Why Men Cheat
Posted: Sunday, November 27, 2011
by Tharuna Devchand
Jesse James, Tiger Woods, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Wayne Rooney, Jude Law, Ashley Cole, Tony Parker, Joost Van Der Westhuizen. Do people still get shocked when headlines out yet another cheating celebrity?
A recent upset involves the eight-year affair between Manchester United football star Ryan Giggs and his brother Rhodri’s wife, Natasha. Natasha apparently became teary-eyed when she found out that she wasn’t as special as she thought she was to Ryan after word of a third lover hit the global public domain, and she confessed her illicit affair. Turns out that she was also playing half the team, but that didn’t stop brother Rhodri from forgiving her and trying to patch up their marriage — not before he sought his brother’s blood with a claw hammer. Then again, Rhodri also seems to have been dipping his fingers in forbidden fruits.
It’s a neverending story and I am constantly hearing about men who cheat and wives who accept it on a daily basis. In fact, most of the men that I know have cheated at some point of their lives or who enjoy the promiscuous bachelorhood. And let's not forget the most recent shocker - the split of Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore (who became a much loved celebrity couple on Twitter) after his illicit affairs lost their invisibility cloak.
According to Andrew Trees’ book Decoding Love, is entirely predictable. The book, which looks at the science behind what we call love, argues that men are evolutionarily designed to cheat.
It all began millions of years ago, when our ancestors had to rough it out in the wild where only the fittest could survive. Success then was not measured by one’s bank balance but by the number of offspring that a man passed his genes on to. The more women he slept with, the more chances there were for him to spread his seed.
The theory follows that a parent’s approach to mating is contingent on the investment a parent makes in his or her offspring. The greater the investment, the more selective the parent.
The average male ejaculate contains hundreds of millions of sperm. In fact, men produce approximately two-trillion sperm in a lifetime. Sperm is cheap, except when from a sperm bank.
The average woman, on the other hand, will have approximately 400 to 500 ovulations in a lifetime, and, once pregnant, they carry their offspring for nine months. Therefore, the egg is a precious commodity and women are likely to be more selective of their sexual partners.
Most of the reasons for why men and women behave the way they do are a result of this cheap sperm-precious egg dichotomy.
At the same time, pair-bonding (or relationships) is a biological necessity since human children are born more helpless than a packet in the wind. In the wild, children were only able to fend for themselves somewhere around age 15 (now they just drive their parents crazy at that age).
The human species, in comparison to other animal species, is a mildly polygamous one. An indicator of this is the size of males in comparison to females, since the more polygamous a species, the more the male has to fight to obtain harems. When species are monogamous, females and males are similar in size. With humans, men are roughly 10% taller and 20% heavier than women, indicating harems of two to three women.
In a study of past and present societies, 980 out of 1 154 societies allowed men to have more than one wife. This, however, does not indicate polygamy being a norm in those societies, since having multiple wives is expensive. Therefore, monogamy would still be more prominent since only five to 10% of men can afford more than one wife.
According to Trees, humans seem to be evolving into a more monogamous species considering that, a few hundred thousand years ago, men were one and a half times the size of women. However, it could also indicate that the means by which men fight over women have become more mental than physical, resulting in a lack of need for the large physique.
Though women are not the all-righteous ones either, according to research.
The size of male testicles is an indication that women have had more than one simultaneous sexual partner in the past, resulting in what Trees terms sperm competition. The logic follows that if a woman has sex with more than one man, then the more sperm a man can ejaculate will increase his chances of his sperm fertilising her egg. However, the volume of sperm that men produce has decreased extensively when compared to men hundreds and thousands of years ago, also indicating an evolutionary move to monogamy.
Women cheat for a different reason— they cheat to obtain the best genes possible. They are also attracted to different physical features at different times of their cycle, and seek out men with telltale good-gene features when ovulating. In fact, women can smell out a man with good genes but such men are, alas, not usually the most faithful, and therefore not good mariage material. Hence the desire to cheat. Trees uses Brad Pitt as an example, but I’m sure Schwarzenegger, Rooney, Law, Kutcher and Ryan Giggs have a certain irresistible alpha-male element.
Despite our evolutionary design, people are not predestined to cheat, since they are not slaves to their biological urges. Culture plays a large role in determining certain moral and legal codes. Also, married people live longer than single people. For men, the difference in life expectancy is somewhere around a decade. Studies also reveal that men are four times more likely to remarry. They also remarry sooner than women do, averaging at three years between wives, compared to nine years for women. Despite the stereotype, married men also have greater life satisfaction than single men... who knew?
This Article has been viewed 611 times. (Not updated in real-time.)
Top-level comments on this article: (4 total)Fascinating, Tharuna.Thank you Bruce
I enjoyed this immensely- and took much from it- Thanks- Always-EllaTa Ella :)
Hi Tharuna.
In the wild, a herd of horses is ruled by a lead mare and protected by a lead stallion. Both leaders do the most reproducing within the herd and yet male and female horses are very close in size. And females can even be larger than males. Of course, for every "rule," there is an exception. Then too, look at birds where the male is smaller and more colorful than the female.
But I've heard the arguments you made a number of times over the years. Some of them seem to me to be quite valid. But I still think the real reason men cheat is that they are unhappy about their current sexual situation in some way or another. Because if they were totally happy with it there wouldn't be a need to look outside of it for satisfaction.
Hugs,
Dianne
P.S. I did not mean to rate your article with stars. I've stopped rating articles because I find it hard to be objective at all times. I had an accident with my cursor that gave you only one star and I couldn't get rid of it. So I drew it out to five. dslYa there's been a lot of books about it... I think it also differs between predators and animals that are preyed upon.... Not sure though. It was just a really interesting read.
As for men cheating because they are unhappy... I don't know. I've spoken to a lot of men who cheat on their wives... They aren't unhappy, their sex life is amazing and they love their wives completely. To me this doesn't make sense whatsoever, but they swear by it.
One guy told me that the reason he does it is because he can. It makes him feel better about himself in some way, like he still has the ability to pick up any chick he wants.
There's a thrill to the hunt that women don't see... even though there are some women who live it just as much as men...
I don't know. For me, love is about trust and sleeping around kills that trust...I have to agree with your last sentence. But trust can be regained and it isn't ALWAYS as Dr. Phil says it is (past behavior is a good predictor of future behavior).
But what you said about unhappiness not being mainly the issue ... you mention the guy who can still pick up any chick he wants ... it could be argued that doing so makes him happy and not having the opportunity to do it makes him unhappy. :) I think a lot of life can be boiled down to what makes us happy (or feel good) and what does not. But that's just me.
Hmmm... do you think people can change who they are?
I do. But I think you really, really, really have to want to and it takes a lot of work. I don't think we are slaves to our upbringing or our biology, although both are very powerful. It could just be wishful thinking on my part, but I don't think so.
"Despite our evolutionary design, people are not predestined to cheat, since they are not slaves to their biological urges." Amen! I think we've moved way past the era when we were controlled by our primal urges. I think cheating is about not facing yourself and being accountable for the part you're playing in a relationship that isn't working for you.
This is a great article, Tharuna. I wonder if Trees is a cheater!!Lol it was a great read! There's quite a few books on this topic... it's almost like an excuse for them...
I agree, cheating is not being true to yourself and shying away from responsibility... I think it ties in which the worlds obsession with instant gratification.... if a man thinks he can have her, he will take her because she's there. Sex while cheating is so meaningless that I find it hard to understand why people even like it... but hey, each to their own
We want your comments! If you can read this, you don't have javascript enabled, so you can't use this comment system. Please enable javascript.