love

love
The
Biology
behind
the
Heart

Anthony Walsh

~~ ~~o~~~~n~~~up
LONDON AND NEW YORK
First published 2016 by Transaction Publishers

Published 2017 by Routledge

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Library of Congress Catalog Number: 2015049220

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Walsh, Anthony, 1941- author.

Title: Love : the biology behind the heart / Anthony Walsh.
Description: New Brunswick, New Jersey : Transaction Publishers,
2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015049220 (print) | LCCN 2016002197 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781412862875 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781412862370 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781412862370 (eBook)
Subjects: LCSH: Love--Social aspects. | Love.
Classification: LCC HM1106 .W3445 2016 (print) | LCC HM1106
(ebook) | DDC 302.3--dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015049220

ISBN 13: 978-1-4128-6287-5 (hbk)

 Dedicated to my wife and soul mate, Grace, my children
Robert, Michael, my stepdaughters Kasey and Heidi,
my grandchildren Robbie, Ryan, Mikey, Randy, Christopher,
Ashlyn, Morgan, Stevie and Vivien, and my great grandchildren
Kaelyn, Logan, Keagan, Caleb, and Brayden. Also to the spouses
that made this growing tribe possible: Patricia, Dianna, Sharon,
Karen, Collette, Marcus, Michael, Amy, Jenna, and Mary-Beth.
 Contents
Acknowledgements ix

Preface xi

1 What Is This Thing Called Love? 1

2 Love as a Gift of the Gods: The Yearning for Oneness 15

3 The Human Brain and Love 27

4 Mother Love and Darwin’s Sexual Selection Theory 43

5 Touching Hearts; Touching Minds 59

6 Father Love: The Right Hand of the Equation 75

7 Lovelessness and Lawlessness 89

8 Love and Physical Health and Illness 103

9 Mental Health and Illness 119

10 Self-Love: The Basis for Love of Others 133

11 Romantic Love: Its Origin and Purpose 147

12 The Chemistry of Romantic Love 161

13 Love Styles: How Do You Love Me? 175

14 Monogamy and Promiscuity 189

15 Love as Exchange and Barter 207

16 Ecstasy and Agony: Love and Betrayal 223

17 Loving by the Numbers 237

18 Expanding the Circle: The Ethics of Universal Love 253

References 269

Index 293
 Acknowledgements
I would first of all like to thank executive editor Mary Curtis for her
faith in this project from the beginning. Thanks also for the commit-
ment of her very able assistant Jeffrey Stetz and the production team
of Allyson Fields, Stacey Daley, and Ellen Kane. This wonderful group
of professionals has done everything to make this book as presentable
as possible and have kept up a most useful dialog between author,
publisher, and excellent reviewers. The whole Transaction group are
a pleasure to work with. Special thanks also to my indexer, Hailey
Johnson, mother of three beautiful children, and still the gal with the
most intellectually courageous master’s thesis ever attempted at Boise
State University: The Epigenetics of Drug Abuse.
We would also like to acknowledge the kind words and suggestions
of those who reviewed this project. I have endeavored to respond to
those suggestions and believe I have adequately done so. Any errors or
misinformation that may lie lurking somewhere in these pages, however,
are entirely our responsibility. Last but most certainly not least, I would
like to acknowledge the love and support of my soulmate, Grace Jean;
aka “Grace the face.” Grace is drop-dead gorgeous and the pleasantest
of persons, as all who know her will attest. Grace’s love and support has
sustained me for so long that life without her is unimaginable. Being
married to Gracie is a perpetual pleasure that has never faded, and she
is, as they say in the commercial, priceless!

ix
 Preface
Love has been written about ever since the first human picked up a
stick to scratch a verbal utterance onto clay that someone else could
understand. Love is a little word that contains a universe of meanings.
Archeologists of the heart and soul have searched for it, excavated it,
and tried to convey to the rest of us it in their philosophy, religion, and
poetry, and many others have claimed to understand it emotionally
through such media. Love as long been considered too amorphous,
ineffable, paradoxical, and beautiful for it to be dissected by cold sci-
ence and reason. As the seventeenth-century French polymath Blaise
Pascal informed us: “The heart has its reasons, which reason does not
know. We feel it in a thousand things. It is the heart which experiences
God, and not the reason.”1 Pascal’s point was that you will know love
in your deepest recesses of your being in the same way that you know
God, so trust in your emotional intuitions.
Pascal was correct; the intuitions of the “felt life” can yield deep
insights. But, while love moved Solomon to write the sublime Song
of Songs and Shah Jahan to build the magnificent Taj Mahal, the folly,
hurt, and anger it can generate has ignited murderous feuds and wars
as well. A life filled with love is the answer to many of life’s predica-
ments, but a life bereft of it is at the bottom of many of life’s problems.
Nothing is more important to a meaningful and happy life than to love
and to be loved, making it of the utmost importance that we dissect
and understand with our minds as well as our hearts this gift of nature
that “moves the sun and other stars.”
It was not until the advent of the industrial revolution, when science
became something of a god in Western eyes, that scientists began to
poke around in love’s nest. The pioneers of the science of love were
psychoanalysts and psychologists such as Sigmund Freud and William
James, who concentrated on erotic love and left untouched so many of
its other features. Their theorizing was flawed in many ways. Theories
are immensely important for science because they gather accumulated
xi
 Love

facts and arrange them in harmonious wholes that allow those facts to
speak coherently to us. Theories are useful, however, only to the degree
to which they are based on hard, reliable facts. The march of science
depends more on the invention of new observational techniques to
obtain such facts than on “armchair” theories unencumbered by solid
facts. Today we have the tools to go beyond emotional intuition to rea-
son about love in all its manifestations from the hard facts of science.
The invention of the telescope led to far greater progress in astron-
omy than all the theoretical squabbles that went before, and the inven-
tion of the microscope did the same for the progress of biology and
medicine. Advances in technology in the biological and neurological
sciences have created a revolution in the way we think about human
nature and behavior, and thus about love and its central place in our
lives. The wondrous inner workings of our brains and bodies are no
longer mysterious black boxes we can ignore. We can now see the
brain in action in real time, and our ability to collect DNA profiles
has opened up exciting new ways to examine cause and effect. The
behavioral sciences investigated human behavior (including love)
throughout the best part of the twentieth century as though biology
didn’t matter, but now these black boxes have been pried open and their
treasures investigated in depth we have to come to terms with what
has been revealed. Human behavior is the result of a constant two-way
dance between nature and nurture from conception to death. We are
designed to incorporate environmental experiences into our plastic
neural circuitry, and even into our genomes via epigenetic processes.
This is precisely why experiencing tender loving care in infancy, and
loving and being loved thereafter, is so necessary for human beings if
they are to enjoy the fullness of life.
I begin this journey by exploring the human yearning for connec-
tion and the many faces of love in chapters 1 and 2 through the eyes of
philosophers, theologians, poets, and scientists. But didn’t we say that
we have gone beyond the intuitions of philosophy, theology, and poetry
and entered the age of science? We did, and we have, but just because
we have cleared more forest, we do not abandon the first clearing upon
which we built our house. Philosophy is the home and hearth of all
knowledge. The great minds of physics, the ultimate science, such as
Ernst Mach, Niels Bohr, Erwin Schrodinger, and Albert Einstein were
steeped in philosophy, and it affected the way they interpreted their
physics. Einstein declared that philosophical insight is “the mark of
distinction between a mere artisan or specialist and a real seeker of
xii
 Preface

truth.”2 It is in this spirit that I have found prescientific wisdom exem-

plified in religion and philosophy to be of great use in my endeavor to
understand love.
Although science is the best route to justified knowledge, there is
always a measure of subjectivity in it because we cannot always separate
the dancer from the dance. As novelist and scientist Vladimir Nabokov
put it: “There is no science without fancy and no art without fact.”3
It is for this reason that I glean wisdom from the men and women of
letters as well as the men and women of science. Scientists continuously
produce a flurry of studies necessarily written in specialized and turgid
prose in which they have artificially constructed a closed world in order
to isolate the variables of interest to them. Philosophy and literature can
take the results of these studies, add to them the wisdom of the ages,
put the pieces together, and then reflect on the whole. What is more,
the men and women of letters speak to us in an emotional language that
resonates with us more deeply than does the technical prose of science.
Thus, whenever possible I try to aid the understanding of the science
I discuss with some illustrative lines from works of a less demanding
sort. I particularly rely on the Bard of Stratford, William Shakespeare,
of whom Ben Jonson said in his eulogistic poem: “He was not of an
age, but for all time!” Shakespeare illuminated the range of human
experience and emotions better than any psychologist or psychiatrist
ever did, and did so in profoundly eloquent phrases.
Chapters 3, 4, and 5 look at the brain, the magnum opus of evolu-
tionary design. Love resides in the brain, and I explore what is termed
the triune, or “three-in-one,” brain to explore how each contributes to
the development of love in its own special way. I emphasize experi-
ence-dependent wiring of the infant’s brain, and why loving nurturing
is so important to the process. I also look at what has been called “the
mommy-brain” and explain how a mother’s brain gets reorganized for
the task of performing her vital role of caring for the growth, develop-
ment, and well-being of her child. Darwinian sexual selection theory
is discussed in terms of how it forged pairbonding between men and
women so that this team of individuals can successfully raise another to
reproductive age. The mechanisms of internal reward that makes infant
care a joyous task for most women are described in terms of empathy, its
evolution, and the hormones and brain structures that make it possible.
The numerous benefits of breast-feeding and tactile stimulation for the
developing infant’s brain are then explored, followed by a discussion of
the deleterious consequences of not receiving adequate nurturing via
xiii
 Love

the epigenetic reprogramming of the brains of children deprived of it

during crucial period of brain development.
Chapters 6 and 7 look at two interrelated issues; that of father love
and of lawlessness. Father love is the other half of the rearing equation,
but one which is increasingly missing from the modern Western home.
After investigating the paternal strategies of other primate species and
the hormonal changes that occur as a result, I examine the same pro-
cesses among humans. I then look at the different but complementary
parenting styles of fathers and mothers. Fathers love their children
as much as mothers, but in a different way. A father-absent upbring-
ing often has many tragic consequences, one which is lawlessness. I
explore the importance of the family and its evolution as the nursery
of human nature, and focus on the lack of bonding and attachment as
explanations for criminal behavior. The chapter also looks at the effect
of love deprivation in the form of abuse and neglect on the downward
regulation of stress-response systems such that victimized individuals
become less anxious and fearful in the face of stress, which is very
useful for criminals.
The next two chapters, 8 and 9, highlight the role of love as a causal,
preventative, or healing factor in physical illness and mental illness. We
look at the early literature describing how even the most hygienic and
efficient orphanages in the United States had rates of infant deaths many
times higher than the rate in the general population. This is followed by
the influence of love on cardiovascular health or illness, and how love
or its absence can affect the individual down to the molecular, or even
atomic, level by its effects on chromosomal telomeres. The chapter is
wrapped up with a look at love and the immune system. Our discussion
is then extended to mental health and begins by looking at clinical
depression. I examine this syndrome guided by Arthur Janov’s three
levels of consciousness that map to the triune brain concept introduced
in chapter 3. We then look at the role of love or its absence plays in
suicide and alcohol abuse.
Chapter 10 examines self-love and how it is viewed by moral phi-
losophers, and evolutionary biologists. Much of the confusion about
self-love lies in the meaning of selfishness and its connection with
altruism. While self-love has been condemned by moral philosophers
and laypersons, we humans are consistently told by mental health
professionals that we must be lovable to be loved, and evolutionary
biologists tell us that all animals must be selfish, and that it is this very
concern for the self that is the foundation of all positive emotions and
xiv
 Preface

behavior. It is concluded that loving others and loving ourselves march

in lockstep.
The origin and purpose of romantic love is examined in chapter 11,
and begins by looking at the process of sexual differentiation and anom-
alies of sexual development; that is, conditions that lead to individuals
whose behavior, attitudes, and even bodies do no comport with their
chromosomal status. This is followed by asking if sexual reproduction
has been favored over asexual reproduction by natural selection, why
not leave reproduction as a loveless sexual mechanism as it is in almost
all other species? In other words; why introduce the extra complication
of love into the reproductive imperative? The remainder of the chapter
is spent exploring contemporary evolutionary explanations for why
love is part of the human reproductive process.
The chemical and neurological responses to the onset and main-
tenance of romantic love are the topics of chapter 12. The chapter
describes the separate but interactive brain activity and chemical magic
that goes into the three broad stages of romantic love—lust, attraction,
and attachment. Some folks become love addicts, or more precisely,
lust, attraction, or attachment junkies. There are even groups modeled
on Alcoholics Anonymous called Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous
(SLAA) groups. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the folks
who attend (or should attend) these groups.
Chapter 13 looks at the various styles of romantic love based on
John Lee’s famous “Colours of Love” model. These styles are known
by their Greek names: Eros, Ludus, Storge, Mania, Pragma, and
Agape. Each style is examined and then illustrated by characters
from various historical stories and plays. It is emphasized that these
styles are “ideal types,” and that most of us love with different styles
with different lovers and at different times in our lives. The chapter
concludes with examining how Queen Victoria’s relationship with
Prince Albert illustrates how all styles can characterize a relationship
at different times of life.
Monogamy and promiscuity are the topics of chapter 14. We begin
by asking why men are so promiscuous and demonstrate that they are
whenever afforded the opportunity. We look at evidence regarding sex
differences in promiscuity such as number of reported sex partners and
responses to erotic materials such as pornography and strip dancers.
Evidence is provided that our species has gone through periods where
promiscuity was the mating norm, as it is among our closest genetic
cousins, the chimpanzees. We then explore female promiscuity, which
xv
 Love

requires more explanation than male promiscuity. The chapter con-

cludes with a discussion of the female orgasm.
Chapter 15 looks at love as exchange and barter. Seeking out a
romantic partner is seen as a shopping expedition in which we have
on our shopping lists what we want from a partner, but realistically we
realize that we can only buy what we can afford. The more a person
has to offer in the form of what the opposite sex wants, the more he or
she can demand in return. We take a look at sex-differentiated mating
shopping lists from around the world, particularly from advertising and
dating services where men and women explicitly state what they want
and what they have to exchange in return. I then address the questions
of whether these preferences are the result of evolutionary or social
pressures, the impact of supply and demand, and the extent to which
we are seeking an alter-ego when we engage in serious mate shopping.
Cupid’s poisoned arrow—the one that wounds its targets with
betrayed love—is the topic of chapter 16. We look at the history of
adultery and ask why men and women cheat on their steady partners.
Asking why men cheat maybe like asking why dogs bark, so little time
is spent trying to answer that question, but why women cheat requires
a longer answer because the evolutionary benefits of cheating for
them is much less clear. We discuss why many women are attracted to
hypermasculine “bad boys” and are sometimes put off by “nice guys,”
and why, if they are to be unfaithful, they are most likely to stray during
the ovulatory stage of the monthly cycle. If we discuss love’s betrayal, it
is obligatory that we also examine the “gene ey’d monster” of jealousy
and its consequences. Violence in the form of vicious assaults, murders,
and suicides are all too often the response to unfaithful lovers.
The fascinating effects of a skewed sex ratio (significantly more men
than women—or vice versa—in a mating population) on dating and
mating practices, and the effects of those practices on the wider culture,
are the topics of chapter 17. The respective reproductive strategies of
the sexes are laid bare in environmental situations in which one or the
other sex has a distinct advantage and is able to call the dating and
mating shots. When males are in short supply (a low sex ratio), the
dating and mating environment becomes licentious as males “play the
field” and are reluctant to commit. In such environments, illegitimacy,
venereal disease, and crime rates rise to high levels. When females are
in short supply (high sex ratio), the world is generally a better place.
The upside of a low sex ratio and the downside of a high sex ratio are
also discussed.
xvi
 Preface

The last chapter explores the age-old quest for a perfect society
populated by perfect people obeying Jesus’s command to “love one
another.” We explore the thoughts of utopian thinkers—which are quite
appealing in theory—but which turn into nightmares when attempts
are made to put them into practice. I examine two contemporary works
trying to convince us that we can expand the circle of love to include all
humankind; the first based on rationality and the second on emotion.
As much as we would love to see universal love, it is not possible. Love
is a centripetal force that pulls us always to the center; its pull outward
gets ever weaker the farther from the center it travels. I look at what
Immanuel Kant called practical love that often arises spontaneously
as a better alternative to “planned intentional love,” just as capitalism
is a better solution than a command economy to expanding wealth
and well-being. Finally, I show how romance as the basis for marriage
arose under the umbrella of freedom and material abundance shaped
by democratic capitalism.
Notes
1. O’Connell M., Blaise Pascal: Reasons of the Heart, xi.
2. Howard, D., Albert Einstein as a philosopher, 34.
3. Boyd, B., Nabokov’s “Pale Fire”, 145.

