Year: 2004

This is terrific. Seems young people are getting sick of the immodest fashions their parents have been irresponsibly allowing them to buy for the last few years, and sick in such numbers that the manufacturers are starting to take notice.

(Tip of the Stetson to Thoughts of a Papist College Student)

Okay, that’s the end of our reproductive apologetics sequence for now.

We now return external links to family-friendly mode.

If you read the pope’s writings about sex, you’ll find him referring to it as a mystery. That’s not only true of human sexuality, it’s true of sex in general. There are still an awful lot of things we don’t know about it–more scientific mysteries to be explored. One is: Why so many organisms use sex as a means of reproduction? Why isn’t it supplemented by asexual reproduction more ofthen than it is? The answer to those questions isn’t clear, and is getting less clear as doubt is cast on one of the most popular theories proposed to explain it.

That theory is known as the Red Queen hypothesis–named after the character from Alice Through The Looking Glass. Just as, in the novel, the Red Queen told Alice she has to run as fast as she can to keep in one place, the Red Queen hypothesis holds that organisms need to keep shuffling their genes through sexual reproduction in order to avoid getting killed off by biological threats like parasites, germs, and viruses.

Problem is, new information casts doubt on the Red Queen hypothesis, suggesting that the benefits of sexula reproduction aren’t enough to explain its prevalence in the world. Those are only the benefits of sexual reproduction that we can presently perceive, of course. Further research may turn up fully satisfactory explanations.

But for now, sex continues to be a mystery–even on the biological level.

Science fiction is rife with stories of invasion by B.E.M.s (Bug-Eyed Monsters), but an invasion that affects many people in the real world is that of the G.E.M.s (Green-Eyed Monsters). Yes, jealousy is a fact of human existence.

A recent study, however, showed that it affects different countries in different ways. The country that reports the most jealousy is Brazil, while the country that reports the least jealousy is Japan.

Also, jealousy affects the genders differently. Men tend to experience more jealousy at the thought of their wives having sex with another man, while women tend to experience more jealousy at the thought of their husbands having a strong emotional attachment to another woman. Both genders experience jealousy at both things, but they tend to experience a stronger jealous reaction over one than the other.

The article presents some speculation from different schools of psychology on why this is (though it seems plausible to me that it is because men are more focused on sex than women and women are more focused on emotional bonding than men, leading each gender to experience the strongest jealousy when its special focus is threatened.)

What is even more interesting is why different countries report different levels of jealousy. The study found that it doesn’t seem to be a random thing. There is something that the jealousy rate correlates with: the fertility rate. The higher the fertility rate is, the higher the reported jealousy rate is.

Japan, has one of the lowest fertility rates in the world. For a start, it seems that the Japanese engage in marital relations far less often than any other country surveyed. A recent study found that the Japanese engage in such relations an average of 36 times per year, which is about half the rate of the next lowest country on the survey (Hong Kong, where the rate was 63 times per year).

America was at the top of the list (124 times per year on average), but before people start chanting “USA! USA! USA!”, remember that the rate of marital relations is not the same as the fertility rate–at least not in a country with widespread contraception. Thus it is Brazil that has the highest fertility rate, and correspondingly the highest jealousy rate.

What does this tell us about human relations and human nature? For a start, it tells us that the cultures in which couples are doing their job reproductively are the ones that have higher jealousy rates. Why would that be? Well, here’s a possibility: Marital relations get people attached to each other emotionally. If you don’t have marital relations often, you don’t get as attached to your partner emotionally and don’t feel as threatened at the possibility of unfaithfulness in marriage (whether it is sexual or emotional unfaithfulness that you find most threatening). Similarly, if you stunt the growth of the emotional bond by using contraception to frustrate the natural result of marital relations, you end up caring less about your partner’s faithfulness and thus have lower rates of jealousy.

You’ll also probably wind up with higher rates of divorce and adultery.

This points up the whole reason for jealousy in the first place: It reinforces the bond between the couple. It helps keep them together in faithful, stable unions that help propagate the species. Of course, nobody should let feelings of jealousy drive them to do irrational things, but kept within the bounds of reason, the jealous impulse (i.e., feeling threatened and/or angered by the thought of sexual or emotional unfaithfulness) is something that strengthens the couple’s union. If that union is allowed to express itself in regular, non-contraceptive marital relations then it will benefit from that strengthening.

It’s true that the instinct for monogamy is less strong in men than in women. This is illustrated by the fact that–though polygamous mariages are rare–when they do occur they overwhelmingly involve polygyny (having more than one wife) rather than polyandry (having more than one husband). Nevertheless, most men are monogamous. The fact that this happens across all cultures–even those that allow polygamy–indicates that there are reasons for male monogamy that are rooted in human nature.

What are those reasons?

