Romance versus Sex

Lifelong pair bonding is the most common relationship form across all human groups, with one man/many wives polygamy coming in second. Both are held together partially by societal pressure, partly by the emotional response we call Love. In pretty much any society you care to name, children raised by their mother alone fare less well than those who's mothers have assistance.

quote:

---

Lifelong pair bonding is the most common relationship form across all human groups....

---

With half of all American marriages ending in divorce, I can think of at least one society where that is not the case.This message has been edited by Chiroptera, 07-Nov-2005 01:58 PM

---

"Intellectually, scientifically, even artistically, fundamentalism -- biblical literalism -- is a road to nowhere, because it insists on fidelity to revealed truths that are not true." -- Katha Pollitt

quote:

---

romance

​

to bring another to a state of rapture and acceptance
to seduce and be seduced
to move beyond sex
to find joy in the mixing of selves

​

is that part of it?

---

Spoken as a romantic would.

So? I specifically said it isn't common across all groups.And, if you want to be pedantic about it, a majority of individuals in America still don't divorce.

The feeling I am referring to as "romance" does not last. Sometimes it is replaced by "affection"--a different feeling--and sometimes it is replaced by conflict and hatred, when the thrill is gone.My point is that this whole process is mostly mental, not physical, if it makes sense to separate those two.

This simply is not true, nor has it ever been true. What's interesting is you wouldn't even need that claim to support the idea that bonding is useful for securing aid in childrearing. It doesn't take an entire life to get a child reared. You understand that some societies never had that word until Europeans exported that concept? There is attraction and excitement and perhaps caring, but the ephemeral concept of love is manufactured. What does that have to do with sexual or even emotional relationships? Nurturing by more than one can be achieved without it having to come from a male sexual partner.Evo Psych really isn't worth much as science, and I agree with the other poster that it generally seems to be a way to support contemporary mores with science, that is to allow those who don't have religion to support their opinions to feel they have some other "objective" support. Quite dangerous as a precedent.

---

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

How is the attraction achieved (which you now change to love, just another word for essentially the same thing? isn't that circular? ... how is love achieved? ... through attraction ...).What is the mechanism for attraction and {why\how} does it work.

---

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand

​

RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

No, Love isn't attraction, it's an emotional state. It's got brain chemistry and everything.What are you asking for, RAZD, the exact neurons that are involved? A detailed description of the chemical pathways? What?

Yes, it is. The vast majority of today's world practice it. Along with the majority of known tribal groups, and most historical cultures. No, but it takes a good part of one, and the grandparents are usually active in rearing their grandchildren. What, and we made up the brain chemicals at the same time I suppose? You realise that there are identifiable changes both in brain chemistry and MRI scans that appear when in the state we call 'love'. Our high falutin' notions of romantic love are certainly cultural inventions, but love itself is an inate emotional response just as surely as anger, fear and hunger. Yes, it can. So?

That's the start. Why are the chemicals released and where do they go, what is the bodily response mechanism.Why does it occur in some instances and not in others?Is it a response like {hungry - eat food - like result}
generates a bodily response when {see food}
generates a bodily response when {hears bell ring ala Pavlov}This really should be a new thread.

---

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand

​

RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

We are nowhere near having the knowledge of brain function to answer that question in terms of how love manifests in the physical functioning of the brain. While there is plenty of research in this area, we are far from a complete or definitive answer. But then we're far from a complete and definitive answer for the vast majority of human behaviour so this isn't a vast criticism.

You are equivocating here. Your claim was that the most common relationship was lifelong pair bonding. That simply cannot be true. What you appear to be doing is looking at the percentage of monogamous marriages... that is not the same thing as permanent life long bonding. No it doesn't. Only in our particular culture would it seem that way. In any case, there are many other ways to get help in childrearing. More than likely our ancestors got aid in many other ways than simply having the single husband providing. Talk about equivocation. Whoa. Yeah, there are chemical reactions that occur and they are associated with what our culture calls feelings of "love". That does not make love any more real or separate from what else it might be involved with.For example the people in cultures where love did not exist as a concept would still have experienced the same chemical reactions but simply did not attribute anything else to it.The idea that those chemical reactions were important for lifelong monogamous bonding is what is under dispute, as well as the assertion that it came about in order to help out with childrearing.You (and the evo psych people) are using the wrong end of the microscope to investigate this phenomena, assuming your original ideas are correct and collecting evidence to support it. If it can, then it's not likely a trait will be selected for which demands an environment where it cannot. Remember this was supposed to be evolutionarily driven.