xvii
 1
What Is This Thing Called
Love?
I tell thee, love is nature’s second sun Causing a spring
of virtue where she shines.
—George Chapman, sixteenth-century English poet

Defining the Undefinable

By wide acclaim love is the noblest, most powerful, beautiful, exquisite,
and meaningful experience of humanity. By it we are born, through it
we are sustained, and for it we will sacrifice life itself. Love insulates
the child, brings joy to youth, and comfort and sustenance to the aged.
Its boundless power cures the sick, raises the fallen, comforts the
tormented, and inspires composer, painter, and poet to the pinnacles
of creativity. Love is “nature’s second sun,” it “springs eternal in the
human breast,” and it “moves the sun and other stars.” Plato called it
the first creation of the gods, and Erich Fromm the last hope for the
problems of human existence. Philosophers as far apart in space, time,
and philosophy as Zoroaster and Schopenhauer declared love to be
the ultimate universal law. It provides lucrative grist for the mills of
recording companies and publishing houses from which they grind out
unending formula songs and novels declaring the joys and the anguish
of our perennial passion. Lusty love, love lost, love found, love requited
and unrequited, secret love, shouted love, painful love, ecstatic love,
neurotic love, perverted love, sacrificial love—the list goes on. With
nobler motives poets too milk this nectar of the gods to the final impas-
sioned sigh. We are all of us, or so it seems, in love with love.
In 1956 psychoanalyst Erich Fromm published a phenomenally suc-
cessful little book called The Art of Loving. It was a beautiful exploration
of the philosophical, religious, and psychological aspects of love. One
could not read this book without feeling uplifted, but it was lacking

1
 Love

in hard scientific evidence to support Fromm’s assertion that love “is

the most fundamental passion, it is the force which keeps the human
race together, the clan, the family, the society. The failure to achieve
it means insanity or destruction—self-destruction or destruction of
others. Without love humanity could not exist for a day.”1
I hope I have not been overly arrogant by emphasizing science in this
book; for most people the “art of love” is so much more appropriate
than the “science of love.” As Shakespeare inquires in The Merchant of
Venice: “Tell me where is fancy bred/Or in the heart or in the head?”
Romantics are happy to enshrine love as bred in the heart, where it can
remain the most mysterious of emotions, irrational and inexplicable.
Love is traditionally viewed as one of those great intangibles that many
prefer to leave to the poet’s pen lest they be somehow diminished by
the cold stare of science. The romantic’s response to having something
beautiful explained in its particulars is exemplified by William Word-
sworth’s lines in The Tables Turned, supposedly written in response to
Isaac Newton’s explanation of the beauteous rainbow in terms of the
soulless physics of refracted light:
Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;
Our meddling intellect
Misshapes the beauteous forms of things
We murder to dissect.

Does the value of love really reside in our inability to understand it; or
does its value reside in the impact it has on our lives? There are those
who enjoy the mystery of a thing more than the thing itself, but surely
science enhances rather than diminishes the appreciation of the charms
nature yields to science. Newton’s unweaving of the rainbow’s prismic
charms aided scientists in the development of the Hubble telescope
that has produced images of far-off galaxies that are so exquisitely
beautiful that they would have sent romantic poets into raptures of
delight. Wordsworth eventually came to realize that rainbows are no
less beautiful when understood as refracted light, and he became an
ardent admirer of Newton.
We need to understand love as science reveals it to us, just as we
need to enjoy its blessings because the confusions, contradictions, and
misconceptions about its nature have cost humanity dearly. As long as
we consider love to be some syrupy spiritual mystery that either strikes
us or does not, we may search in vain for it. If we miss out on love, we
miss an aspect of human existence that is truly essential. Love is not
2
 What Is This Thing Called Love?

just the icing on the cake of human existence; in a very real sense it is
existence itself. The human species might never have evolved countless
ages ago had not evolution injected the bounties of love into our bio-
logical inheritance. Families, bands, tribes, and nations have fractured
under the unbearable weight of lovelessness. Poor souls deprived of love
become emotionally barren creatures plodding aimlessly through their
joyless lives throwing dark shadows on the lives of others around them.
So, what is this thing called love? Sir Philip Sidney, sixteenth-century
English poet, courtier and soldier shouted in response to this question,
“Fool, look into thy heart, and write!” Sidney’s agitated reply implies
that somewhere in the deep recesses of the mind we should all know
the answer, and that it will be revealed to us if we will only engage in a
little free association poetry. Poetry has long been considered the only
true language of love and thus the only medium that can answer this
question. Poetry adds beauty to human understanding, but love is too
important a topic to be monopolized by romantics. Love is so much
more than the heart-pumping passion of two souls and four gonads
caught in a magical maelstrom. The nineteenth-century British poet
Percy Bysshe Shelley, in an insight more scientific than poetic, expressed
his thoughts on love thusly:

That profound and complicated sentiment which we call love is the

universal thirst for a communion not merely of the senses, but of our
whole nature, intellectual, imaginative and sensitive. . . . The sexual
impulse, which is only one, and often a small part of those claims,
serves, from its obvious and external nature, as a kind of expression
of the rest, a common basis, an acknowledged and visible link.2

As I interpret Shelley, he is saying that the romantic and sexual impulses

commonly accepted as exhausting the meaning of love are specific man-
ifestations of a more general and fundamental principle. These impulses
are instantiations that point toward and participate in, but by no means
exhaust, the richness of meaning contained in the verb “to love.” There
are those who would not agree with Shelley’s definition, for anyone’s
definition of love is open to criticism. Perhaps love is too profound, too
expansive, and perhaps too ineffable to be captured by any definition. The
great existentialist philosopher and theologian Paul Tillich thought so
because for him there is no higher principle by which it may be defined.
This is a beautiful thought, but not very helpful to scientific exploration.
US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart once confessed that he
could not define obscenity, but was certain that he knew it when he saw
3
 Love

it. Perhaps it is like this with love; we all know what love is, but then
some philosophical curmudgeon comes along and demands that we
define it. Fortunately, we do not need a comprehensive and universally
agreed upon definition in order to explore the nature and effects of
love any more than we need a hard and fast definition of obscenity to
study it. Nevertheless, we do need a definition so that we are all reading
from the same sheet of music. I will simply say for the time being that
love is an emotionally driven force that motivates active concern for the
well-being of another. This definition ignores numerous nuances and
edits out many qualifiers, but be assured that they will all appear in due
course. My definition owes much to Shelley, but it is couched in terms
of love’s manifestations rather than its essence. It is a broad definition
of how we relate to others, which covers a wide range of subneeds,
attitudes, sentiments, and behaviors.
Passionate and Compassionate Love
We should differentiate between the two broad types of love discussed
in this book—passionate and compassionate. Passionate love and com-
passionate love are two parts of a coherent whole, each feeding on the
nourishment of the other. Stripped to the barest essentials, romantic
love is concentrated passion focused on a single target; various other
forms of love are compassion, which is more diffuse and less frenzied.
Both forms of love are parts of a more general love principle rooted
in our biology; a principle that moves us to exert physical and psychic
energies to move toward unity and growth. The Greeks viewed romantic
love as a combination of erotike (sexual passion) and eros, an ennobling
feeling, which Euripides said could make “a poet even of a bumpkin.”
In romantic love the needs and demands of the self and of the beloved
are emphasized to the exclusion of all others. On the other hand,
compassionate love acknowledges the needs and demands of others
outside the romantic love relationship. As I use the term here, com-
passion is a combination of the Greek terms agape (a selfless concern
for the well-being of others; a broad love of all humanity) and philia
(friendship, brotherhood and sisterhood, a warm feeling of we-ness).
My exploration of love presents the wisdom of many disciplines
and the thoughts of many authors who share a deep belief that love is
indeed the glue of human existence. Until relatively recently, love was
infrequently studied by researchers of human behavior, for the word
sits too uneasily on scientist’s tongues. Scientists who study human
nature and human behavior prefer to leave what they may consider
4
 What Is This Thing Called Love?

to be a mystical, ineffable, and unmeasurable concept to the human-

ities while they focus on the negative face of humanity—on violence,
prejudice, war, crime, and hatred (defining these things, incidentally,
doesn’t seem to be much of a problem). These are all manifestations
of love’s absence, deficiency, or betrayal, and are, of course, immensely
important problems that demand our attention. In my own research
I have explored the consequences of love’s absence on criminality,
hypertension, self-esteem, intellectual development, and coping with
multiple sclerosis. These, and the studies of others, have convinced me
that in our world of confusion and alarm we must probe the nature of
love and learn how to generate and sustain it.
Humankind has always known that love was good for it. All great
philosophers and religious leaders have preached the same message of
love. What science has done is to verify and explain the particulars of
these insights through a systematic examination of the mechanisms
and processes by which love or its absence affects our physical, psy-
chological, and spiritual being. This is what this book is about. If love
is truly a human need (in the strictest sense of the word), it must be
demonstrated that negative things happen to us if we don’t get it, pos-
itive things happen to us when we do, and the precise mechanisms by
which these effects are manifested.
An Overview of the Many Faces of Love
It is not the threat of death, illness, hardship, or poverty that crushes the
human spirit; it is the fear of being alone and unloved in the universe.
Only when we are loved and can give love in return do we feel whole.
We are incomplete beings without love, and we yearn to be connected
When we are incompletely connected we feel a deep emotional and
spiritual emptiness. Apart from the purely survival needs dictated by
our nature, love is important above all things to the human animal.
The need for love envelops our personal, biological, sexual, social, and
spiritual existence. When we have it we feel happy, complete, and fully
alive. It beautifies our lives, it empowers our being, it ennobles us, it
enriches us in every way, and it imbues our minds and hearts with a
sense of the fullness of life. It is indeed “nature’s second sun,” for all
our needs, both the critical and the merely desirable, revolve around
its warming rays.
For all our praise of love, we find it difficult to get a firm grasp on
its nature. We are constrained by the attitudes and ideas our cultures
bequeath us and by the language in which they are expressed. Each
5
 Love

generation is impregnated by the intellectual seed of thinkers long gone

to their reward. Like every other idea of importance, love has been
strained through the sieve of received ideas. Each cultural perspective
on love has something to tell us. It would seem desirable, therefore, to
offer an overview of what love has meant to inhabitants of times and
places other than our own.
Wherever philosophers have put pen to paper to ponder love, they
have seen it as coming from one of three sources: the human mind, the
gods, or the deeply rooted nature of the species. The first two views
see love as something external to the nature of humanity, as something
that is either socially constructed or as something bequeathed to us
courtesy of supernatural beneficence. The idea of “social construction”
of love has certain relevance as far as romantic love as the basis for
marriage is concerned, but we are not limiting ourselves to romantic
love. Love as a gift of the gods is not an idea that sits well with the
sophisticated modern reader. Yet this has been the way many cultures,
lacking science, have viewed it. Something so central to human life has
to be explained for the curious in some fashion, and it has been only
in the last century or so that science has put its hand to the task. That
love—our noblest sentiment—should be seen as a gift of gods—our
most awe-inspiring conception—attests to the importance and value
that the ancients placed on love. But let’s first look at the notion of love
as an invention of the human intellect.
Love: Natural or Social Construction?
When we speak of love (or anything else) as a social construction, it is
meant that it is not something natural, but rather it is something that
someone, somewhere, just dreamt up. Broadly stated, social construc-
tionism maintains that concepts, practices, beliefs, and sometimes
facts, are artifacts of a particular time and place and are defined into
existence rather than discovered. These artifacts (constructions) are
said to be contingent on human representations for their existence
rather than on some inherent property those things possess. Social
constructionism is like a universal sponge soaking up every concept
from A to Z and squeezing them back out in mutated form and is
popular in the humanities and among social scientists who gravitate
toward such schools of thought as Marxism, radical feminism, and
postmodernism. These approaches to knowledge share a blend of
skepticism, nihilism, relativism, a penchant for almost incompre-
hensible prose, and give every indication that they are driven by an
6
 What Is This Thing Called Love?

unrelenting hostility to the notion that anything relating to humans,

including love, is natural.
In agreement with Aristotle, Spanish philosopher Jorge Santayana
objected to the notion that love is not natural long ago: “In Aristotle
the conception of human nature is perfectly sound; everything ideal
has a natural basis and everything natural an ideal development.”3 On
a more scientific note, anthropologists William Janowiak and Tom
Paladino argue that if the “love-as-social-construct” notion were true
there would be no neurological basis for love. As we shall see, there
are a multitude of bases lodged in the human brain, suggesting that
the universal longing for love “arises from forces within the hominid
brain that are independent of the socially constructed mind.”4 Just as
the loftiest cathedrals need the deepest foundations; love as the loft-
iest cathedral of the human mind, body, and soul, must likewise be
assembled and erected on the deepest of foundations. Nature prepared
love’s hallowed ground and welded the resulting edifice deep within
our beings over eons of evolution.
But let me also acknowledge that at one level all things, including the
gifts of nature, are socially constructed. Nature does not reveal herself
to us ready sorted and labeled, so humans must do it for her. Social
construction in this weak sense means that humans have perceived
a phenomenon, named it, and categorized it according to some rule
(also socially constructed) that takes note of similarities and differences
among the things being sorted and classified. Because things are neces-
sarily socially constructed in this vacuous sense, it does not mean that
the process of categorization objects, subjects, and concepts is arbitrary
and without empirical referents and rational meaning.
Swiss philosopher Denis de Rougemont is among those who view
romantic love as a social construct invented in the Middle Ages.5
Romantic love, he says, sprang from the soulful ballads of the trouba-
dours sung in the drafty castles of medieval Europe and baptized as
courtly love. Courtly love is a vulgarization of the ideals found in Plato’s
conception of love. To understand Plato’s notion of love we have to
understand his theory of Forms, which are eternal entities that tran-
scend space and time and exist in “a place beyond the heavens.” Forms
contain the essence of all things without which the things cannot be
what they are. They are Plato’s ultimate reality, the blueprints of the
perfect tree-ness, redness, triangle-ness, human-ness, or anything else-
ness. All instantiations of trees, color, shapes, and humans we perceived
with the senses are imperfect corruptions of the idealized “really real”
7
 Love

Form of these things. Plato’s idea was that there is a (literally) perfect
love somewhere, but this is an ideal that can never be achieved because
if it ever becomes reality, it becomes a corrupt and imperfect copy of
its perfect and unchanging Form.
For Plato, love is the desire for the Form of beauty, a desire that
transcends any particular manifestation of beauty in a material body
or thing. Courtly love was “Platonic love”; the idealization of a love
that transcended the mere physical. It was an unattainable love that
existed between a man and a woman married to others, or otherwise
unavailable. The ideal of courtly love, if we are to believe its chroniclers,
was nonsexual. The deep idealization of and yearning for the loved
one, coupled with physical restraint, was supposed to be ennobling
and deeply spiritual. Physical consummation of any such love was
considered to be destructive of both the characters of the participants
and their relationship. This idea of love was a preoccupation of the
Japanese for centuries because most marriages in Japan were arranged
rather than love marriages. Many contemporary Japanese love stories
feature self-sacrificial men and women who love from afar, and with
such nobility that if this love is consummated it results in death for one
or both of the participants.
To believe that the ecstasy of the heart and the trembling below is
nothing more than a cultural invention, never to be experienced unless
we are lucky enough to live in a culture smitten with the remarkable
intellectual “discovery” of medieval songsters is to be blind to a cascade
of evidence to the contrary. Surely the touching love stories of the Bible
or the Arabian Nights provide ample evidence that romantic love is
far older, and far more universal than its putative origins in knightly
Europe. A Sumerian cuneiform contains a poem written by a bride of
King Shu-Sin written over four thousand years ago bears ancient witness
to the ubiquitous ecstasy of romantic love.6 The poem reads, in part:

Bridegroom, let me caress you,

My precious caress is more savory than honey,
In the bedchamber, honey-filled,
Let me enjoy your goodly beauty,
Lion, let me caress you.
You, because you love me,
Give me pray of your caresses.

Add to this the ancient Greek stories of the desperate love of Orpheus
and Eurydice and the patient and faithful love of Odysseus and
8
 What Is This Thing Called Love?

