> From: "Lock, Samantha" <SLOCK92@psy.soton.ac.uk>
> Date: Wed, 15 Mar 1995 13:48:30 GMT
>
> If a man's job from an evolutionary point of view is to ensure that his
> sperm are scattered as far and wide as possible, whereas a woman is
> concerned with finding one man to protect her and keep her children
> secure, why is a break up reported to be more painful for males? Surely
> women are supposed to invest more in relationships. A survey carried
> out by 'Relate' into suicide patterns in men aged between 20 & 30
> revealed that the majority of suicides were precipitated by a break up
> with a partner.
First, we'll need better data to make sure it's true. Assuming it's
true, the explanation that first suggests itself is this:
Because of (human) sexual conflict of interest, with males' interest
being in variety and female interest in commitment, it is female
selectivity and choice that calls the shots (not force), based on how
she reads the cues (to fitness and commitment) in male courtship. But
having gotten into a relationship, it is the male who stands to lose
most from female infidelity (and ending a relationship is, proximally,
infidelity, not to be confused with initial rejection by the female,
which is just unsuccessful courtship -- though the two are on a
continuum, as Goethe's "Die Leiden Des Jungen Werthers [The Sorrows of
Young Werther]" teaches us), because of paternity uncertainty. So the
prediction would be that male-style sexual jealousy is what is behind
men's proximal depression at the ending of a relationship (by the
female!), for this has all the cues that suggest (distally) that you
may have been squandering your resources on someone else's progeny all
along.
As to suicide (something that sometimes happens with extreme
depression), it and brooding depression are not an option for a female
who must look to successfully rearing her brood even if the male leaves.
So, for a male in a relationship, cues of infidelity are cues to
genetic oblivion; for a female, they are cues to a need for a
more committed male.
But some might regard this all as just a Just-So story (that could have
been fitted to the Darwinian mold even if the data had been the other
way round)...
> Also, studies suggest that men have much better mental
> health if are they in a relationship. Perhaps this is the reason why men
> don't hang around and soon find another partner.
It is probably just the primary male strategy that keeps men shopping.
And again, it's not clear how much this is just a recent thing, having
to do with the way our current environment diverges from our EEA.
Perhaps humans living alone are stressed and under unnatural
conditions, and the male/female difference in degree of reaction to
this is just the well-known greater physical robustness of the female under
many conditions of stress (including, presumably, child-birth...).
Chrs, Stevan
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