---

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

How so? How old does a child need to be before it's fully self-sufficent? In most cultures a child is considered to become so somewhere between 13 and 18. During their youth they need food, shelter, clothing and education/guidance/training/whatever-you-want-call-it. I'd call thirteen years a good part of a lifetime, especially once you've discounted childhood and the time after menopause in women. I've not equivocated anything, Holmes. Love is brain chemistry; nothing more. I don't believe humans are a special case. The same principles and techniques that we apply to understanding why some species pair bond for a season, others for life, others form harems and others are simply wham-bam about it can be applied to understanding the behaviour of human relationships. Both in terms of the species as whole and the differences between different cultural arrangements.I'm now going to make a prediction: when we understand how love operates on the level of the brain we will be able to identify similar or analogous systems in the brains of other species that form pair bonds. Love is causally linked to the structure and operation of our brains. These brains were shaped and created by evolution. Evolution is the only level of explanation at which it is possible to understand why organic structures are the way they are.The hypothesis that Love exists to help maintain pair bonds may, of course, be wrong but it is clear from simple observation that that is a function it does fulfil in the world around us and it is thus a natural suggestion. It's possible it's for something different, it's also possible that it isn't adaptionist but I find it highly unlikely that something that is such a powerful motivating factor would not undergo strong selective pressure. I think that's patently untrue. There are countless examples in evolution of problems to which there are multiple solutions, probably all biological problems have multiple solutions, Evolution operates by selecting one and making it work, this is as true for locomotion as it is for behaviour.Of course, in humans, Evolution has heavily shaped us into flexible organisms capable of finding novel solutions to the problems and we can derive solutions that aren't based around our more basic drives where it helps cultural selection to do so.

I'm not sure where to begin. To be honest the onus is on you to prove your point, but I'll try to give the highlights of a rebuttal...1) Sex is what is being discussed, marriage to one partner does not suggest all sexual partnerships result in marriage. There is much sex outside of marriage, including sex besides one partner DESPITE marriage restrictions to one partner.2) Marriage to one partner alone has a cultural history which can be tracked and is in no way related to physical brain chemistry regarding relationships. That is it does not follow a path of reproduction, but a path of conquest and indoctrination.3) Even in a world where monogamous marriage is the norm, an enormous number do not get married at all, some percentage get married to more than one at the same time, many more still get married in sequential marriages to more than one person.LIFELONG and MONOGAMOUS have very specific connotations. There has never been any evidence anywhere that at any time in human history a majority of the population was engaging in sexual monogamy with a lifelong partner, outside of strict religious/legal codes set to enforce such a thing by moral fanatics. And the next obvious point is that if that were our nature we wouldn't need education and penalties to indoctrinate and enforce that way of life. I was self-sufficient well before 13. Most children are self-sufficient well before 13. You are discussing concepts of majority or adulthood and perhaps leadership. The question unders discussion is providing necessary child-rearing.I would also question why after menopause counts as anything. Men can continue to have children, and women can continue to care for the children of others. You didn't understand what I was saying. Yes, what we call "love" is a function of brain chemistry, but that brain chemistry is not contingent on our concept of love.Indeed the feeling may be nothing more than "lusty desire" but since as a culture we refuse to accept that as "pure" have invented some concepts, or justifications, which involve many other nonnecessary components to label it as "love".Unless you are going to claim that all those people who lived in cultures with no concept of "love" never experienced the brain chemistry, or resulting feelings, it is patently obvious that while our concept of love is CORRELATED with the brain chemistry, the brain chemistry is not sufficient to involve all that the concept of "love" involves. Uh, first of all humans are different. We are freed from much inherited behavior, and able to invent wholly new ones and pass those on through education and culture.But ignoring that vast difference, it is certainly true that we do have basic brain chemistry and behaviors as animals. That would include feelings and responses.The problem with Evo Psych is that it ASSUMES that because this can be true for any mechanism it can be proven true by coming up with some tentative correlation between that mechanism, its key, and a potential survival factor.With animals that is still a faulty approach, but at least more plausible since much of what they do is inherent and not learned, or capable of being changed via a culture.You cannot say "Ah love, there must be a reason people want to get together in MONOGAMOUS PAIRS and MATE FOR LIFE. That's what I feel, and so there must be a reason for it, ah and here we find a correlation that people that PAIR TOGETHER AT THIS POINT IN TIME have better results in rearing their offspring".That's deductive logic and NOT SCIENCE.As a capper, now that science is getting more data one of the shocking things being discovered is that even the most "monogamous" of species are not actually sexually monogamous. They are at most socially monogamous, which means that while sex MAY help in bonding, it is not about PAIR bonding, and even PAIR bonding does not have anything to do with sexual interest.Well the real capper is that Evo Psych people keep looking at animals whose behavior represents what they would most wish human behavior would be like, to make comparisons. If Evo Psych is correct then we should be looking at our closest genetic relative. Can you guess if our closest genetic relative has a concept of love or sexual monogamy, particularly for a lifetime?Ah but what are facts? See the deduction at work.To be science, first one must develop a real theory about how human sexuality and human childrearing and human attraction works in humans. A glance at history and other cultures proves pair bonding, and especially LIFELONG MONOGAMOUS PAIRBONDING in humans is a myth. I have yet to see an EvoPsych person address this substantial evidence except to downplay the evidence in the exact same way IDers downplay evo evidence... attack the historians and anthropologists.Second one must have actual theories about how the same work in other animals. At this point in time, how many species pairbond for life, and of those how many remain sexually monogamous for life? And more importantly (since the claim is evolution) how many of our closest relatives display either of those characteristics? That is so untrue. The brain's capabilities certainly ARE shaped by evolutionary processes, but actual behaviors and mechanisms are NOT SYNONYMOUS with capabilities.Much of human thoughts and ideas are learned, not inherited. Evolution shaped our capability to learn new things, once we had that capability NOT EVERYTHING ONE EXPERIENCES is due to evolution. Our brains can change and create new reactions, and thus adapt within a lifetime.Other animals have varying degrees of this capacity, but none to the degree that we have this. Only if those simple observations are limited to similar cultures and ignores most of history and other cultures, as well as the behaviors of our nearest genetic relatives.See this is exactly why I feel Evo Psych is simply a way to try and justify sonetmporary morals with scientific sounding jargon. Just because it seems a certain way to you does not mean that anybody else has experienced the same things you do. There are many people for which your descriptions simply do not apply. You are missing the point here. Given that there were other solutions available AND BEING USED, there would be no selection pressure. One might also point out that if it had been selected for then we could track its progress, watching lifelong monogamy and love move based on genetic inheritance, rather than simple cultural domination... which is what we actually see.