Penelope, and the Bible’s sublimely romantic poem Song of Solomon,

and we can heap scorn on the notion that romantic love is anything
other than an integral part of human nature. Courtly love was a cultural
reinterpretation of a deep desire rooted in our biology that has been
around as long as the species has.
Yet, were we to ask for a single benchmark in the evolution of
romantic love as we view it in the contemporary Western world, then
the doctrine of courtly love is it. But it is a benchmark in the sense that
Columbus’ voyage was a benchmark for the diffusion of the knowledge
of the roundness of the world. Educated people knew the world was
round long before Columbus; The Greek mathematician Eratosthenes
had even calculated its circumference with remarkable accuracy some
1,400 years earlier. Likewise, men and women ached for that one special
person long before European balladeers set the ache to music.
Love and Culture
Perhaps the idea that love is a cultural invention began with the pro-
fusion of field studies conducted by anthropologists in faraway exotic
societies. Stories based on these studies in the late nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries seemed to have been tailor-made to shock
the Victorian age out of its prudishness. “Noble savages,” anthropol-
ogists reported, take their sex philosophically, with no more senti-
mental embellishment than is afforded the taking of food and drink.
Missionaries too, more concerned with the natives’ souls than their sex
life, frequently remarked that a major problem in translating the Bible
into native languages was that they had no equivalent for the word “love.”
But just because anthropologists have observed casual sex, or priests
have translation problems, it does not mean that love is nothing more
than a cultural artifact. We should also be aware that almost all these
studies are subjective accounts of native practices shaken through the
sieve of the researcher’s perceptions and ideology. We know today
that one of the most iconic studies in cultural anthropology—Mar-
garet Mead’s Coming of Age in Samoa—published in 1931, was pure
fiction; a fantasy that became wildly popular for more than half a
century because it touted an ideology congenial to Marxists, radical
feminists, blank slate cultural determinists, and the warriors of sexual
liberation. It appealed to this motley crew because it denied an innate
human nature, attacked western notions of morality, and described
how Samoan adolescents enjoyed complete sexual freedom without
experiencing jealousy (thus implying sex without sentiment), and
9
 Love

without experiencing the sturm und drang that many western youth
experience during their adolescence.
Speaking of anthropologists, Bronislaw Malinowski, perhaps the
greatest anthropologist of the twentieth century, says this about the
universality of love: “Love and marriage are closely associated in day-
dreams and in fiction, in folk lore and poetry, in the manners, morals
and institutions of every human community.”7 Malinowski saw love as
one of the cultural universals, perhaps not readily recognized some-
times by anthropologists more interested in exotic cultural differences
than in universals, but there nonetheless. This assertion was supported
by a study of 79 collections of ancient folk stories from every continent
and containing many hundreds of stories. The authors of this study con-
cluded that: “‘Falling in love’ is described as a distinct and recognizable
process in tales from regions as diverse as West Africa, Japan, North
and South America, the Middle East, Polynesia, China, and Europe.”8
As natural targets for the yearly crop of new American anthropol-
ogists, more is known about Native American tribes than any other
aboriginal peoples in the world. The American Indian apparently rec-
ognized romantic love, but considered it nothing to write poems about.
Anthropologist Peter Farb tells us that the Indians liked to joke about
young people’s romantic enmeshments but believed that only an idiot
would base something as important as marriage on love.9 Compassion,
not passion, was the emotion that kept family, band, and tribe united.
Survival, both at the individual and at the group level, demanded unity,
closeness, concern, altruism, and cooperation to a greater extent than
is required in modem societies. Among early white settlers, the Indians
living in colonial territories had such a reputation for compassionate
love that many whites went to live with them. The number of whites
marrying Indians and going to live with them was so serious that the
Virginia colony enacted laws against such a practice.10
When Farb says that the Indians like to joke about romantic entan-
glements, he is making a broad generality; there are a great variety
of peoples we call Native American. More than one of these cultures
had romantic notions that we would recognize. The Cheyenne of the
Great Plains are perhaps the best example. Their code of sexual con-
duct would have met even Queen Victoria’s stern approval. Courtship
among the Cheyenne was a very romantic and protracted affair, often
lasting four or five years. Cheyenne women were coy creatures who
made their hapless swains sweat blood and tears to win their hand in
marriage. The brave had to shower her with presents and words of
10
 What Is This Thing Called Love?

endearment. If this proved inadequate, he might resort to serenading

her on a “love flute” or enlist the powers of the medicine man. It seems
that the Cheyenne male felt and behaved in a way that the most ardent
suitors of Western culture’s most romantic periods would recognize.11
The romantic predilection of these fierce warriors is evident in their
choice of the delicate yet beautiful hummingbird as a symbol of love:
The Hummingbird symbol represented mated pairs and stood as a
symbol of love, happiness and devotion. Hummingbirds are always
depicted in their symbol as a mated pair as a symbol of love, devotion,
permanence, eternity and life cycles. Because of its speed, the hum-
mingbird is known as a messenger and stopper of time. The idea of
‘time standing still’ is often related to a couple in the first months of
knowing each other and falling in love. The hummingbird is remark-
ably brave and are not afraid of any predators—love conquers all. The
Hummingbird tells us to savour every sweet moment as they do when
hovering over each flower, another analogy for love.12

But why is romantic love not as readily recognized and valued among
preliterate cultures as it is in ours? Let me approach this question via
an analogy. Eighteenth-century German poet and philosopher Johann
Schiller wrote that “hunger and love move the world.” Love and hunger
are drives, and drives are the physiological experiencing of a need to
rectify some biologically important deprivation. Hunger is a drive to
eat so that the individual may survive. Love is a drive to unite so that
the species may survive. The pains of hunger remind us that we must
eat, and the pains of romance that we must love.
Wartime stories of prisoner-of-war camps tell of human reactions to
extreme hunger. Prisoners thought of little else but food; they dreamed
about it, fantasized about it, and covered pinups of Betty Grable’s legs
with pictures of steak and eggs. Food took on an inestimable value and
was gilded with an aura of almost holy desirability. When we are severely
deprived of something vital to our biological survival, nature demands
that we direct all our energies toward correcting the deprivation.
Have you ever rhapsodized about food like a hungry POW? Neither
have I. Those of us who eat when we please don’t expend much energy
idealizing our breakfast; rather, we take it “philosophically and without
sentimental embellishment.” This doesn’t mean that food deprived
POW’s invented hunger; we too would be passionate about our steak
and eggs were they not so readily at hand. The reason that the aboriginal
takes his sex as philosophically as we take our breakfast is because, if
we are to believe the anthropologists, sex is as available to him as food
11
 Love

is to us. Among the Eskimos and Aleut peoples, for instance, a man is
said to loan out his wife to a fellow hunter almost as nonchalantly as we
loan a cup of sugar to our neighbors. This custom does not extend to
any horny schmuck showing up on the igloo doorstep with a smile on
his face, however. It is a tit-for-tat arrangement that has many practical
(e.g., cementing intertribal relations) and mundane (keeping warm on
the hunt) functions that go way beyond sexual satisfaction.13 Anyway,
the custom has disappeared in the modern world, and the point is that
just because opportunities for partaking in sexual activity are suppos-
edly relatively abundant in many preliterate cultures, passion is not
dammed up to a breaking point by denial. The urge to copulate and its
fulfillment follow with as little delay for the aboriginal in a number of
cultures as hunger and eating follow for us. This being so, the native
sees little reason to brood over or idealize his passion.
This idealization, brooding, and longing, generated by the barriers of
denial erected by custom and morality in a society, are a good part of
the reason why passion is romanticized in poetry and song. Romantic
love grows strong when obstacles are placed between sweetheart and
suitor. Sexual intimacy is the feast that Nature promises and encour-
ages, but she insists it is best enjoyed after a prudent fast and a zealous
courtship. Jean-Jacques Rousseau makes the distinction between the
physical desire for sex and the more burning spiritual need for love: “If
the fire in my blood demands women, the emotion in my heart cries
more loudly for love.”14
Unfortunately, the “fire in the blood” trumps the “emotion in the
heart” into today’s raucous culture. Think back to the syrupy sweet
adjectives used to describe one’s lover in the songs of the sexually
restrictive 1950s and early 1960s, and compare them with the earthy,
and often obscene, descriptions in today’s songs. If popular music is a
barometer by which we can gauge cultural attitudes toward love and
sex, the ‘50s and ‘60s, were periods when women were valued and
respected, but today’s musical fare leave the distinct impression that
males consider them little more than appendages glued to a set of body
parts used to satisfy their lust. In the thumping cacophony that passes
for music today, we are just as likely to hear casual sex, or even brutal
sex, celebrated as we are to hear whispers of romantic endearment. In
1957 we had Pat Boone—hand on heart—crooning softly to his special
lady that “Every star’s a wishing star that shines for you,” in April Love;
and Elvis Presley serenading his sweetheart by telling her that “you
have made my life complete, and I love you so” in Love me Tender.
12
 What Is This Thing Called Love?

Fast forward to the twenty-first century and we see embodiments of

cultural degeneracy like Lil Wayne—hand on crotch—shouting “I wish
I could fuck every girl in the world,” in Every Girl, and Pitbull howling
that his “ho” has “an ass like a donkey, with a monkey [vagina] look
like King Kong,” in I know you want me. Yes indeed, culture certainly
shapes how the sexes come to view one another. Can you imagine in
2065 some little old lady in a rocking chair belting out Every Girl the
way that grandma sings April Love today?
History and anthropology provide ample evidence that permissive
sexuality subverts the exquisite joys of romantic love, and all the ten-
derness, friendship, and caring that accompany it, just as surely as
indiscriminately stuffing one’s face makes one fat, unappealing, and
unappreciative of the place of food in one’s life. Culture molds the
idea of romantic love in ways that fit it into an overall cultural pattern.
Sometimes it is molded in such a way that outsiders fail to recognize it.
However, whatever way it is molded, bent, and shaped, it no more loses
its essence than water loses its inherent properties as it is molded by the
various containers into which it is poured, nor turned into a solid or a
gas when exposed to the ambient temperature of your refrigerator or
tea kettle. Let me remind you that I am talking about romantic love and
not compassionate love. Affectionate bonds between family members
and others within preliterate cultures tend to be remarkably strong.
They have to be, for no culture has ever survived the loss of compassion.
Notes
1. Fromm, E., The Art of Loving, 15.
2. Holmes, R. Shelley on Love: An Anthology, 106–107.
3. Cited in Durant, W., The Pleasures of Philosophy, 114.
4. Jankowiak and Paladino, T., Desiring sex, longing for love, 9.
5. de Rougemont, R. 1973, Love. In Dictionary of the History of Ideas.
6. Holloway, A., The 4,000-year-old Sumerian love poem and the sacred ritual
of marriage.
7. Malinowski, B., Sex, culture, and myth, 4.
8. Gottschall and Nordlund, Romantic love: A literary universal?
9. Farb, P., Man’s rise to civilization. 44–45.
10. Ibid., 313–315.
11. Hoebel, E., The Cheyenne: Indians of the great plains chapter 2.
12. http://www.warpaths2peacepipes.com/native-american-symbols/love-sym-
bol.htm
13. Hennigh, L., Functions and limitations of Alaskan Eskimo wife trading.
14. Rousseau, J., The Confessions, 44.

13
 2
Love as a Gift of the Gods:
The Yearning for Oneness
Love, at its deepest level, is the awakening to Oneness.
—Leonard Laskow, contemporary American physician

Love in Mythology
The human animal, in its more philosophical moments, has always
somehow known of the importance of love in the grand scheme of
things. It has been expressed in a variety of languages and modes of
thought from the time that humans first began to ponder themselves
and their place in the universe. The earliest writings that have come
down to us on love and on our deep yearning for connectedness have
been in the form of myths and legends. Myths are the stories humans
have used throughout history to explain our ultimate concerns: “What
is the nature of the universe? Who am I? Where do I come from, and
where am I going? What is the meaning of life, and how do I lead a good
one?” The answers given in myth and legends to these concerns express
the collective mentality of a given age. Myths are metaphorical stories
that support some ideology or theory about how things are; they are
not just fictional stories; they are projections of our hunger to know.
Some myths reflect the mentality of an age rather than a single
culture, for anthropology and history show us that myths seeking to
explain our most urgent concerns are remarkably similar across cultures
and across historical periods. This is hardly surprising, for ultimate
concerns would not be ultimate unless they were independent of
specific cultures. Myths encompass the species’ experience and make
it comprehensible. They organize our perceptions, tell us what is true
and reasonable, collect our diverse thoughts, and package them into
that coherent whole we call reality. Science, along with a smattering
of religion, accomplishes this task for us today. Although science and

15
 Love

mythology employ different words and different methods, both are

ways of organizing experience and answering questions. The answers
emerging from modem science regarding the human need for love
and connectedness, both in the passionate and compassionate sense,
are remarkably similar to those provided by ancient mythology. Myths
about love attest to the ageless importance of the topic. Whether we
seek to explain it as a gift of the gods or by the methods of modern
science, the fact remains that we yearn for it and seek to understand it.
Love in Platonic Thought
Many of the prototypes of the ideas that comprise the reality of our
modem Western cultures originated in ancient Greece. Our religious
concepts of the soul, Purgatory, and Hell, our political ideals of democ-
racy and republicanism, our ideas of education, sport, truth, beauty,
justice, and much more have their origins in Greek thought. Likewise,
the various types of love—love of self, sexual and romantic love (both
homo and heterosexual), God as love, love as desire for possession of
the good, love as “the good” itself, love as the desire for inclusion—all
have their philosophical origins in Plato’s Symposium. If we are to
understand the nature of love, said the great French philosopher Vol-
taire, “meditate on Plato’s Symposium.”1
Although Plato’s conceptions of love constitute the major Greek
contribution to many of our present-day notions of love, it would be a
mistake to take his ideas as representing anything more than his own
musings and impressions. After all, it is hardly likely that a genius such
as Plato simply reflected in his philosophy what was taken for granted in
his time. What is a philosopher if he merely plays the role of a pollster?
As we have seen, it was Plato’s idea of ennobling love, cleansed of
the procreative instinct and free from the bounds of matrimony that
resurfaced as courtly love in the twelfth century. It was his idea of love
as pure goodness (agape) that found a home in Christianity. Plato’s
“true” eros—that which exists between man and man—has appeal for
the warriors of Gay Liberation, and his talk of restraining lust curries
favor among the priestly classes. When we speak of love we knowingly
or unknowingly reveal the influence of Plato. Let us now see how Plato
attempted to explain the origin, nature, and purpose of love.
In the Symposium, through the medium of the drunken ramblings
of the comedic poet Aristophanes, Plato recounted an ancient myth
about a time when love did not exist and in which the human race was
physically very different. These protohumans were spherical creatures
16
 Love as a Gift of the Gods

with two appendages and organs arranged back-to-back for every one
we have today. To make things even more complicated, there were
three sexes—male, female, and hermaphrodite. Despite this bounty
of organs, reproduction was asexual, being joylessly accomplished by
“emission onto the ground, as is the case with grasshoppers.” Terrible
was the pride of these creatures, for they dared to storm the heavens to
challenge the power and authority of the gods. The lesser gods wanted
to destroy these rotund upstarts, but the compassionate Zeus merely
punished them by cutting them in half lengthwise, “like a sorb-apple
which is halved for pickling.”2
With this primal partitioning these creatures became incomplete
beings, literally “split personalities,” as it were. This was not a desirable
state of affairs. Each incomplete person began to yearn for its alter
ego. Whenever the parts encountered one another, “the two parts of
man, each desiring the other half, came together and threw their arms
about one another, eager to grow in union.” So strong was this desire
for reunion that once reunited the parts would not separate, even to
take care of survival needs. Zeus reasoned that if he was to continue
to receive the honors and sacrifices due to him, he had to devise a way
to assure the survival of humanity. He decided that it would be wise to
move the reproductive organs of his creatures around to the front so
that they could beget other creatures while still in one another’s fond
embrace (at least the former hermaphrodites could). Here then is the
beginning of love. It lies in the expression of the ancient need for unity,
the reason being that “human nature was originally one and we were
a whole, and the desire and the pursuit of the whole is called love.”3
Stated otherwise, true love is a way of loving oneself through loving
others, and we are only happy and whole when we love and are loved.
We may be excused feeling that this notion about the source of love is
nothing but the playful leg-pulling of a soused comedian more interested
in making us chuckle than think. However, there is a simple experiment
performed by a team of British psychologist with results that would have
made Aristophanes sober up. These folks morphed digitized photos of
subject’s faces into faces of the opposite sex and then asked them to select
from a series of photos which one of a number of faces he or she found
most attractive and trustworthy. You guessed it; even though subjects
didn’t recognize the morphed faces as their own in opposite-sex disguise,
they almost always preferred their own morphed face.4
Even if amused by Aristophanes’s depiction, you must remember
that Plato was using it as a metaphor, and let us not forget that science
17
 Love

itself tells us that we are all descended from little, round, unicellular
organisms that slithered and floated about in the primordial mud,
reproducing themselves as asexually and as joylessly as Zeus’s spheres.
Sexual specialization occurred some countess millions of years ago
with a chance mutation that separated complementary halves (cells
containing nuclei) of what was once a whole. This chance mutation
precipitated the eternal search for our “better half.” Those sexually
specialized halves that obeyed the nascent urging to complement
themselves by union passed on that urge to the products of that union.
As Ashley Montagu, anthropologist and one of science’s foremost
expositors of love, puts it: “I see the need—or urge, or drive—of organ-
isms to be with one another as originating in the reproductive process
itself. It is not only that every cell originates from another cell but also
that every cell has for some time been a part of another cell.”5 Thus the
origin of love lies in the reproductive process that accompanies the
union of complementary parts. Montagu tells the same story as Plato
using different terminology.
Love in Religious Myths
The similarity between the Platonic myth and the myth of the biblical
Adam and Eve is evident. The God of Genesis created Adam from the
dust of the earth. God loved his creation, and his creation loved him.
But recognizing Adam’s need for a more corporeal love, for “it was
not good that man should be alone,” God created Eve from Adam’s
rib. Adam and Eve were thus complementary parts of what was once a
whole: “At last this is flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone,” exclaimed
Adam when he first beheld his mate. Even though our “first parents”
were separate beings, their maker knew reunification to be imperative:
“Therefore shall a man cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh.”
Judeo-Christian mythology had to explain humanity’s estrangement
from its Creator just as Greek mythology had to. Adam and Eve, just
like Plato’s spheres, committed the sin of pride by eating from the tree
of knowledge of good and evil, and just like the spheres they had to
endure the Almighty’s wrath. Since all great gods presumably think
alike, the JudeoChristian God also found it necessary to invent sex after
expelling his creations from his presence. Sex was necessary so that our
first parents could “be fruitful and multiply,” thus assuring humankind
would continue to offer God the love and homage he desired. God’s
sending of the Man-God, Jesus Christ, to atone for our sins provides
a nice twist to the story that speaks of the mutuality of love between
18
 Love as a Gift of the Gods

God and humanity. Christ’s sacrifice expresses the healing power of

love, and the word we use to describe his sacrifice—atonement—it is
etymologically derived in early modern English from “at-one-ment,”
the polar opposite of estrangement.
Perhaps the most beautiful and comprehensive definition of love arises
from the Christian tradition. In Corinthians 13:4, love is defied thusly:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not
proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it
keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices
with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always
perseveres. Love never fails.