Many point out that supporting more than one wife is hard, and so most men can only have one even where it is legal to have more than one. This is true, but it doesn’t change the fact that male monogamy is rooted in human nature. If human nature were such that males could support more than one wife easily, more would do so. Since that isn’t the case, human nature supports male monogamy. (Note that this argument also supports the traditional male role of provider/protector as having a basis in natural law. If men across cultures didn’t have to support their wives then their resources wouldn’t be consumed in doing so and they could take more wives.)

The difficulty of supporting more than one wife is only part of the problem, though. Here’s another and een more decisive factor: availability.

Among humans males and females exist in approximately equal numbers. Slightly more male babies are born, but men also have shorter life spans, so the numbers equal out. As you move up the age ladder, more and more women are present (because the males are dropping out) until women predominate at the high-end of the age ladder. Still, in society in general–and particularly during the childbearing years–the ratio of males to females never strays too far from 50-50.

This means that it is impossible for polygyny to ever become the predominant practice among human males. There aren’t enough women to allow that to happen. If there were five girls born to every one boy then that would suggest that polygyny should be the natural practice for males, but the fact that the sexes are approximately one-to-one strongly indicates that males should (and will) be overwhelmingly monogamous in marriage.

The only ways around this would be to change human nature in some way, such as removing the female impulse to monogamy, leading women to have multiple husbands. But that would probably destroy marriage altogether because if most women took multiple husbands, enabling most men to take multiple wives then the interconnectivity of who is married to whom would become intolerably complex and marriage as an institution would simply break down. That ain’t gonna happen because human offspring are far too dependent on their parents for far too long for societies to be successful if they don’t have marriage (which is why all existing societies do have it–again, a social institution flows directly from human nature).

Another, change in human nature could take place in male psychology so that humans operated like some species where all the breeding in a group is done by an alpha male with his harem. But this would only make polygyny the most common form of union when marriage occurs. For most men, marriage wouldn’t occur at all since the alpha males would be hoarding the women.

And that won’t happen in the real world because human psychology won’t permit it. There is no way ordinary, rank-and-file men would permit self-appointed alpha males to be the only ones who can get married. Ordinary men are too ornery, too organized, and too clever to let that happen. Any society which tried to impose such a situation on its male population would find itself quickly re-organized.

These considerations point out that human nature again drives us toward male as well as female monogamy. Human nature would have to change in fundamental ways for polygyny to become commonplace.

What we have said thus far deals with factors that don’t operate on the level of male desire. If males had no psychological impulse toward monogamy at all, the above factors would still ensure its dominance of marriag patterns. But I think there is more to the story than that. Though men may have “wandering eyes” more than women, this doesn’t mean that it is only factors external to the affections that lead them to be monogamous. If human nature has been set up so that monogyny is the norm among men, it is natural to expect that men’s affections too have been designed for it.

In other words, men also are monogamous because they want to be monogamous. They form unique emotional bonds with their wives and don’t want to have more than one. Though some–particularly in misanthropic feminist circles–might want to portray men as selfish pigs who will take as many wives as they can get–men themselves will tell one that this isn’t true. They really do form exclusive emotional attachments to their wives and regard something as wrong with men who don’t. Men are thus affectively monogamous by nature, just as women are.

It’s true that the instinct for monogamy is less strong in men than in women. This is illustrated by the fact that–though polygamous mariages are rare–when they do occur they overwhelmingly involve polygyny (having more than one wife) rather than polyandry (having more than one husband). Nevertheless, most men are monogamous. The fact that this happens across all cultures–even those that allow polygamy–indicates that there are reasons for male monogamy that are rooted in human nature.

What are those reasons?

Many point out that supporting more than one wife is hard, and so most men can only have one even where it is legal to have more than one. This is true, but it doesn’t change the fact that male monogamy is rooted in human nature. If human nature were such that males could support more than one wife easily, more would do so. Since that isn’t the case, human nature supports male monogamy. (Note that this argument also supports the traditional male role of provider/protector as having a basis in natural law. If men across cultures didn’t have to support their wives then their resources wouldn’t be consumed in doing so and they could take more wives.)

The difficulty of supporting more than one wife is only part of the problem, though. Here’s another and een more decisive factor: availability.

Among humans males and females exist in approximately equal numbers. Slightly more male babies are born, but men also have shorter life spans, so the numbers equal out. As you move up the age ladder, more and more women are present (because the males are dropping out) until women predominate at the high-end of the age ladder. Still, in society in general–and particularly during the childbearing years–the ratio of males to females never strays too far from 50-50.

This means that it is impossible for polygyny to ever become the predominant practice among human males. There aren’t enough women to allow that to happen. If there were five girls born to every one boy then that would suggest that polygyny should be the natural practice for males, but the fact that the sexes are approximately one-to-one strongly indicates that males should (and will) be overwhelmingly monogamous in marriage.