---

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Sex is not what is being discussed. Love is what is being discussed. I, at no time, suggested that marriages are always, or even normally, completely faithful. Nor is Love the only driving force behind the cultural institution of marriage, at the very least Jealousy (which is itself explicable by Evo Psych) and cabalistic economics come into it. I'm not suggesting in the slightest that there is brain chemistry for white weddings, pure monogamy or even one-on-one marriage. What I'm suggesting is that our brains, through the emotion of Love, have evolved to form relationships in which we can successfully raise children through the long periods of dependance and support that they need. The actual form that relationship takes is driven by cultural trends but the kinds of relationships that can form are driven by the emotional drives that are inate to us. The fact that across all cultures, marriage has occurred as the most common formalised structure of relationship is evidence for this. Yup. And? I already said that. And if I said that Monogamous Marriage was our natural state you'd have a point, but I didn't. I said that love existed to maintain pair bonds in order to raise children, and that marriage is a formalised result of our existing drives. Or, more accurately, I claimed the widespread incidence of marriage - either mono or poly - was evidence that forming lasting bonds is natural for humans. Really? You provided your own food and shelter? You clothed yourself through your own efforts? Didn't seek or receive training, guidance from adults not your peers? The two are closely related. Sure, kids can live on their own at a younger age - hell, plenty of kids live on the streets and fend for themselves in poorer countries across the world. A few do, even in our countries. But kids who remain being cared for by their parents undoubtably do better than those who don't, not just in terms of survival rates but in terms of physical health, mental wellbeing and long-term outlook. Child rearing in species like ours isn't just about getting 'em big enough to fend for themselves and sending 'em out into the world it's also about getting them the best start in life. Evolutionarily speaking, it's about giving them a competitive advantage against their peers. Even if we accept your argument that the age is younger than 13, it's still old by the standards of any other animal - no other animal has such a long period of utter helplessness as we do. Even four years is a long time to be caring for a child.And, come to think of it, even if the time an individual child takes is less than that since children are generally produced in rolling succession it is quite likely that there will be more than one around with varying levels of care requirement.

quote:

---

Mr Jack wroteOur high falutin' notions of romantic love are certainly cultural inventions, but love itself is an inate emotional response just as surely as anger, fear and hunger.

---

You knock me for wild assertion and then throw out one of your own. At what point did I make any such assertion? I don't believe for a moment that we have proven that love is an evolutionary adaption designed to maintain pair bonds. We simply don't have the information with which to make such a claim. I do claim that that is the best explanation that we have available to us at this time. And yet, every single piece of Evo Psych I've read on this very subject has made the same damn point. In fact, they've gone further, and given possible reasons why this should be the case. The evidence from other animal species should make it obvious that such a comparison is flawed. Very closely related bird species, for example, have very different pair bonding strategies. What leads us to understanding is studying the causes behind the differing strategies. Did I deny that? No I didn't. But the brain isn't some big pile of magic stuff that can magically learn new stuff and magically magic up new ways of thinking and reacting. It has to have, and does have, a large amount of complicated and intricate systems to allow it to learn and deal with life and others. Our emotions are part of the system that evolution has shaped to this purpose, and love is one of those emotions. And yet, that's exactly what I see it not doing. Read The Blank Slate. Being used when? Where? Evolution doesn't care whether we bond for life, are monogamous or polygamous or no kind of 'ous' at all. It cares about whether the system is successful. Sometime, somewhere in the last six million years we changed from being an ape, probably not that disimilar to a chimp to a biped giving birth to helpless infants in need of considerable on-going care. At that time there were no other alternatives already in place, just a variety of behavioural patterns with differing level of success, the ones that produced the most grandchildren prospered and spread through the population. As we continued to evolve towards a more culturally driven position, and the time of helplessness grew, pre-puberty lengthened and adolescence also stretched out the advantages for longer pair bonding strengthened and that selected for those traits that allowed such bonds to emerge - including Love.One more note: it is in general possible to predict the kind of sexual behaviour of a species with a high degree of accuracy based on the level of sexual dimorphism - humans pop out on the pair-bonding with adultery level of the scale. Which is exactly what we observe as the most common relationship structure across all human cultures.