This was taken from the New International Version of the Bible; It
sounds even better in the King James version. Corinthians 13:13
expands on this to say: “And now these three remain: faith, hope and
love. But the greatest of these is love.”
The Hindu myth of the Primal Being, or Brahman, is another story
indicative of the universality of the desire to love and be loved. In this
version of the human need for unity, we have a formless power sub-
stituting for an anthropomorphic god. For untold eons Brahman had
existed without self-consciousness. Brahman’s first conscious thought
was that he/she/it was alone in the universe and wished that it was
otherwise. This thought caused Brahman to split into two (yet another
ancient rending of a whole) to become the male and female parents
from whom sprang all life in the universe.
It is obvious from the creation myths of these three cultures that
the fear of being alone, and the desire not to be, is at the heart of all
our motivation to move toward union with others. By projecting this
motivation onto some higher primal being, we affirm the truth of our
feelings and are somehow admitted to a sense of oneness with all of
creation. Mahatma Gandhi expressed this yearning for union and
inclusion when he wrote: “Love is basically not an emotion but an
ontological power, it is the essence of life itself, namely, the dynamic
reunion of that which is separated.”6
Paleontologist, philosopher, and Jesuit priest Pierre Teilard de Char-
din viewed humanity as evolving toward a mystical reunion with the
universe through a growing “hyperpersonal consciousness,” a sort of
collective consciousness that will in time superimpose itself above the
biosphere. Teilhard insists that humanity must evolve its intellectual
and ethical attributes and merge them into love, “a universal psychic
19
 Love

energy” that will reach “Point Omega.” Point Omega is humanity’s

destiny—a return to the source of all and a vast outpouring of love.
Teilhard’s philosophical concepts are rather fanciful for a man schooled
in science; his religion clearly guides his speculations more than his
paleontology. Nevertheless, it is ennobling in its enunciation, and it
once again reminds us of our ultimate concerns and of the part love
plays in them. Yet should we be such unabashed materialists as to dis-
miss Teilhard’s speculations in total, even if we feel we must dismiss
them in their particulars. Teilhard wanted to make the human spirit
the basis of an evolutionary cosmology, asking “Why not construct a
physics whose starting point is spirit? . . . an evolution with a basis of
spirit preserves all the laws noted by physics.”7 Should we not, with
modern physicists, start to think in terms of relative and multiple reali-
ties, rather than imprisoning our thoughts in the world of appearance?
Within the Christian tradition, the love force became God, the source
of all things. God is the apotheosis of love, a divine projection upon
which humanity can concentrate its heartfelt need to love, to be loved,
and to be reassured of its participation in the cosmic wholeness. When
the Christian theologian Paul Tillich, evidently surrendering his earlier
position that love is undefinable, defines it as “the dynamic reunion of
that which is separated,”8 he is echoing the yearning in our bones that
has reverberated down the ages. Is it merely an accident that so many
diverse religions share myths with Plato that speak of a dark time in
prehistory when humanity was cut off from its primal source?
Much of religion’s appeal is the prospect of reunion with this source.
The very term religion means “to bind” (with others and with the
source). It matters not whether we consider ourselves to be identical
in essence with the source—as in Buddhism or Hinduism—or of a
vastly different nature—as in the monotheistic religions of Judaism,
Christianity, or Islam; the urge for unity fuels the faith of billions. St.
Bernard of Clairvaux recognized the yearning for unity-love when he
wrote that God and man can be unified, not by a fusion of natures as
in the Oriental tradition, but by the “glue of love.” This glue of love, the
need to give it and receive it, to no longer be alone in the universe, is
at the very heart of the essence of what it means to be human.
In those animistic ages in which all objects were invested with spirits
or souls, we see many examples of the attractions of inanimate objects
explained in terms of love and desire for union and inclusion. The
Chinese called the magnetic lodestone “the stone that loves” because
it attracted metal. The Indians described the rising of smoke as the
20
 Love as a Gift of the Gods

smoke’s desire for intercourse with beautiful clouds and, naturally,

the death of the fire was attributed to suicidal jealousy over the loss of
its smoke to its nebulous competitor. Aristotle, erroneously believing
that falling objects fell with increasing speed as they approached the
ground, explained the increasing velocity by referring to the “jubilance”
felt by the falling object at the impending reunification with the ground
from which it came.
Oneness in Science
Religious myths of love contain many insights that are in concert with
some modern scientific assumptions. A century before the birth of
Christ, the Chinese philosopher Huai-nan Tzu talked about the great,
empty Oneness: “All things issued from this Oneness but all became
different.” Modern cosmology and the theory of evolution tell of an
increasing diversity arising from a primeval oneness. We, and all the
rest of creation, were formed from the hot gases of the Big Bang and
the empty “Oneness” (or the “singularity,” as physicists put it) that
preceded it. In a very real sense we are integral parts of the cosmic
Oneness, the distant relatives of creatures who reproduced asexually in
the primordial muck, and so on back to the Big Bang where it all began
in a philosophical rewind to the brute fact that we ultimately are, in
astrophysicist Carl Sagan’s famous line, “made of star stuff.”
The intimacy and interconnectedness of all creation, even beyond
human creation, is made clear in studies that follow the comings and
goings of atoms in the human body. Studies using tracer elements
reveal that we exchange the trillions of atoms in our bodies with other
humans, jungle insects, Idaho potatoes, and even the stars, at a diz-
zying rate. The body contains only about 2 percent of the atoms that
were spinning in it one year ago.9 Physicist George Harrison tells us
that we can be fairly sure that at one time or another we have coursing
through our bodies some of the atoms, perhaps even some of the actual
molecules, that once were part of Julius Caesar, George Washington, or
Omar Khayyam.10 What prescient wisdom was contained in the age-old
myths that speak of our desire for union and inclusion!
In what sense can we view Teilhard’s “spirit” as preserving “all the
laws noted by physics”? If spirit is indeed something that is identifi-
able, what else can it be if not energy? What is energy? For physicists,
ever since Einstein mass and energy are one. The atom reduces to
the electron, and the electron to lesser particles with queer-sounding
names like quarks, leptons, and neutrinos, and the whole menagerie
21
 Love

dissolves into some sort of guiding energy that Henri Bergson called
elan vitale and which Teilhard is free to call love. Think of it: we are
living organisms composed of molecules that are visible only under
the microscope. Those molecules are made of atoms, the atoms of
electrons, protons, and neutrons, and they themselves of still smaller
particles. There appears to be an almost infinite divisibility of matter.
In fact, matter really has no meaning at this level, such particles being
organizations of behavioral properties rather than specks of physical
matter. Solidity and mass are properties they attain only in aggregates
of trillions. To borrow J. B. S. Haldane’s quaint remark, “The universe is
not only queerer than we suppose, it is queerer than we can suppose.”11
In the final analysis, what is the stuff of the universe? The great
astrophysicist Sir James Jeans once famously wrote that: “The stream of
knowledge is heading towards a non-mechanical reality; the Universe
begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine. Mind
no longer appears to be an accidental intruder into the realm of matter . . .
we ought rather hail it as the creator and governor of the realm of matter.”12
Theoretical physicist Allen D. Allen, commenting on the apparent infinite
divisibility of matter, states that he and his colleagues are on their way to
agreeing in principle with the opening line of the Gospel of St. John: “In
the beginning was the Word.”13 If Bergson chooses to call Allen’s “word”
elan vitale, or Teilhard chooses to call it a psychic love force or spirit
energy, of what do we compose arguments to tell them they are wrong?
So, the hard-nosed physicist and the mystical theologian sometimes speak
to one another in mutually intelligible terms.
Genetic Relatedness: Mitochondrial Eve
and Y-Chromosomal Adam
Let us move on from atoms, energy, and “star stuff ” to explore the
oneness of the human race. How closely are we really related to one
another? Let’s go back one thousand years to around the year 1015,
which is about thirty-three generations ago. If we trace our personal
ancestry back 33 generations by taking the 33rd power of 2 (2 par-
ents, 4 grandparents, 8 great-grandparents, and so on), we arrive at
8,589,934,592 ancestors, a number larger than the number of people
on the planet today. Each of us can’t possibly have that many ances-
tors, so it is obvious that we share a far smaller number of common
ancestors before we go back very far, and the further we go back the
more certain this becomes. Using sophisticated genetic and statistical
techniques, a team of British scientists concluded that every European
22
 Love as a Gift of the Gods

who left descendants one thousand years ago (thirty-three generations)

“would be an ancestor of every present day European”14 That, of course,
includes people of European descent living elsewhere.
What about the rest of the world, particularly areas that remained
isolated for long periods? Breeding populations around the world were
fairly, but not completely, isolated from each other until the various
voyages of discovery sparked by Christopher Columbus around five
hundred years ago. Tasmanian Aborigines, for instance, were isolated
from the world for about forty thousand years before the arrival of
the British in the eighteenth century. From 1803 to the present a lot
of hanky-panky has been going on down under since there are no
Tasmanians today without some European ancestry.15 Because of such
past isolation we have to go back further before reaching an ancestor
common to everyone.
When the intention is to look for the earliest common ancestor of
all humans on all continents, it is easier to do so if the search is limited
to either matrilineal or patrilineal lines alone. To follow the mater-
nal line, geneticists use a kind of DNA called mitochondrial DNA.
Mitochondrial DNA is inherited only from mothers and is not subject to
the constant cutting, sorting, and shuffling that nuclear DNA undergoes
when cells divide. All cells, male or female, are fueled by mitochondria,
but the mitochondria in male cells come only from their mothers since
mitochondria from sperm cells are destroyed shortly after fertilization.
Since mitochondrial DNA is subject to mutations with a fairly well-
known rate of occurrence, it is ideal for tracing the family tree.
A team of geneticists at the University of California at Berkley really
shook up the family tree back in 1987 when they announced a female
ancestor common to everyone on earth, whom they (naturally) called
Eve, lived about two hundred thousand years ago. They did this using
placental material to extract mitochondrial DNA from women from
Europe, Australia, Asia, and Africa. Another team of geneticists from
Emory University came to a similar conclusion based on blood samples
of seven hundred people on four continents.16 More recently, a team
using mathematical models figured that everyone’s most recent com-
mon ancestor lived about 169 generations ago, or about 5,000 years
ago. This group concluded that “No matter the languages we speak
or the colour of our skin, we share ancestors who planted rice on the
banks of the Yangtze, who first domesticated horses on the steppes of
the Ukraine, who hunted giant sloths in the forests of North and South
America, and who laboured to build the Great Pyramid of Khufu.”17
23
 Love

What about our male lineage? Searching the paternal line requires
looking at Y-chromosomal DNA, which is only passed down from father
to son. Two papers using Y-chromosomal data that were published
simultaneously in the prestigious journal Science in 2013 came up with
separate estimates. One estimated that our earliest common ancestor
lived between one hundred eighty thousand and two hundred thousand
years ago, and another between one hundred twenty thousand and one
hundred fifty six thousand years ago.18,19 There are a variety of reasons
that estimates vary so widely, but we need not get into that here.
What we do need to explain is that there are unintended images
conjured up by the appropriation of the Biblical names Adam and Eve.
Scientists are not saying that these ancient parents suddenly appeared
on the scene in an act of divine creation, that they were the first man and
woman, or that they were contemporaries. Thousands of generations
of hominid creatures preceded both. What is apparently unique about
the scientist’s Adam and Eve is that they alone among their brothers
and sisters had an unbroken line of sons or daughters to pass on their
Y-chromosome or mitochondrial DNA. Other males and females alive
at the same time contributed to our lineage via nuclear DNA, but some-
where along the way the lineage of these other males and females was
broken by the failure to produce a son to transmit the Y-chromosome
or a daughter to transmit the mitochondrial DNA.
It is possible that new samples of individuals from around the world
might discover previously unknown divergent lineages, but if that did
happen they would eventually converge on an Adam and/or Eve who
lived somewhat further back in time. The important point for us is that
regardless of the variety of estimates scientists come up with and wran-
gle over, it is indisputable that at some point we do all have a common
ancestor. This realization admits us all into a single brotherhood and
sisterhood despite our often fiercely maintained differences that so
often separate us. These natural (race, sex, ethnicity) and socially con-
structed (religion, nationalism) differences cause strife among us over
and over again. Perhaps, however, love needs strife to give it meaning,
as many scholars have argued.
Love and Strife
The notion that love and strife are the yin and yang of existence is not
new. Empedocles, a pre-Platonic Greek philosopher, saw the whole
cosmos as driven along its various paths by the forces of love and strife.
Love was seen as a great unifying life force functioning to bond all
24
 Love as a Gift of the Gods

things, both animate and inanimate. Empedocles literally saw love as

being an integrative, creative energy or power, and strife as necessary
for constructive change. Thinkers subsequent to Empedocles came to
view all kinds of natural phenomenon, such as magnetism, gravitation,
and chemical affinities, as a form of love energy operating on the phys-
ical world just as altruism, passion, gregariousness, and so forth were
manifestations of the love force in the psychological and social world.20
Opposing love’s life force and repelling all things was strife. These two
opposing forces were transmuted within various cultures into Venus
and Mars (Rome), Light and Darkness (Zoroaster), Eros and Thanatos
(Freud), and God and Satan, who are in Christian, Judaic, and Islamic
lore the anthropomorphized embodiments of love and strife. There
is, then, a continuity of thought, at least in the Western and Middle
Eastern traditions, which views the unitary structure of love and strife
as constituting the fundamental mechanism of existence.
All of these traditions view strife, or its various transmutations, as
being necessary to give meaning to love. Nobel Prize winning etholo-
gist Konrad Lorenz, who once described love as “the most wonderful
product of ten million years of evolution,” makes much the same point
on a more mundane level. Noting that indications of love and altruism
are only found in aggressive species of animals, he asserts that while
aggression can exist without love, there can be no love in species
lacking aggression.21 The existence of aggression makes the evolution
of love imperative if aggressive species are to live peacefully among
themselves and work for common ends. It is instructive that oxyto-
cin, a very important hormone for understanding all aspects of love,
and a chemical we will explore in depth in subsequent chapters, also
functions to make us suspicious of others. This is not surprising since
others may have desires to possess or hurt people close to us, sparking
feelings of jealousy and moving us to aggressively protect our young
and our mates. As psychiatrist Smiley Blanton puts it: “From the very
beginning of our lives, the two primitive drives of love and aggression
meet and become inextricably entangled with one another. Each of
these forces is an indispensable source of energy, and human life would
be impossible if either were to be eliminated.”22
What are we to make of all this? A good case can be made for the
existence of a biological “love energy” driving Homo sapiens along the
paths of altruism, cooperation, and caring when no tangible rewards
are evident. It is evident that as the dependency period of the young
of a species becomes longer, the greater is the necessity for a form of
25
 Love

bonding attachment to evolve. There must exist strong bonds of loving

attachment between the caregiver and the dependent caretaker for
the latter to survive. Love is the mother’s only reward for the painful
sacrifices she is called upon to make. To render tender loving care
to her infant and to perceive the faint beginnings of love returned is
sufficient reward for most. There may be eons of evolutionary sense in
Lord Byron’s famous couplet in Don Juan: “Man’s love is of man’s life
a thing apart; ‘tis woman’s whole existence.” To the infant, the mother
is the fountainhead of all satisfactions. The mother-infant bond is the
template for all other bonds. In a concrete sense, the infant’s mother
“programs” its brain in ways that will determine how it will live the rest
of its life. To this subject we now turn.
Notes
1. Voltaire, F., The Portable Voltaire, 155.
2. Plato, The Symposium, 336
3. Ibid., 337.
4. Penton-Voak, Perrett, and Peirce, Computer graphic studies.
5. Montagu, A., My conception of human nature, 92.
6. Gandhi, M., Self-restraint versus self-indulgence, 102.
7. de Chardin, T., How I believe, 31–33.
8. In Singer, I., The nature of love from Plato to Luther, 67.
9. Harrison, G., The role of science in our modern world, 95.
10. Ibid., 95.
11. Haldane, J., Possible Worlds and Other Essays, 28.
12. Jeans, J., The mysterious universe, 137.
13. Allen, A., Does matter exist? 60.
14. Ralph and Coop, The geography of recent genetic ancestry across Europe.
15. Rohde, Olson, and Chang, Modelling the recent common ancestry.
16. For and excellent history of this research, see Bryan Sykes, 2002.
17. Rohde, Olson, and Chang, Ibid., 565.
18. Francalacci, et al., Low-pass DNA sequencing.
19. Poznik, et al., Sequencing Y chromosomes.
20. Cited in Sorokin, P., The ways and power of love, 6.
21. Lorenz, K., On aggression, 209.
22. Blanton, S., Love or perish, 38.

