Female Supremacy Articles - Page 18

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We’ve also witnessed the Dr. Phil-ization of the country. “We have become a more psychological nation,” Schwartz said. We see “cheating” as occurring in some sort of mental context. Maybe she slept with him, we tell ourselves, because she was depressed. Or maybe he slept with her, we say, because he’s being walloped by middle age. To understand is to forgive.

Though Schwartz admitted that “it is hard to know what the numbers mean,” she thinks non-monogamy will continue to increase. Some theorists, she pointed out, think monogamy arose “so that unattractive men could get wives,” but with the increasing power of women — sexual, financial, cultural — this old system will break down.

Primates sleep around more than Hef

There is some science to suggest Schwartz is right. Human-style monogamy is rare in mammals. Our closest relatives, other primates, have more partners than Hugh Hefner has had women in his grotto. Genetic evidence suggests we ourselves weren’t so devoted either, until somewhat recently in our evolution. So whether or not it’s even “natural” for us to be monogamous, or it’s culturally imposed, is still a debate.

It’s true that people “aren’t quite as naturally monogamous as we might like to believe,” says Malcolm Potts, an expert on the biology of sex at the University of California, Berkeley. “Monogamy is relatively recent in our civilized history.”