The only ways around this would be to change human nature in some way, such as removing the female impulse to monogamy, leading women to have multiple husbands. But that would probably destroy marriage altogether because if most women took multiple husbands, enabling most men to take multiple wives then the interconnectivity of who is married to whom would become intolerably complex and marriage as an institution would simply break down. That ain’t gonna happen because human offspring are far too dependent on their parents for far too long for societies to be successful if they don’t have marriage (which is why all existing societies do have it–again, a social institution flows directly from human nature).

Another, change in human nature could take place in male psychology so that humans operated like some species where all the breeding in a group is done by an alpha male with his harem. But this would only make polygyny the most common form of union when marriage occurs. For most men, marriage wouldn’t occur at all since the alpha males would be hoarding the women.

And that won’t happen in the real world because human psychology won’t permit it. There is no way ordinary, rank-and-file men would permit self-appointed alpha males to be the only ones who can get married. Ordinary men are too ornery, too organized, and too clever to let that happen. Any society which tried to impose such a situation on its male population would find itself quickly re-organized.

These considerations point out that human nature again drives us toward male as well as female monogamy. Human nature would have to change in fundamental ways for polygyny to become commonplace.

What we have said thus far deals with factors that don’t operate on the level of male desire. If males had no psychological impulse toward monogamy at all, the above factors would still ensure its dominance of marriag patterns. But I think there is more to the story than that. Though men may have “wandering eyes” more than women, this doesn’t mean that it is only factors external to the affections that lead them to be monogamous. If human nature has been set up so that monogyny is the norm among men, it is natural to expect that men’s affections too have been designed for it.

In other words, men also are monogamous because they want to be monogamous. They form unique emotional bonds with their wives and don’t want to have more than one. Though some–particularly in misanthropic feminist circles–might want to portray men as selfish pigs who will take as many wives as they can get–men themselves will tell one that this isn’t true. They really do form exclusive emotional attachments to their wives and regard something as wrong with men who don’t. Men are thus affectively monogamous by nature, just as women are.

You may have heard the bit of doggerel that goes:

Hogamous, higamous
Man is polygamous
Higamous, hogamous
Woman monogamous.

Well, there’s an element of truth to the contrast it makes between the genders, but only an element. The drive for monogamy is weaker in men than it is in women, but despite this human beings are still a monogamous species. I’ll look at male monogamy in the next post, but here I’d like to note a bit of recent scientific evidence that can be added to the case for female monogamy.

You may not have been aware of it, but recent evidence has shown that the exchange of biological material between husband and wife is more complex than is commonly thought. It isn’t just that the husband’s nucleic DNA is used to contribute to the genetic code of a baby. More is going on than that. It turns out that as a result of the marital act, genetic material from the husband is permanently absorbed by the wife’s body and becomes part of her–a dimension of the “one flesh” union between husband and wife that previous generations have been unaware of.

This material plays an important role in subsequent maternal health. Though all of the ways it contributes to the wife’s health are not known, it is known to serve as a preventative against several serious problems during pregnancy, including high blood pressure, and pre-eclampsia, and miscarriage. When a woman has not received sufficient amounts of this genetic material from the father of her child, the chance of the previous problems are increased, but if she has absorbed this material through regular marital congress with her husband, the chance of these problems is reduced.

One of the ways these problems are reduced is that having absorbed sufficient quantities of the husband’s genetic material better enables the mother to perform the immune modulation needed to allow her child–with its foreign genetic code–to exist in her body without her immune system trying to eliminate it.

Here is a fairly accessible article dealing with the topic. I want to take issue with something it says, though:

Gustaaf Dekker, one of the Adelaide researchers, said: “If there’s repeated exposure to that signal [from transforming growth factor beta] then eventually when the woman conceives, her [immune] cells will say, ‘we know that guy, he’s been around a long time, we’ll allow the pregnancy to continue.'”

I think this is the wrong way to look at the matter and would propose this way instead: It is hard enough for the mother’s body to undergo immune modulation and accept the child’s presence within her. Having the genetic material of her regular sexual partner–her husband–on hand makes it easier to recognize the child as a non-threat and thus increases the chances of carrying it to term. It is not that the mother’s body tries to kill the child of another man because his father wasn’t her regular partner. It is that having a regular partner makes it easier for her body to do its job of protecting a child, and her body goes to extra efforts to protect the child if it is recognized as a non-threat because it shares genetic elements of her husband.

In any event–since the above effect only takes place when the mother has a single partner whose genetic material her body has absorbed over time–it serves to reinforce female monogamy. We already knew that female monogamy is rooted in human nature on the psychological level. We now know it is also rooted in human nature on the level of immunology and direct reproductive success.

Next up, male monogamy . . .

The next couple of days I’m going to be doing a series of posts about . . . (ahem) . . . sex.

The reason is that in our sex-obsessed culture, it’s important for apologists to know how to argue the subject, particularly from a natural law persective since so many today won’t take you seriously if you just quote the Bible to them.

I’m going to keep it delicate here, but some of the links I cite to stories about recent scientific research regarding sex may be more blunt than some might want, so fair warning.