26
 3
The Human Brain and Love
Love resides in the brain; it is the organ of love.
—Paul Chauchard, French physician and philosopher

“God,” wrote nineteenth-century British poet Sir Edwin Arnold, “can’t

be always everywhere: and, so, invented mothers.” Arnold’s tribute to
motherhood as a surrogate for God is a poetic expression of a scientific
proposition growing in momentum and certitude among scientists in
many fields. More is being learned every day about the tremendous
importance of love in human development and about the vital role
of mothers in awakening and developing this most human of human
qualities. Romantic notions of motherhood aside, in the critical task
of humanizing the species, of teaching it to love; biologically and psy-
chologically, nature has placed women at the center of the universe.
No gender politics are played here; anatomy may not be destiny, but
modern science is reaffirming Freud’s belief of the centrality of the
mother’s role in making us truly human.
The Plastic Brain
Love is not merely theologically or philosophically desirable; it is a
biological and psychological necessity. It does not reside in the object
loved but is a developed quality in the lover that is actualized by the
object loved. Love is not an ineffable spirit just floating around “out
there” awaiting a target; it exists in a fully corporeal sense in the lattices
of the brain. The brain is a self-organizing marvel that depends to a large
extent on environmental conditions existing during its owner’s devel-
opment, particularly conditions existing in infancy and early childhood.
All living organisms, from the lowly amoebae to the stately primates,
carry on the various functions of living driven by electrochemical
processes governed by their genetic endowment. Some of these pro-
cesses are fixed and relatively unchanging, while others are extremely

27
 Love

malleable. If you were a member of a short-lived species with high rates

of fertility going about the business of living, feeding, and reproducing
in a relatively static environment, you might think it would be rather
nice to have genes that fix it so that you will do the right thing at the
right time. The evolution of such species resulted in hardwired central
nervous systems that obliged their members to make the appropriate
responses to the relatively limited range of stimuli they encounter in
their environments.
Such genetic hardwiring would be highly disadvantageous to humans
because we are long-lived organisms with low fertility inhabiting highly
variable environments. The more variable the social and physical envi-
ronment, the more frequently creatures living in them must adapt.
This means that some sort of decision-making program would have
to be incorporated into the nervous system so that the organism can
evaluate a stimulus before responding to it. The genetic endowment
of such organisms must be less specialized, less rigid, and less fixed.
In fact, the genes must surrender much of their control of behavioral
traits to a more open, plastic, and complex system of control. As we
go up the phylogenetic scale to human beings, we observe greater and
greater freedom from the fixed patterns of responses that dominate
organisms at the lower end of the scale. The system that allows us this
freedom is the plastic human brain.1
The human brain is a walnut-shaped, grapefruit-sized, three-pound
mass of gelatinous tissue. It is the most complicated and awe-inspir-
ing entity in the universe: “In the human head there are forces within
forces within forces, as in no other cubic half-foot of the universe we
know,” wrote Nobel Laureate neuroscientist Roger Sperry.2 The brain
is the magnum opus of millions of years of human evolution and is the
place where genetic dispositions and environmental experiences are
integrated and become one. Within this oatmeal-looking blob of jelly,
which consumes 20 percent of the body’s energy while representing
only 2 percent of body mass, lie our thoughts, memories, desires,
emotions, intelligence, and creativity.3 It is the brain’s ability to cal-
ibrate itself to the environment—its plasticity—in conjunction with
our unique genomes that make for the almost limitless variability in
human beings. Let us take a brief look at how this crowning jewel of
evolutionary creation came to be.
The most useful model of the brain that helps the layperson to
grasp its overall function without getting confused by the minutia of
the professional neuroscientist is evolutionary neuroanatomist Paul
28
 The Human Brain and Love

MacLean’s concept of the triune (“three in one”) brain.4 These three

brain structures—reptilian, paleomammalian, and neomammalian—
reflect its evolutionary history with each layer being superimposed over
earlier layers. This three-layered conceptualization has its critics among
neuroscientists because of its simplicity and because of its exceptions.
Exceptions can be found in any broad generalization, of course, but
as long as we keep in mind that the brain is an extraordinarily inter-
connected organ with every part having at least some ability to access
a pathway to any other part, we won’t be led astray. As neuroscientist
Jaap Panksepp put it: “Even though many specialists have criticized the
overall accuracy of the image of a ‘triune brain,’ the conceptualization
provides a useful overview of mammalian brain organization.”5 It is
useful to us because it engages three key mechanisms relevant to sur-
vival and reproductive success. They are mechanisms that (1) facilitate
responses to threats to our well-being, (2) facilitate mate selection and
reproduction, and (3) facilitate the protection and nurturing of the
young.6 I concentrate only on the last of these three for the moment.
The Reptilian Brain
The first of these structures to evolve sits atop the brain stem and con-
trols the basic survival functions, such as respiration and heartbeat,
and is thus considered the “survival brain.” MacLean calls this structure
the reptilian system or the R-complex to emphasize its primitiveness.
The reptilian brain is found in all vertebrates from lizards to human
beings, and as well as controlling vital body functions, it is the seat of
the highly patterned instinctive forms of behavior such as territoriality,
ritualism, nesting, and reproduction. It can be viewed as the corporeal
analog of the metaphorical Freudian id; that is, the physical home of the
most basic biological drives pressing for expression. Such a primitive
structure lacks the neural substrate to generate a mother-child primary
bond or adult male/female pairbond. For the great majority of reptilian
species, whether at the front or back end of the reproductive process,
it’s just a matter of an emotionless “lay ‘em and leave ‘em.”
Although all vertebrates including you and I have a reptilian brain,
only among the reptiles does it sit unopposed in the CEO’s chair.
Although reptiles have additional brain layers, they are nothing to write
home about. But then, if you just cruise the rocks and swamps all day
munching and mating or slithering through the undergrowth looking
for something to swallow, you really don’t need much more. It may be
a bit disconcerting to know that we have such a primitive structure
29
 Love

lurking beneath our gray matter, but learn to love it, because we can’t
do without it. We can injure structures in other part of the triune brain
and still survive, but if we injure the reptilian brain, it’s curtains for us.
Ex–US President Ronald Reagan, likened the human newborn to big
government—“An alimentary tract with a big appetite at one end and
no sense of responsibility at the other.” Reagan got it right (definitely
about babies; and probably about big government); newborn infants
respond to their new world almost exclusively from this primitive
hardwired structure. Our breathing, grasping, suckling, and the satis-
faction of other survival needs depended on it. The automatic walk, the
support reaction of the legs, and crawling movement, behaviors which
many new mothers see tested in the pediatricians office, are reflexive
“reptilian” reactions. Infants live in their reptilian brains; doing nothing
more than breathing, eating, excreting, sleeping, and slithering around
in their nests all day. The reptilian system controls these infant motor
responses for about two to four months because the neuronal tracts
between the R-complex and the higher brain mechanisms require time
to functionally connect.7
The infant smile is an important reflexive behavior in the human
bonding process. A newborn infant’s smile is totally reflexive (nonelic-
ited) and indiscriminate. The reflexive smile has doubtless been selected
into the human behavioral repertoire to evoke caregiving behavior. We
know that the newborn’s smile is unlearned because even blind infants
smile during the period of R-complex control. A blind infant ceases to
smile after control of the smile response is transferred to other areas
of the brain. Being unable to see and no longer governed by reflex,
the blind baby has no basis for learning the so-called “social smile.”
The social smile, as distinct from the reflex smile, has to be learned
by sighted imitation in response to pleasant attention. The smiles of
sighted infants become much more discriminating, focusing mostly on
caregivers and providing them with a visible sign of the pleasure they
are experiencing from their love.8
The infant’s smile is a strong reinforcer for the caregiver to continue
to administer to its needs. In turn, the love and attention evoked by the
smile reinforces smiling behavior in the infant. This love-smile-love-
smile feedback loop provides the infant with its first lesson in human
relationships: “It’s good to smile, it’s good to affiliate, and it’s good to
love.” In short, “It’s good to be nice because when I am I feel real good,
and others are nice to me too.” If the feedback loop does not develop, the
infant receives no reinforcement for its smiles and consequently smiles
30
 The Human Brain and Love

infrequently. It is no wonder that abused and neglected children have

difficulty forming intimate relationships in later life. As the old saying
goes, “Smile and the world smiles with you; cry and you cry alone.”
The Paleomammalian Brain
Surrounding the reptilian system like a protective claw is what MacLean
called the paleomammalian brain; more commonly known as the limbic
(“border”) system. The limbic system is a set of brain structures that
predate the evolution of those where our vaunted reasoning power is
housed by at least a million years.9 The limbic system is the “feeling
brain” because it is within these structures that we experience emo-
tion. This is the system that moves us to fasten tenaciously to the set
of symbols that define our social being—a flag, a cross, a particular
group—and to violently uphold the principles of these symbols to the
detriment of others who define themselves by a different set. But the
limbic system is also the seat of the noblest feelings of humankind: of
love, altruism, devotion, and the experience of the sublime and the
beautiful. The limbic system is a kind of balancing system between its
“lower” reptilian complex and the “higher” rational neocortex. It lends
sensitivity and emotion to the reptilian system, without which we would
be monsters, and permits the interplay of emotion and reason within
the neocortex, without which we would be robots.
The limbic system is able to function in the absence of the “thinking
brain,” but obviously not in the absence of the “survival brain.” Scientists
have prevented the development of the rational neocortex in animals
and observed that they are able to breed, nest, and nurture their young.
If sections of the limbic system are prevented from developing, how-
ever, maternal behavior is severely circumscribed (it becomes more
reptilian than mammalian) and an inability to enjoy pleasure and play
is observed. Although this suggests a great deal of genetic hard wiring
in the limbic system, it is open to fine tuning through its emotional
experiences, and those emotional experiences that leave their imprint
on it will have far greater impact on the individual’s life than the expe-
riences of interest only to the cold rational cortex.
If infants live in their reptilian brains, children live in their limbic
brains. They have wants and needs, but because they have difficulty
expressing them rationally they fall back to earlier evolutionary
scripts—the limbic emotions. As the basis for human interaction, emo-
tionality clearly preceded rationality in evolutionary sequence, and it
remains so in children as they form affectionate bonds. Neuroscientists
31
 Love

tell us that two people interacting in a caring relationship stimulates

the release of certain chemicals in the limbic in both. This process has
been called “limbic resonance.” Limbic resonance is basically a fine
attunement between two people in which their emotions harmonize
bringing both parties a feeling of deep comfort. The phrase was intro-
duced by psychiatrists Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini, and Richard Lannon
in their book A General Theory of Love, who summarize its importance
for psychological development: “Only through limbic resonance with
another can [the child] begin to apprehend his inner world. The first
few years of resonance prepare [the child’s brain] for a lifetime’s use.”10
We will revisit the limbic system many times throughout this book.
The Neomammalian Brain
The evolutionary switch from the preprogrammed behavior of the
reptilian system to the emotionally governed behavior of the mam-
malian limbic system was followed by another momentous shift many
hundreds of thousands of years ago. For a number of reasons discussed
later, the human brain size grew rapidly as the limbic system became
layered over by what MacLean calls the neomammalian brain—the
“thinking brain.” This third part of the triune brain is generally called
the neocortex (“new bark”), and is the largest part of the cerebral cor-
tex. If infants live in their reptilian brains and children in their limbic
brains, then adults are supposed to live in their neomammalian brains.
I say “supposed to” because limbic emotions often trump rational
calculation, especially when romantic love is involved. Nevertheless,
the exulted gray matter of the neocortex defines the human species
more distinctly than anything else. It is the site of abstract reasoning,
language, foresight, and judgments that allows us to name and then to
respond in socially acceptable ways to feeling and urges coming from
the lower brain areas.
We once shared this planet with another species of hominids called
Homo neanderthalensis. By all accounts the Neanderthals should have
driven Homo sapiens into extinction. They had larger brains, stronger
bones, thicker muscles, better vision, and had survived a thousand-year
ice age in Europe before Homo sapiens arrived from Africa. But we
drove them to extinction. If we compare the slightly sloping foreheads
of a Neanderthal’s skull with the prominent skull of modern human
beings we might have the answer to the triumph of our species. We
drove the Neanderthals to extinction with brains rather than brawn;
we are simply savvier survivors. The protruding forehead of Homo
32
 The Human Brain and Love

Figure 3.1. Major dopamine (white) and serotonin (black) pathways in the brain.

sapiens (“wise man”) carries within it evolution’s most recent addi-

tion to the neocortex, the prefrontal cortex (PFC), which is “the most
uniquely human of all brain structures.”11 It is the part of the brain that
is analogous to Freud’s ego; the part of the personality trinity that lends
direction and logic to the id and superego. It informs and sometimes
overrides the drives and desires coming from the lower brain regions.
The PFC occupies approximately one-third of the human cerebral cor-
tex, a proportion greater by far than in any other species (see figure 3.1).
It has extensive connections with other “thinking” regions, as well
as with deep structures in the limbic system. Because of its many
connections with other brain areas it is considered to play the major
integrative and supervisory role in the brain. It can perform all of these
tasks because it is the only part of the neocortex free of the burden
of sensory processing, and is thus able to concentrate on sorting out
input from other brain areas and making sense of them. Paul MacLean
believed that the prefrontal area evolved in close relationship to the
part of the limbic system (the medial preoptic area) most involved in
maternal care, and recent brain imaging studies reveal extensive net-
works connecting the medial-PFC to the limbic system.12 PFC–limbic
connections help us to empathize, to gain insight into the felt life of
others, and to understand it as if it were our own. French physician and
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philosopher Paul Chauchard gushes about the wonders of the human

PFC in the following manner:
The prefrontal is the brain of involvement. Reflection not only makes
us decide what is suitable for us. It gives us the taste, the enthusiasm
for what we choose. It does not give us merely a barren notional
knowledge, but makes us assent with our whole hearts to what we
know. And this is what would appear to be the full significance of the
prefrontal. Its real name is the brain of the heart, the organ of love.13

How the Brain Communicates

Human beings have operated successfully in a bewildering variety
of physical and cultural environments, from the simple caves of the
Stone Age to the immense complexity of urban life in the nuclear age
with this triune brain. Each of us has different experiences and learn
different things within these environments, all of which is physically
captured in the brain’s circuitry. Along with our unique genotypes,
this feature of brain plasticity, gives us all a permutation of traits,
characteristics, behaviors, and emotional responses that is uniquely
ours. Of course, we all share the same genome that makes us part of
the human family, but there are variations of the same genes that make
us genetically different from all other humans, unless we happen to
be one of a pair of identical twins.
Likewise, we all have a common human brain, but we also have brains
wired by experience that are inimitably our own. It is the conjunction of
variable genes with variable environments that simultaneously makes
every person like every other person, like some other persons, and like
no other person. The message I want to send is that experiences during
our earliest years, can produce lasting effects in the brain’s pattern of
wiring, and thus on the way we perceive and react to the world. As two
of the world’s foremost experts on brain development have insisted,
“there is little doubt that the parent-child relationships are critical
and that they play a key role in brain development. Differences in the
pattern of early maternal-infant interactions can initiate long-term
developmental effects that persist into adulthood.”14
The human infant greets the world overflowing with slumbering
potential which is actualized by experience. These experiences that
make us what we are and may become are perceived, processed, and
acted upon via an intricate electrochemical maze of interactions
among an estimated one hundred billion brain cells (neurons); there
may be a few billion more or a few billion less—God hasn’t told us how
34
 The Human Brain and Love

Figure 3.2. Neurons, axons, dendrites, and the synaptic process.

