenfe/Rosenfeld_gender_of_breakup.pdf http://web.stanford.edu/~mrosenfe/Rosenfeld_gender_of_breaku... Note: It's not clear to me how the author got 56% and 53.4% as the weighted breakup wanted by women rate. It's possible I've made an error. But the Huffington post headline certainly seems unwarranted.
  - sliverstorm 11y ago
    Been a while since I learned about choosing sample sizes, but if memory serves 279 is a really good set, assuming random selection.

epimetheus 11y ago

>but at the end of the day they think they ought to have a better mate, and are fed up with their current one I don't know if this is true across the board. I don't feel that way entirely, more along the lines of "I'm stuck in this situation; kids, a marriage where I get no real benefit, I just want to be free and do what I want and not have to bow to their whims." I know several people, right now, that have been divorced for some time (5+ years, and in one case 10+ years) and don't even date or have interest in dating. Their motivations seem aligned more with mine than wanting a better mate - In fact, If I end up getting a divorce (we have agreed to try and work it out, again), I have no interest in dating again, at least not for a while. FWIW, I'm 38, and the people I'm referencing are older than me, some as much as 12+ years older, so maybe it's an age thing.

zxcvvcxz 11y ago
Maybe an age thing, hormones do die down I hear! But I doubt these people you're talking about (yourself included) are all celibate though. > "I'm stuck in this situation; kids, a marriage where I get no real benefit, I just want to be free and do what I want and not have to bow to their whims." Unless you're celibate, then this is equivalent to wanting to be with another mate, as that is what will happen. Not to discount the rationalizations, by all means freedom beats family for a lot of people. The latter is necessarily a sacrifice of the former.
- noselfrighteous 11y ago
  No, that rings hollow to me. Humans are sophisticated enough to genuinely have other needs aside from primal mating urges. Self-actualization is a huge one and more than sufficient to be the primary motivator for someone seeking to leave a family/marriage situation.
  - gohrt 11y ago
    And yet, statistically, very few people have self-actualization urges beyond using them as a means to attract a mate and reproducing.
    - ionised 11y ago
      Few, not zero.
    - noselfrighteous 11y ago
      You say statistically but you don't have any references to support that statement. My anecdotal experience says otherwise.
- epimetheus 11y ago
  >Unless you're celibate Pretty much, rough marriage, sex with each other isn't something they want even if you do. Needless to say, more than 12 months go by between 'action.' Right now we are together for finances and the kiddo. But I still have to deal with all of the negatives. I might hook up with others once everything is normal, but really the primary motivator isn't sex or a better mate, it's just freedom to better my career and myself. Right now it's all about her career and me dealing with the kid.

manyoso 11y ago

"The fact of the matter is that people become unhappy in a relationship of any kind when they think they are getting the short end of the stick, and could be doing better." This is such a pithy statement, used with such simple compelling force, that I applaud it even while disagreeing. Some points that counter this message: 1) What percentage of partners that end up leaving the marriage do so with another partner lined up? 2) Of the percentage that do not - a sizable set I would assume - how many exited after long-term (years?) relationships? 3) Of the percentage that did - another sizable set I would assume - what caused the reasoning process to take so long? Why didn't they conclude they could do better earlier? I would argue most people go into marriage with at least some amount of good faith effort to make it last. Why do they make such a good faith effort in the first place if they are operating as you would say?

zxcvvcxz 11y ago
Thanks, I've been working on my over-the-top writing style as it sparks discussion and draws attention. > 1) What percentage of partners that end up leaving the marriage do so with another partner lined up? According to [1], surveys show that 55% of people say infidelity is a contributing factor in the divorce. And that's probably just the ones that know (as it is often kept a secret), so we can take this number as a floor of the actual. "Lined up" - implying future relationship - doesn't matter so much as "other partner involved" which is to what this refers, and is my point. Even without infidelity, the exiting partner could have potentials "lined up" that they'd rather date (than stay married). > 2) Of the percentage that do not - a sizable set I would assume - how many exited after long-term (years?) relationships? I don't know. I'm sure it's possible to be repulsed by someone you're married to without knowing exactly who you'd go out with next. > 3) Of the percentage that did - another sizable set I would assume - what caused the reasoning process to take so long? Why didn't they conclude they could do better earlier? Marriage is (was) a very hard contract to annul. That's the point of it. These people are often fighting these feelings for years: weighing their natural biological impulses against higher-level rational thought. Rational thought that has been crafted from the narratives of a culture, encouraging marriage as a virtue. The impulses come from diminished pair bonding chemicals and more enticing (and realistically accessible) mating opportunities. > I would argue most people go into marriage with at least some amount of good faith effort to make it last. Why do they make such a good faith effort in the first place if they are operating as you would say? Of course. The key is that they don't know how they're operating. They don't understand that we've evolved multi-year chemical bonding capabilities to help us raise young children, and that after those fade, shit gets tough, and the lure of bonding with someone new/better (new is a form of better, genetic diversity and all that) becomes more attractive. The bond dies quicker if a better partner is easily accessible, btw. These types of mechanisms are necessary to help women select for better genes. [1] - http://www.divorce.usu.edu/files/uploads/lesson3.pdf http://www.divorce.usu.edu/files/uploads/lesson3.pdf