many there actually are. Neurons are units of communication and are
surrounded by the more numerous noncommunicating glial (“glue”)
cells that insulate, support, and nourish the neurons. As we see from
figure 3.2, projecting from the body of the neuron are axons, which
transmit information from one cell to another in the form of electri-
cal signals at infinitesimal gaps (they are about five thousand times
smaller than the width of a human hair) called synapses (“to clasp”).
The information being communicated is transmitted across the
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 Love

neuronal synapses by chemical “handshakes” in the form of tiny squirts

of chemicals called neurotransmitters.15
Some neurotransmitters are called “excitatory” (they promote the
continuation of a nerve impulse) and others are called “inhibitory”
(they prevent the continuation of an impulse). This is an oversimplifi-
cation, but it is a useful and conventional way to describe them. When
an electrical impulse passes along the axon and arrives at the synaptic
knob it causes tiny sacs called vesicles to burst open at spill out one or
more neurotransmitters into the synaptic gap. The neurotransmitters
pour across the synaptic gap and lock onto receptor sites on another
cell’s postsynaptic membrane. After neurotransmitters have passed on
their messages, excess molecules are either transported back into the
presynaptic vesicles or degraded by enzymes. Neurotransmitters are
the medium by which the message is transmitted, but they are not per
se the message. What transmitters “do” depend on the region of the
brain they are being utilized, their interaction with other neurochem-
icals, and the internal and external environmental contexts forming
the background of their functioning.
Each neuron has one axon but potentially thousands of dendrites.
Dendrites bring information to the cell and axons take it and pass it on
to the next cell for further processing in a constant relay system. Each
neuron is connected to up to ten thousand other neurons. During the
first few months of an infant’s life, dendrites proliferate and specialized
glial cells wrap around axons to begin the process of myelination. Myelin
is an insulating sheet made of water, fats, and proteins that acts like the
insulation around electrical wire; that is, it prevents the nerve impulses
from “short circuiting” and makes transmissions of impulses speedier.
Axons can function with less than adequate myelin, but their efficiency is
retarded. In fact, multiple sclerosis is a disease characterized by progressive
demyelination of axons. Dendrite growth and axon myelination continues
throughout life, but proceeds at an explosive rate during infancy and tod-
dlerhood. The reptilian and limbic regions are the first to be myelinated,
but the PFC is not completely myelinated until the mid- to late-20s.
Every piece of information is received only by the neurons for which
it was intended. There are thousands of receptors specializing for receiv-
ing particular transmissions. The effects of brain chemicals depend
on where in the brain’s circuitry they are operating and on the type of
receptors they bind with. Somehow the brain marvelously knows where
to secrete the substance in response to the immediate needs of the
organism. This activity takes place at a dazzling pace; a neurotransmitter
36
 The Human Brain and Love

remains in the synaptic gap for only one five-hundredths of a second

before being transported back to the presynaptic knob or destroyed by
enzymes to prevent signaling confusion when the next signal arrives.
The number of connections our brains make is truly enormous, with
each one of our billions of neurons potentially making many thousands
of connections with other neurons. In fact, our neurons “form over
one hundred trillion connections with each other—more than all of
the Internet connections in the world!”16
Neurotransmitters are molecules that have a particular chemical
shape that can only be locked onto receptors designed to accommodate
their shapes in lock and key fashion. Although there are about one
hundred known neurotransmitters we will only be discussing two major
ones associated with love: dopamine and serotonin for now. Figure 3.2
shows that the major function of dopamine is motivating us to seek
pleasurable rewards. These rewards may range from mild satisfaction
after consuming a strawberry sundae to euphoria in the arms of your
beloved. Because behaviors such as these result in pleasurable feelings,
they will surely be repeated.
The ventral tegmental area (VTA) identified in the figure is a major
player in the pleasure system. The VTA is composed of a group of
neurons located deep within the midbrain and is the primary origin of
dopamine. Another structure close by the VTA is the substantia nigra
(black substance), which is also a source of dopamine. If any part of
this system is altered or damaged in some way (say by drug abuse) the
person will not get pleasure from anything, even things that previously
brought him or her to the brink of ecstasy.
The other major neurotransmitter in figure 3.2 is serotonin. While
dopamine may be characterized as an accelerator of behavior, serotonin
may be characterized as a brake that is engaged when the pursuit of
pleasure exceeds reasonable limits and threatens to become compulsive.
Yes, you’ve guessed it—serotonin is to Freud’s Superego as dopamine is
to his Id. The Ego, of course, can be seen as the optimal balance between
these neurotransmitters with each being engaged appropriately at dif-
ferent junctures as we maneuver along life’s highways.
A class of chemicals called peptide hormones function like neu-
rotransmitters. Peptides are proteins that have information-carrying
capacity so great that some scientists have honored them by consid-
ering them only one step removed from genes. The best studied of
these peptides is oxytocin, known popularly as the “cuddle chemical”
because it “calms and comforts.” Oxytocin is only found in mammals
37
 Love

and is made in a part of the brain called the hypothalamus, which is a

major part of the limbic system. Besides synthesizing hormones, the
hypothalamus links the nervous system to the endocrine (hormonal)
system. Oxytocin production is stimulated by the birthing process,
breastfeeding, infant distress, and sexual satisfaction. It serves to
facilitate all forms of social attachments ranging from mother/infant
bonding to romantic love, and is the major chemical promoting the
limbic resonance process mentioned earlier.
Another kind of peptide is the endorphins, which are also produced
by the hypothalamus. Endorphins are the body’s own tranquilizers
that are released when we are in physically pain and/or psychologically
stressed, fearful, or anxious. When we experience these things these
opiate-like chemicals act to keep us on an even keel by providing a legal
narcotic tonic. Peptides are largely concentrated in the limbic system,
the emotional center of the brain. When an infant is lovingly snuggled
in its mother’s arms, endorphins keep it contented. If separated from
its mother, its endorphin levels fall and its level of stress hormones rise,
triggering separation anxiety and distress crying. It has been found in
experiments with animals that among a wide variety of drugs tried, only
endorphins mollify a baby animal separated from its mother in the same
way that the actual reunion of mother and infant will. Mothers are good
for us; they make us happy, they ease our anxiety, they make us feel warm
and secure, they keep our endorphins at pleasant levels, and make us
“high” on life. When we reflect on all the many benefits mothers confer
on us, there is no doubt that moms more than deserve the boxes of
chocolates and flowery bouquets they get one day in the middle of May.
Wiring the Infant Brain for Love
Love is so vital to humans that newborns have expectations of receiving
it built deeply into in their genetic makeup. If this expectation is not
met at sensitive brain development junctures things can go seriously
awry. Love chaperones the development of infants’ brain in a way that
it will guide them toward warm, healthy, and loving personhood, but if
love is not there the odds are that the infant will grow up to be a cold,
unhealthy, and negative person. Of course, love per se is an intangible,
but is resides in physical form in the mysterious lattices, webs, meshes,
trellises, and molecules of the human brain.
Brain development is the result of genetics (nature) and environ-
mental experiences (nurture) interacting in a complex dance. About
60 percent of human genes are involved in brain development providing
38
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the foundation, specifying the basic wiring, and supplying all the nec-
essary chemistry and materials, but the final form of this masterpiece
of evolutionary design is initially in the hands of an infant’s mother.17
We can view the infant brain as a kind of gigantic erector set piled
willy-nilly in a barrel being painstakingly assembled into a fully inte-
grated mechanism, partly by chemically coded genetic specifications
and partly by the guiding hand of the environment. The neonate’s brain
is very much “use dependent” with its wiring patterns determined
by sensory-driven events it encounters. The human brain is always a
work in progress, but infancy and early childhood are crucial periods
during which neural contours are laid down that are hard to deviate
from in later life. As two prominent brain researchers have pointed
out: “Experience in adulthood alters the organized brain, but in infants
and children it organizes the developing brain.”18 This is why limbic
resonance between mother and child is so crucial.
Experience-Expected and Experience-Dependent
Brain Development
Neuroscientists distinguish between two brain processes that physically
capture environmental events: experience-expected and experience-de-
pendent.19 Experience-expected processes reflect the wisdom of the
vast expanse of the evolutionary history of the species. The mecha-
nisms driving these processes are hard-wired features of the human
genome we all share. Although experience-expected mechanisms are
hard wired, they require specific environmental experiences to trigger
them. That is, there is an evolved neural readiness during “critical”
or “sensitive” developmental periods to incorporate environmental
information that is vital to an organism and which cannot be left to
the vagaries of learning. The newborn’s built-in expectation of love is
an example of an experience-expected process. Mother Nature has
recognized that certain processes such as sight, speech, depth per-
ception, affectionate bonds, mobility, various aversions, and sexual
maturation are vital, and has provided for mechanisms designed to take
advantage of experiences occurring naturally within the normal range
of human environments. Pre-experiential brain organization frames or
orients our experiences so that we (consciously or not) will respond
consistently and stereotypically when we encounter the appropriate
environmental triggers. Maturational processes will always occur “as
expected” in genetically normal individuals experiencing the normal
range of human environments. Put otherwise, our developing brain
39
 Love

“expects” and requires experiences that have been ubiquitous in the

evolutionary history of the species.
Experience-dependent mechanisms, on the other hand, reflect
the brain’s plasticity and rely on the organism’s specific genotype and
experiences. Individuals will vary in brain functioning as their genes
interact with their environments to construct their brain’s wiring.
Brain plasticity allows our experiences to shape and reshape the brain
in ways that could never have been genetically preprogrammed. The
distinction between experience-dependent and expected development
is illustrated by language. The capacity for language is entirely genetic
(a hard-wired experience-expected species-wide capacity that requires
the infant to hear the spoken word to trigger its language acquisition
mechanisms). What language(s) a person speaks, on the other hand,
is entirely cultural (soft-wired in experience-dependent culturally
specific fashion). The experience-expected nature of language explains
why children learn language (“develop” or “acquire” seem better terms)
almost effortlessly as if by osmosis, while evolutionarily novel cognitive
things such as calculus are learned with some difficultly.
While the human brain has made Homo sapiens the dominant
species on the planet, the human infant’s brain at birth is extremely
retarded relative to the brains of other animals whose brains are “ready
wired” sufficiently to function independently in their environments in
relatively short order. Human infants cannot within minutes, hours,
or days start to walk, fly, swim, or feed themselves; it will take them at
least one year to reach the stage of development that most nonhuman
mammals are at birth. Such a developmental lag means that human
infants are dependent on others for a very long time, which is why
love is so crucially a part of human development. Mammals in general
and humans in particular, must be more caring creatures because they
must nurture their young, and why it seems there is a universal need
in mammals of all species to synchronize to the rhythms of their fel-
low creatures. An oyster produces five hundred thousand eggs a year,
a typical fish eight thousand, and a frog two hundred.20 Species with
such high reproduction rates can afford to “waste” the vast majority of
its offspring and still survive. The human species, typically producing
one offspring per female per year, must diligently cultivate the devel-
opment of each and every precious new member. If no one feeds a
human infant it will starve; if no one moves it, it will stay put; if no one
shelters and protects it, it will die. The human infant is at the mercy
of the adults of its species far longer than any other newborn. Only a
40
 The Human Brain and Love

strong biologically-based tendency to care for an infant unconditionally

will see it successfully through its period of dependency. The human
adult’s willingness to invest time and energy in someone else’s goals,
even at the expense of one’s own, is an active concern for the well-being
of another, which is the succinct definition of love offered in chapter 1.
Synaptogenesis: Neurons Hooking Up
To appreciate the important of love in wiring the brain we have to
understand the process of synaptogenesis—the creation of synaptic
connections between neurons. Brain development can be viewed as
the creation and strengthening of some synapses and the discarding
of others. The most active period of synaptogenesis is infancy and
toddlerhood. The healthy human toddler may create an astounding
two million synapses a second at its peak.21 The creation of a synapse is
less important than whether it will survive the competition for synaptic
space. By the times of puberty, half of the synapses formed in early
childhood will be eliminated because of disuse.
In the earliest stages of synaptogenesis, dendrites send out their
feelers promiscuously like unpaired patrons of the local meet-and-
mate market at closing time anxious to hook up with any available
partner. As with meet market couplings, most dendritic hook-ups turn
out to be one-night stands, but others will develop more permanent
relationships. Frequent synaptic hook-ups establish functional con-
nections between neurons rather like the establishment of a trail in
the wilderness. The more often the trail is trodden, the more distinct
it becomes from its surroundings, and the easier it is to follow. Brains
are built to store experiences; not to delete them. They build on circuit
trails already there. This trail-blazing, while easy for infant and toddler
brains, becomes more difficult as we age. Synapse retention is very
much a use-dependent process. The connections that are preserved
are those that exchange information most frequently and strongly.
The point is that the manifestations of love a young child receives are
literally captured and held physically in its neural circuitry. Frequently
activated neurons are primed to fire at lower stimulus thresholds
once neurological tracks have already been laid down for the impulse
to follow. This process is summed up in the neuroscientists’ pithy
saying: “The neurons that fire together, wire together; those that don’t,
won’t.”22 If the “firing and wiring” patterns were established by negative
experiences (abuse, neglect), however, later experiences that may be
emotionally pleasant or neutral for most people may be diverted, as if
41
 Love

by some mischievous switchman, as they shunt around the brain, onto

a neural track that signals danger or hostility. Love truly does reside
in the brain.
Notes
1. For the plastic human brain, see generally Walsh and Bolen, The neurobiology
of criminal behavior.
2. Cited in Fincher, J. The human brain: Mystery of matter and mind, 23.
3. Nelson, C., A neurobiological perspective on early human deprivation.
4. MacLean, P., The triune brain in evolution.
5. Panksepp, J., Affective neuroscience, 70.
6. Perry, B., Childhood experience and the expression of genetic potential, 81.
7. Fadem, B., Behavioral science in medicine.
8. Walker-Andrews, Krogh-Jespersenm, Mayhew, and Coffield, Young infants’
generalization of emotional expressions.
9. Suwa, G., et al., The Ardipithecus ramidus skull and its implications for
hominid origins.
10. Lewis, Amini, and Lannon, A General Theory of Love, 156.
11. Goldberg, E., The executive brain: Frontal lobes and the civilized mind, 2.
12. van Harmelen, et al., Hypoactive medial prefrontal cortex functioning.
13. Chauchard, P., Our need for love, 30.
14. Kolb and Gibb, Brain plasticity and behaviour in the developing brain, 272.
15. Garrett, B., Brain and behavior: Introduction to biological psychology.
16. Weinberger, Elvevag, and Giedd, The Adolescent Brain, 5.
17. Mitchell, K., The genetics of brain wiring: From molecule to mind.
18. Perry and Pollard, Homeostasis, stress, trauma, and adaptation, 36; emphasis
added.
19. Gunnar and Quevedo, The neurobiology of stress and development.
20. Rushton, J., Race, Evolution, and Behavior.
21. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Understanding the effects
of maltreatment on brain development.
22. Penn, A., Early brain wiring: Activity-dependent processes, 339.

42
 4
Mother Love and Darwin’s
Sexual Selection Theory
Love is the increase of self by means of other.
—Baruch Spinoza, seventeenth-century Dutch philosopher

Is There a Maternal Instinct?

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, a brilliant but quite mad German phi-
losopher once said that a woman is a riddle whose solution is a child.
Such a statement is guaranteed to raise the ire of modern feminists, the
more radical of whom consider motherhood to be a bill of goods sold to
gullible women to keep them in servitude. For Nietzsche, motherhood
is a biological imperative; for radical feminists, it is a male-imposed
impediment to self-affirmation. Both positions are silly extremes
knocking heads with one another. Motherhood is without doubt the
fulfillment of natural purposes, as Nietzsche asserted. Just as surely,
we are happy and fulfilled, almost by definition, when we conform to
natural purposes. But is maternity an imperative? Will nature bear
with a woman who finds some other purpose to absorb her energy and
fulfill her life? I suspect that the happiest women are those engaged
both in meaningful work and in being mothers, therefore refuting both
extremes, but it is not imperative that a woman reproduce to be happy.
If you disagree with this, you are among the many who believe in the
existence of a maternal instinct.
In a strong sense, an instinct is a genetically determined stereotypical
response triggered by some environmental stimulus. It is a somatic
“itch” that simply has to be scratched—an unconscious tension that has
to be resolved by some species-specific behavior. There is no reasoning
process mediating between stimuli and response where instinctual
behavior is involved and it may occur even in the face of inevitable
death. Black widow spider males (who are very much smaller than

43
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females), for instance, will sacrifice their lives to pass on their genes.
When an excited spider suitor approaches a female, he flips upside
down, places his head inside the female’s fangs and begin to mate. Once
inside the female and his seed is deposited, she bites off his head for a
postcopulatory snack.1
It is clear that a maternal instinct in this strong sense cannot exist in
human beings. Women do not experience some overwhelming, unalter-
able, and unreasoned tension which is only relieved by reproducing and
pouring love and attention on their offspring. Social constructionists
jump on this to deny the existence of any kind of biological differences
between the sexes apart from the plumbing fixtures. Randall Collins
offers a typical social constructionist account of why women and not
men “do the mothering:”
The reason that women do the mothering, then, is because the
maternal personality is simply a typical female personality. A woman’s
personality needs are to be close to other people and submerge
herself in the group. She surrounds herself with her husband and
children because she herself remains underseparated from her own
mother. Because she never broke her unconscious erotic ties with
her mother, she continues to need this kind of close and nurturant
relation with others. Women become mothers because their experi-
ence with their own mother has given them the kind of personality
that needs to mother.2

Collins acknowledges that the maternal personality is “a typical female

one,” and that females need to be “close to other people,” but explains
these observations by “unconscious erotic ties with her mother.” Nary
is a thought given to eons of evolutionary selection for sex differences
in personality and behavior as he ignores biology in favor of psychoan-
alytical speculation. Women certainly have to learn the specifics of the
mother role, but this learning is superimposed on a strong biological
foundation provided by the hormone eruptions experienced during
pregnancy and postpartum. It is also true that there are incompetent
and neglectful mothers, but to deny motherhood that has a biological
basis because we observe poor and unloving mothers is analogous
to denying that sexual impulses have a biological basis because some
people (e.g., Catholic priests and nuns) apparently live asexual lives.
Motherhood is no more an arbitrary “socially constructed” behavior
than is sexual intercourse.
The rejection of biological underpinnings of maternal behavior is an
overreaction to an uncritical acceptance of the role of instinct in human
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 Mother Love and Darwin’s Sexual Selection Theory

behavior in the past. This acceptance appears to have stemmed from

an unfortunate translation of the writings of Sigmund Freud. In his
many writings, Freud used the German term Trieb, a word that can be
translated into English as either instinct or drive. While this distinction
is of little importance in German, it has great importance in English.
With the translation being rendered as instinct, early behavioral sci-
entists began to posit instincts for everything from religious worship
to biting one’s nails. The concept became a catchall term used by lazy
thinkers to avoid further exploration. It is no wonder that the more
sophisticated dropped the term altogether. Unfortunately, when the
instinct concept was dropped, biological explanations of almost every
kind of human behavior were also dropped.
The strong constructionist position has been in creeping decline
since Alice Rossi’s 1983 Presidential Address to the American Socio-
logical Association in which she berated her colleagues for refusal to
integrate knowledge from the biological sciences into their theories of
gender and parenthood. She reminded them that differences between
males and females have emerged from countless ages of mammalian
and primate evolution, and that they were not simply matters of
socialization or patriarchy. Gender differences, she reminded them,
have arisen because of the fundamentally different roles males and
females play in reproducing the species. Before we are anything, we
are primates with brains, genes, and hormones that have been finely
tuned by evolutionary pressures to carry out the task of reproducing
ourselves. Viewing motherhood as just a set of socially defined roles
diverts attention from the importance of biological factors. She goes
on to say theories that neglect the fundamental differences between the
sexes “carry a high risk of eventual irrelevance against the mounting
evidence of sexual dimorphism from the biological and neurosciences.”3
Rossi’s point is that recognizing that an immutable maternal instinct
does not exist, and that social expectations of the mother role do, does
not belie the fact that maternalism has strong biological underpinnings.
We have seen that only a strong biologically based tendency to care
for an infant unconditionally will see it successfully through its period
of long dependency. A mother’s love has to be unconditional because
infants are incapable of meeting any conditions, and the importance
of such love is obviously too great to leave to the vagaries of social
learning. The use of the term instinct is a mistake in the use of language
analogous to the use of the term need to describe a want. A need is
something that one must have based on the survival requirements of the
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 Love

species; a want is a culturally generated desire (a Lexus in the driveway,

a body like Mr. or Miss America, a salary like a rock star, etc.). A want
is not a need, but we want just the same. A biologically based maternal
sensitivity or tendency is not an instinct, but it is there nonetheless.
A weaker definition of instinct recognizes that when we talk of
something being “innate” we do not mean that the innate feature is
present at birth in its final form, fixed, and unalterable, or that it will
inevitably appear. Rather, we are talking about what biologists call “pre-
pared learning” or “canalization.” That is; we arrive in this world with
neurological computational systems that allow us to take advantage of
experiences that occur naturally in our species-typical environments,
but these systems are necessarily general and plastic rather than specific
and rigid and depend on certain events for their expression (experi-
ence-expected development).
This is how science views maternalism. Nature doesn’t waste pre-
cious DNA coding for specifics; it codes for proteins that help us to
respond in general ways to the challenges the environment throws at
us. Why would natural selection waste DNA coding specifically for a
motivation toward maternity in women when there is already a very
strong motivation for engaging in sexual intercourse present? Having
sex was more than enough in precontraceptive times to ensure the
continuation of the species, and nature could seize on many of the
same brain structures, hormones, and neurotransmitters that motivate
sexual activity to motivate maternal behavior when the inevitable hap-
pened. Caroline Foster explains: “There was never any need to develop
a genetic mechanism more complex than sexual urges to ensure that
people reproduced themselves, and motivation toward parenthood per
se was, in evolutionary terms, redundant.”4 It is only after the sexual
urge has had the intended effect that the hormonal hurricane associ-
ated with pregnancy initiates the “prepared learning” that others have
called the maternal instinct.
The “Mommy Brain”
Many new mothers complain about spending precious time trying to
find things they have misplaced or retracing their steps over and over
because they forgot something they went out specifically to get. This
kind of memory impairment, the so-called “mommy brain” phenome-
non, strikes countless new mothers and used to be attributed to fatigue
due to lack of sleep. But mommy brain is not about memory loss; rather
it is about reprioritizing the mother’s world to help her perform her
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 Mother Love and Darwin’s Sexual Selection Theory

vital role of caring for the growth, development, and well-being of her
offspring. It turns out that the hormone cocktail accompanying moth-
erhood combined with the mothering experience actually reorganize
the brain to attune it to the motherhood role. This brain “rewiring”
makes mothers more efficient, resilient, motivated, and emotionally
perceptive to their infants. Forgetting the eggs or where they parked
the car is a small cost to pay for the benefit of becoming more caring
and sensitive mothers.
Noting the massive increases in a variety of hormones (such as a
4,000 percent rise in progesterone and an 8,000 percent rise in estra-
diol), Laura Glynn and Curt Sandman have conducted a number of
studies that, along with many others, led them to conclude that the
hormonal surges of pregnancy lead to what they call “maternal pro-
gramming.” There is a lot of evidence for this contention both from
animal and human subjects. For instance, high-resolution brain scans
of breastfeeding mothers taken at intervals of between two weeks and
four months after giving birth found that areas of the brain associated
with motivation, reward, and behavioral and emotion regulation grew
significantly. Moreover, the more mothers used positive adjectives to
describe their babies such as “awesome,” “special,” and “perfect,” as well
as to describe their thoughts on their mothering role such as “blessed”
and “proud,” the greater the growth in those areas. The authors spec-
ulated that the intense sensory-tactile stimulation of a caring for the
newborn baby triggers the maternal brain to grow in key areas to allow
mothers to “orchestrate a new and increased repertoire of complex
interactive behaviors with infants during early postpartum.”5 Simply
put, nature provides mechanisms by which pregnancy and birth trigger
canalized neurohormonal processes which lead to the growth of brain
areas that lead to prolonged nurturing which help babies to thrive
physically, emotionally, and cognitively. This might not be maternal
instinct as it is commonly understood, but it is far more profound
than saying maternal behavior is simply conforming to a set of socially
constructed rules of infant care.
Viva la Difference!: Sexual Selection Theory
There are a number of sex differences that are associated with offspring
care that have long been noted. If asked why these differences exist,
most people would simply reply that it’s “just human nature.” What
accounts for human nature? Evolution formed our nature the same way
it formed our bodies, but what about sex differences in attitudes and
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behavior? There is widespread agreement in the natural sciences that

while evolution forged a sex-neutral human nature via natural selection,
and that a second mechanism—sexual selection—forged separate male
and female natures superimposed on their common human nature.6
The evolved features shared by the sexes dwarf the features they do
not share, or share at different average levels. The differences that
are most relevant to core of one’s sexual identity, however, are large.7
Darwinian scholars stress that to understand these differences we have
to begin, as Margaret Mead noted long ago, with “sex-differentiated
reproductive strategies.”8
Sexual selection theory was added to natural selection theory by
Charles Darwin to complete his theory of evolution. He noted that
although natural selection accounted for differences between species, it
did not account for male-female differences within species. According
to Griet Vandermassen: “Darwin posited sexual selection to account
for the many conspicuous physical and behavioral traits in males.
These traits are so energy demanding and so likely to make the animal
vulnerable to predators, that natural selection would have normally
selected them away in an early evolutionary stage.”9 Sexual selection
causes changes in the relative frequency of genes in mating populations
in response to challenges posed by the environment just as natural
selection does, but to challenges to sex specific mating challenges rather
than general sex neutral challenges.10 Simply put: natural selection is
about surviving long enough to pass on your genes; sexual selection is
about being lucky enough to have opportunities to do so.
Most of the characteristics of any organism are explicable as
functional adaptations, but there are many male traits that Darwin’s
natural selection could not explain. Natural selection cannot explain,
for instance, the bright colors and beautifully elaborate structure of
peacock’s tails in terms of some survival advantage because there is
none. The peacock’s bright plumage is genetically costly and opens
its vain owner to easy predation. So why are these extravagant tails
there and why do they survive? The answer is that biological fitness is
a quantitative measure of reproductive success, not survival, and so
they survive because peahens like them and choose to mate with those
who parade the brightest plumage before them.
Sexual selection involves competition for mates and favors traits
that lead to mating advantages regardless of whether they have sur-
vival advantages. Elaborate peacock tails attract females by advertising
“good genes.” Sickly peacocks cannot afford to use precious nutrients
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to build elaborate tails with no survival benefits; only the healthiest

studs can afford to waste precious energy on that. Of course, peahens
have no idea that by choosing to mate with drop-dead gorgeous males
that they are getting good genes. It is simply the case that ancestral
peahens attracted to the vainest peacocks passed that preference on to
their offspring along with daddy’s healthy genes. These offspring were
then themselves more able to survive and reproduce than offspring
sired by scraggy-tailed peacocks.
The fact that brightly befeathered studs attract predators as well as
mates is an evolutionary tradeoff, for as we have seen, survival means
nothing in Mother Nature’s grand scheme unless individuals pass on
their genes. The suicidal behavior of male spiders noted earlier is a stark
indication that Mother Nature’s goal of life is not survival, which is only
a means to an end, but rather the replication of genes. If the male spider
succeeds in impregnating the female while she snacks on him, he will
have conformed to nature’s grand design. Occasionally the male spider
will escape his mate’s clutches, but for reasons only God knows, the
poor chap’s physiology is designed for only two copulations in his short
life anyway, and perhaps life is not worth living thereafter under such
conditions. Given that almost certain death is the price male spiders of
some species pay for passing on their genes, the extravagantly adorned
peacock’s elevated risk of predation seems quite a small price to pay.
From Anisogamy to Monogamy
The principle of anisogamy is at the bottom of sex-differentiated
reproductive strategies. Anisogamy refers to the genetic recombination
formed by the union of two dissimilar gametes (sex cells) of different
biological values. In the human case it means the fusion of dirt-cheap
male sperm and the big-ticket female egg. Sperm cells are the smallest
cells in the body and are made by the billions every day. They are little
more than packets of chromosomes with flailing tails—simple gene
delivery systems. Nutrient-rich egg cells are few (about five hundred
in total) and are about eighty-five thousand times bigger than sperm
cells, with typically one being released each month from puberty to
menopause.11 Given the rarity of egg cells, a female’s unconscious
imperative is to choose wisely which male she will allow to fertilize
them. With cheap and plentiful sperm cells, males can be profligate in
their expenditure, and most are.
Sexual selection can be in the form of intrasexual or epigamic
selection. Intrasexual selection refers to male–male competition for
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access to females. When intrasexual selection is the species norm

there are very large differences between males and females in size,
strength, and aggression. The poster boy for intrasexual selection is
the elephant seal, with males being about five to six times heavier than
the females (if you are an average-size women of 140 pounds, imagine
yourself mating with a male weighing between 700 and 840 pounds!).
Large size difference between the sexes reflects a polygynous species
mating evolutionary history in which dominance in access to females
is established by physical battles among males. Typically, the bigger
the male the more mating opportunities he enjoyed, so the selection
for large size is very rapid in such species.
Epigamic selection refers to females choosing with whom they will
mate. Our friend the peacock is a prime example of epigamic selection.
As in the peacock’s case, in species where epigamic selection is the
norm, selection results in dead sexy narcissistic males strutting their
stuff before females like fashion models sashaying down the catwalk.
Because good looks signal good (healthy) genes, the most decorate
males are preferred by most females. Over evolutionary time this even-
tually results in males with exaggerated or even whimsical adornments
that are detrimental to everything except attracting mates.
Sexual Selection in Humans
The earliest hominid males (Australopithecines) were 50 to 100 percent
larger than females, indicating early hominid mating involved a great
deal of intrasexual competition.12 The fairly low degree of sexual dif-
ference in average body size in Homo sapiens (modern males are about
15 percent larger than females, on average) indicates an evolutionary
shift from violent male competition for mates to a more monogamous
mating system and an increase in paternal investment. Perhaps one
astute reason for the origin of the transition from intrasexual compe-
tition and promiscuity to epigamic selection and monogamy was that
the growing ability of our species to manufacture weapons made it
increasingly difficult for any one male to monopolize more than one
female in the face of armed competitors juiced up by lust. Whatever the
case may be, a more monogamous mating system would have entailed
the ability to understand what the opposite sex wants in a partner, and
how to get him or her to prefer you over some rival. This understanding
would have led to the selection for strong motives to please others and
to get along with them, which is certainly a beneficial thing for all in
the social group.
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 Mother Love and Darwin’s Sexual Selection Theory

Among humans we see neither enormous size differences between

the sexes or overly costly decorations in males because the evolution
of biparental care and monogamous mating patterns put the skids to
runaway sexual selection in our species. There are, however, whispers in
our physiques and our physiology strongly suggest a more epigamic as
well as promiscuous evolutionary history. Because of the conspicuous
size of the male penis and the female breasts, evolutionary scientist
C. Owen Lovejoy blesses humans with being “the most epigamically
adorned primate.”13 The human male penis is by far the biggest, both
relatively and absolutely, among the primates. The average erect gorilla
penis is 3 cm (1.25 inches) long, and average erect chimpanzee or
bonobo penis is 8 cm (3.1 inches).14 A major review of studies of human
penises around the world (both self-reported and actually measured
by medical professionals) found an average of 14.5 cm (5.7 inches) for
the erect penis.15 Likewise, no other species of primate sports the large
and permanent breasts of human females. All other primates develop
full breasts only when they are lactating, when they are not they are
not much different from male breasts.16
But what environmental pressures led to the selection of monogamy,
a practice found only in about 9% of mammalian species?17 Pairbonding
for biparental care is selected for only when the help of a male posi-
tively influences the probability of offspring survival by procuring food
for gestating and lactating mothers, and defending mother and child
against predation. Male assistance in rearing the young is not needed
in precocial species in which the young are able to care for themselves
in a few hours or days after birth and which inhabit areas where food
is readily available. Neither is male protection useful in species with
predation rates either so high or so low that male parental investment
is unlikely to have any positive effect on offspring survival. In such
situations, no evolutionary pressure is exerted for the selection of
pairbonding because the only evolutionary role for pairbonding is the
necessity (at least the desirability) of biparental care.18 Because of the
long period of human infant dependency, the sometimes problematic
acquisition of food, and predation rates that were of great concern,
it made sense for our ancestral females to choose mates inclined to
stick around and invest resources in offspring. As Anne Campbell put
it: “Monogamy may have been the result of male-female coevolution
of reproductive strategies, initiated by female preference for investing
males.”19 Similarly, Helen Fisher writes: “As our forebears adopted life
on the dangerous ground, pairbonding became imperative for females
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and practical for males. And monogamy—the human habit of forming