cryoshon 11y ago

In practice biologically, sure, you're right, but it's tough to look beyond the tribal-cultural ingrainment of marriage into people's psyches... sure, people may always fantasize about doing better than they currently are, but in how many people will those thoughts turn into actions? There's too many contented or at least not actively dissatisfied people to support the idea you're discussing in practice, though I agree it's theoretically plausible. Rather than a question of sexual access relative to resources, I'd reframe it for the 21st century as a mutual understanding of shared needs and shared solutions to those needs. Sure, not everyone can fill every need for every other person, but it's probably better than going without, which is why the pragmatic mate choice also provides genuine positive emotion, even if it's not the "maximum" need fulfillment possible.

shostack 11y ago

Is it odd that a lot of this logic could probably be applied to the job market as well?

bambax 11y ago

Yes, monogamy is usually framed as being good for women and detrimental to men when in fact it's been invented so that non-alpha males could mate; in a "natural" world, most (all) women would mate with the alpha male of the group, and all other males would not mate at all. Therefore it shouldn't be unexpected that women who didn't get to marry the alpha male, are unhappy and eventually want out.

robotresearcher 11y ago
It's a little much to present an untestable hypothesis as 'in fact...'.
awl130 11y ago
ironically, women's empowerment could eventually lead a society back to pre-historic times in a genetic sense. imagine a society where women no longer need husbands or fathers for either income or childcare (which is the current trend in the OECD). imagine further that there is no more stigma towards artificial insemination. then women will pick the fittest sperm from the bank (let's say an Olympic athlete with a Nobel Prize). thus we have reverted back to a time when the alpha males sire a far greater proportion of progeny. what kinds of long term effects are there on a society's gene pool? does this society then have less diversity, and thus decreased overall fitness as a whole? what happens to the vast majority of prospectless men? mass immigration of females is one solution. but eventually the donor country will bar them from doing so. so imagine a country where 80% of single men will not get a chance to produce offspring. is that a recipe for civil unrest? without any traditional patriarchy, it is in the female's best interest to get inseminated by multiple alphas. maybe there will be a social movement that that says for every alpha baby, a female must bear a baby with her beta partner?
- IndianAstronaut 11y ago
  One thing people forget is that in historical societies, the number of men would be less than women. This is due to war, other violence against men, etc. This left surplus women who were more inclined to the alpha males/royalty and fewer men without partners.

LeifCarrotson 11y ago

Your same arguments apply in the other direction, you know. It's not just women interested in the most desireable men, it's also that men are interested in the most desirable women.

gohrt 11y ago
There are more desirable women (#1 young, #2 pretty) than men (#1 wealthy, #2 pretty)
- Vraxx 11y ago
  I'd say that is quite the oversimplification you have there. You might want to check some of your base assumptions like how women only desire wealth and looks as well as men only desiring youth and looks. Generalizations tend to be wrong more often than they are right in my experience, and this seems no exception.

rayiner 11y ago

I don't think your theory jives with the evidence that men and women are equally likely to initiate breakups of non-marriage relationships: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/women-more-likely-than-men-to-initiate-divorces-but-not-breakups-study-finds_us_55d61f03e4b0ab468da049bb http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/women-more-likely-than-m.... If it was about access to better mates, you'd expect to see the disparity extend to non-marriage relationships too, but you don't.

graeme 11y ago
I checked the paper, an unpublished draft. The sample size of non-marital breakups is 279. Also, the question asked was "who wanted the breakup more" not "who initiated the breakup". 85 breakups were reported as mutual. That leaves only 194 breakups which were reported as wanted more by one side. 112 is the total number of breakups reported as wanted more by the woman. 82 is the number of breakups reported as wanted more by the man. 112/194 = 57.7%. Of a very small sample. With the wrong question asked. Is this the best data we've got? If so, I am not sure we can conclude anything about breakup initiation outside of marriage. Link to the paper: http://web.stanford.edu/~mrosenfe/Rosenfeld_gender_of_breakup.pdf http://web.stanford.edu/~mrosenfe/Rosenfeld_gender_of_breaku... Note: It's not clear to me how the author got 56% and 53.4% as the weighted breakup wanted by women rate. It's possible I've made an error. But the Huffington post headline certainly seems unwarranted.
- sliverstorm 11y ago
  Been a while since I learned about choosing sample sizes, but if memory serves 279 is a really good set, assuming random selection.