a pair-bond with one individual at a time—evolved.”20
Strong selection pressures for neurohormonal mechanisms designed
to assure the young are nurtured for as long as necessary is to be
expected in species burdened with extremely helpless infants such as
ours. The requirement for strong bonds (attachment) between mother
and infant, and the extra caregiving demand on females, produced
selective pressure for male-female bonding. Male-female bonding prob-
ably originated with females choosing to mate with males who showed
a penchant for sharing and caring rather than the more dominant and
aggressive males who loved and left (we will see later, however, that
such males have a special allure for more than a few women). Males and
females who bonded to jointly provide parental investment increased
the probability of their offspring surviving to reproductive age, and
thus improved their own reproductive success.
Because of the many differences between the sexes resulting from
different male-female reproductive strategies, we should see them
indexed in certain brain areas. Because of the competitive demands of
sexual selection for males, we should observe greater development of
limbic brain structures involved in sensory-motor skills and aggression.
Conversely, because of the demands of acquiring male resources
and navigating social networks placed on females, we should expect
greater development of neocortical areas, particularly of the frontal
lobe structures, in females. Patrik Lindenfors and his colleagues have
shown this to be the case among twenty-one primate species ranging
from chimpanzees to rhesus monkeys.21 They found that the more
affiliative sociality of females is related to greater neocortex volume,
and that the more competitive male sociality is closely related to sub-
cortical volume. The Lindenfors team suggests that this should extend
to humans. Indeed, brain-scan studies show a greater ratio of orbital
frontal cortex volume to amygdala (part of the limbic system involved in
the processing of emotions, particularly fear) volume in human females
relative to males.22 The orbital frontal cortex is part of the prefrontal
cortex and has extensive connections with other cortical regions, as
well as with deeper structures in the limbic system.
Some strands of feminism abhor sexual selection theory because it
provides a naturalistic (i.e., not socially constructed by a patriarchal
society) explanation of the basis of sex differences. For instance, Joan
Roughgarden excoriates sexual selection theory as “rape in scientific
guise, a narrative of males victimizing females.”23 She makes this
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 Mother Love and Darwin’s Sexual Selection Theory

statement even though she is aware that sexual selection is a process

driven by either intrasexual competition whereby males “victimize”
other males in their battle for mating opportunities, or by epigamic
selection in which females choose the male with whom they will mate.
Roughgarden offers an alternative theory that entails the exchange
of benefits between males and females without reference to genetic
fitness benefits. Because humans are cooperators, she argues, social
selection through bargaining and exchange in the spirit of friendship
is morally superior to the conflict and manipulation that permeates
sexual selection theory. This kind of thinking may make those who buy
into it feel warm and cuddly, but a moral preference is not a measure of
truth, and they forget that the movement toward a more monogamous
mating system in human sexual selection theory entails strong motives
to please others, and that is a moral good.
Roughgarden must have reasoned “In for a penny; in for a pound”
when she argued that ancestral human females actually stole the paren-
tal care role from “naturally monogamous” ancestral males, and drove
them into promiscuous competition for mating opportunities “as a
tactic of last resort.”24 Human males were thus forced into their sexual
meandering by their foremothers who robbed them of their nurtur-
ance and their innocence! Straying cads may now cite Roughgarden in
defense of their restless hunt for more wombs in which to deposit their
seed: “It’s all the fault of those ancient cavewomen—I’d much rather
be home taking care of the young ‘uns than dallying with yon wench.”
Emotional Reading: Women’s Intuition
Evolutionary pressures focused on child care, navigating social net-
works, and food gathering are reflected in other brain structures that
differ between the sexes. We know that the brain is divided into two
hemispheres connected in the center by a bridge of fibers called the
corpus callosum. The right hemisphere is specialized for perception,
motor skills, spatial abilities, and emotional expression, and the left
hemisphere is specialized for language and analytical thinking.25 The
hemispheres work cooperatively like two old-time lumberjacks cutting
through a tree at opposite ends of a saw. The female brain enjoys greater
functional connectivity than the male brain in that both hemispheres
contribute more equally to similar tasks than they do in males. 26
Neuroimaging studies show that women can more readily assess the
rational and emotional content of social messages simultaneously than
males. This ability is index by observed blood oxygen flow across the
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hemispheres in functional magnetic resonance imaging studies,27 more

extensively fiber interconnections in structural magnetic resonance
imagining studies,28 and the greater integrity of the connections at the
microarchitectural level via diffusion tensor imaging.29
These brain differences make women much better at reading people’s
facial expressions for their emotional content, so they can usually figure
out when something is wrong while males remain oblivious unless the
expression is ratcheted up a few notches. This ability is often put down
to “women’s intuition,” which is something else social constructionist
types call a myth. Just like a lot of other “myths,” however, science is
vindicating folk wisdom. The answer to why women pay greater atten-
tion to the environment’s little details and nuancesmay reflect a more
efficient reticular activating system (RAS).30
The RAS a little-finger-sized bundle of neurons located at the core
of the brain stem and feeds arousal stimuli to the thalamus, the brain’s
relay station, for distribution throughout the brain. It is a sort of infor-
mation filtering system that broadly determines consciousness, arousal,
and alertness. Like your car’s radio antenna, it receives signals from
the environment and sends them to the thalamus, for processing and
delivery to the appropriate brain channel.The RAS filters out much of
what is going on in the environment at any time, and filters in aspects
of it that is important to you (what ratio stations you like to listen to).
The RAS antenna is more fine-tuned in females than in males and the
sound is turned up.
Having a RAS that is more alert is obviously adaptive for the member
of the human reproductive team that has primary (and often exclusive)
responsibility for rearing offspring. Mothers must be sensitive to the
emotional signals of their offspring since they cannot communicate
them in words. They must be alert and sensitive to infants’ cries and
sighs during the night, and they are. Just about every married couple
will tell you about how the wife got up in the middle of the night to
turn off the dripping faucet, attend to a sick pet or, more importantly,
to the fuss and distress of her child, while her husband only became
aware of it all the next morning when his sleepy-eyed wife tells him.
A more alert RAS may partially account for why females are less
prone to boredom and to sensation-seeking than males.31 Boredom
is a condition in which fewer environmental signals are being picked
up and responded to. This underarousal is an unpleasant condition
that motivates seeking more sensory input to alleviate it. Although
it is counterintuitive to those who witness the constant fidgeting of
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someone suffering from attention deficit with hyperactivity disorder

(ADHD), underarousalis a major symptom of ADHD. Low levels of
RAS alertness have been invoked to explain why males are significantly
more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD than females, with 7.3 males
diagnosed for every female.32
Sex Difference in the Visual System
Further evidence of greater female attunement to people over “things”
lies in the toy preference and visual system literature. Sociologist
Barrie Thorne believes that gender is an entirely socially constructed
concept: “Parents dress infant girls in pink and boys in blue, give
them gender-differentiated names and toys, and expect them to act
differently.”33 Barrie apparently thinks that the tail wags the dog. We
see sex differences in toy preferences in infants and toddlers when
they are allowed to choose, and among nonhuman primates, neither
of which can reasonably be attributed to socialization. Evidence points
strongly to the conclusion that sex-based toy preferences reflect basic
neurobiological differences between males and females that ultimately
reflect evolutionary logic.34
Gender-typed toy preferences may be based on the influence of
androgens on the visual pathways from the retina to image processing
centers of the brain. There are a number of different types of cells that
send visual information from the retina to the brain, with the two
most pertinent ones being parvocellular (P-cells) and magnocellular
(M-cells). P-cells are the “What is this thing?” cells, and they transmit
information about the color and shape of stationary objects. M-cells are
the “Where is this thing in space?” cells that carry information about
spatial depth and motion. Research consistently shows that females
have significantly greater density of P-cells and males have significantly
greater density of M-cells, which is consistent with superior skill in the
visual configuration ability to identify shape and color among females,
and with the superior visuospatial skills in seeing motion and depth
in males.35
Evolutionary selection for different ratios of visual cells in the sexes
is easy to see. Female gatherers needed to recognize immobile plants
by their shape and color (what it is) while male hunters needed to pro-
cess the motion of prey or predator (where it is) to make a successful
kill and to avoid being the dinner rather than to diner. Natural selec-
tion supplied mechanisms to allow our ancestors to better perform
their roles. These evolutionary mechanisms are reflected in today’s
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gender-differentiated infant-child toy preferences that are invariably

found. Boys’ preference for moving objects such as toy trucks and
balls is biased by their perceptual M-cells because these objects move
in space and can be manipulated. Girls’ preference for dolls provide
them opportunities to practice nurturance, and being more drawn to
faces than moving objects is biased by the P-cell advantage.36
Mother Nature is indeed a parent that makes sure, as far as she is
able, that all life forms are equipped with the necessary tools to maintain
themselves. None of these tools is perfect because Mother Nature works
her wonders through a mindless system of selection and retention of
genetic variants called natural selection. Natural selection can only
work with the genetic variation existing in a breeding population at the
time when a challenge presented itself. Nevertheless, in the human case
it has forged some pretty marvelous survival creatures we call mothers.
It has given women a special set of chemical and structural features in
the brain and elsewhere which will lead the vast majority to welcome
the task of bearing and rearing the next generation of humans. This is
woman’s great burden and her crowning glory.
Notes
1. Berning, et al., Sexual cannibalism is associated with female behavioural type.
2. Collins, R., Sociology of marriage & the family, 271.
3. Rossi, A., Gender and Parenthood, 4.
4. Foster, C., The limits to low fertility: A biosocial approach, 213.
5. Glynn, and Sandman, Prenatal origins of neurological development. See
also Kim, et al, The plasticity of human maternal brain.
6. Ngun, et al., The genetics of sex differences in brain and behavior.
7. Reviewed in Hines, Gender Development and the Human Brain.
8. Mead, M., Male and Female 160.
9. Vandermassen, G., Sexual selection: A tale of male bias and feminist denial, 11.
10. Qvarnstrom, Brommer, and Gustafsson, Testing the genetics.
11. Bateman and Bennett, 2006. The biology of human sexuality. New genetic
evidence tracing the origins of immature egg cells suggests that the ovaries
continue to produce oocytes (the progenitors of eggs) across the female
reproductive lifespan. Although this evidence is based on studies of mice,
there is evidence that the finding may hold for other mammals, including
humans. If true, we will have to revise our ideas of the “biological clock.”
See Woods, Telfer and Tilly, Oocyte family trees.
12. Geary, D., Evolution and proximate expression of human paternal investment.
13. Lovejoy, C., The origin of man 346.
14. Diamond, M., The biosocial evolution of human sexuality.
15. Dillon, Chama, and Honig, Penile size and penile enlargement surgery.
16. Moller, Soler, and Thornhill, Breast asymmetry, sexual selection.
17. Lukas and Clutton-Brock, The evolution of social monogamy in mammals.
18. Quinlan and Quinlan, Evolutionary ecology of human pair bonds.
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 Mother Love and Darwin’s Sexual Selection Theory

19. Campbell, A., Female competition, 17.

20. Fisher, H., Why we love: The nature and chemistry of romantic love, 131.
21. Lindenfors, Neocortex evolution in primates and Lindenfors, et al., Primate
brain architecture.
22. Gur, et al., Sex differences in temporo-limbic and frontal brain volumes.
23. Roughgarden, J., The genial gene, 103.
24. Ibid., 190.
25. Parsons and Osherson, New evidence for distinct right and left brain systems.
26. Luders, et al., Parisagital asymmetries.
27. Lippa, R., Gender, nature, and nurture.
28. Ardekani, Figarsky, and Sidtis, Sexual dimorphism.
29. Ingalhalikar, Smith, et al., Sex differences. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI)
enables scientists to view the directionality (diffusion) of water molecules
along white matter tracts. Low connectivity implies a level of random move-
ment in all directions like an ink drip spreading out on blotting paper; high
connectivity is directional like rain water running in rain gutters.
30. Hall, et al., Social cognition.
31. Zuckerman, M., Sensation seeking and risky behavior.
32. Rhee and Waldman, Genetic and environmental influences.
33. Thorne, Gender play: Girls and boys in school, 2.
34. Hassett, Siebert, and Wallen, Sex differences in rhesus monkey ; Hines and
Alexander, Monkeys, girls, boys and toys.
35. Alexander, Wilcox, and Woods, Sex differences in infants’ visual interest.
36. Alexander, G., An evolutionary perspective on sex-typed toy preferences.

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 5
Touching Hearts;
Touching Minds
The greatest gift I can conceive of having from anyone is to be seen by
them, heard by them, to be understood and touched by them.
—Virginia Satir, twentieth-century American psychotherapist

The Mechanisms and Rewards of Mother Love

A baby says to God: “They tell me you are sending me to earth
tomorrow. How am I going to live there being so small and helpless”?
God replied: “Your guardian angel will be waiting for you and will
take care of you.”
The baby then asked: “Who will protect me against the wickedness
and dangers of life on earth”?
God replied: “Your guardian angel will protect, nourish, and defend
you even if it means risking her life.”
The baby then said: “Please tell me my guardian angel’s name.”
God replied: “Dear little one, you will call her Mommy.”1

To the infant, the mother is the fountainhead of all satisfactions. The

mother-infant bond is the template for all other bonds. In a concrete
sense, the infant’s mother “programs” its brain in ways that will deter-
mine how it will live the rest of its life. But what possessed natural
selection to build physiochemical mechanisms to induce mothers to
gladly adopt the arduous role of guardian angels? While each individual
may be motivated to do numerous things both weird and wonderful,
Mother Nature cares only about her one and only grand design—the
continuation and proliferation of life. You might not be the least bit
concerned with reproductive success, and even take pains to prevent
it, but you have inherited a limbic system that is very much concerned
with it because it was designed step by precious step inside the skulls
of countless ancestors for just that purpose.

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For human life to survive at least a minimal number of people must

survive long enough to pass on their genetic material, thus they must
eat, drink, either fight off or flee from enemies and predators, and
have sex. Biologists call these the “Four Fs”—feeding, fighting, fleeing,
and fornicating; all functions of the r-complex. Although the “goal”
of genes is to get themselves replicated, not to make us happy, their
goal is best achieved when we are. Consequently, nature has designed
a limbic system for us that reward us with pleasurable feeling when
we do things that contribute to our survival and reproductive success.
Being rewarded by a shot of dopamine or oxytocin when we eat,
drink, survive a threat, or have sex is easy to appreciate because the
focus is on the self. Nurturing the young, however, is extending the
natural concern we have for ourselves to that of others, so why have
we been provided with the same shots of joy juice when we provide
others with their needs? The short answer is that in the grand scheme
of things it is as important for humans to care for their offspring as is
to care for themselves because, biologically speaking, the winners in
Mother Nature’s epic tournament are those passing on more of their
genetic material than their competitors. After all, if our distant ances-
tors begat offspring and then failed to treat them during their long
period of dependence as well as they treated themselves, we wouldn’t
be around now thinking about love or anything else.
Why are humans born so developmentally retarded that it is impera-
tive that they have long-term guardian angels? One reason is the major
evolutionary advantage humans have over nonhuman animals—intel-
ligence. Our ancestors on the African savanna couldn’t outfight or
outrun either predators or prey, so they had to outwit them. As our
ancestors got smarter they were able to devise more efficient hunting
methods and tools, and this brought them more fat and protein to build
still bigger brains, which made them still smarter. More intelligence
means more brain mass, and more brain mass requires bigger skulls
to carry it around. The anthropological record tells us that humans
have been on a steep evolutionary trajectory toward bigger crania
from Australopithecines (Plio-Pleistocene hominids) to modern Homo
sapiens. Australopithecines sported crania averaging 450 cm3 (about the
same size as a modern chimpanzee) while modern humans have crania
averaging 1350 cm3.2 This threefold size increase in cranial size over
about five million years is warp speed on an evolutionary time scale.
Increasing cranial size to store bigger brain mass placed tremendous
birthing burdens on our ancestral females. The human birth canal
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cannot accommodate birthing infants whose brains are 60% of its

adult weight as in newborn macaques, or even 45 percent, as in new-
born chimpanzees.3 The Australopithecine female pelvis was probably
shaped to accommodate upright posture and bipedalism (which has
the effect of narrowing the birth canal) more than to accommodate
increased infant skull size, precipitating a conflict between obstetric
and postural requirements of ancestral females.4 This conflict contrib-
uted enormously to the estimated 53 to 65 percent infant and maternal
mortality noted in the anthropological record.5 Such conflicts are not
uncommon because evolution is a mindless process that cannot antici-
pate future needs; it works on trajectories already in motion. Evolution
does not and cannot generate perfection. By a series of serendipitous
mutations it fashions solutions to problems arising in environments
of the time. Our bodies are marvels of functional adaptation, but the
myriad flaws and frailties the flesh is heir to hardly signal perfection.
The functional adaptations of natural selection are a patchwork of
compromises that may not pan out all that well in future environments.
To say that this or that is an adaptation is to make a claim about the
past, not necessarily about the present, and never about the future.
The obstetrics-posture conflict was partially solved by the selection
for larger pelvises in human females relative to males. There is greater
sex difference in the human pelvis than in any other species, but human
females still have greater difficulty giving birth than any other species.6
The continuation of this trajectory would have produced extremely
bow-legged females, so thankfully an alternatively strategy worked out
better: that of having infants born at ever earlier stages of development
as cerebral mass increased. Human infants now experience 25 percent
brain growth inside the womb (uterogestation) and 75 percent outside
(exterogestation) the womb.7 The high degree of developmental delay of
the human brain assures a greater role for the extrauterine environment
in its development than is true of any other species.
Strong selection pressures for neurohormonal mechanisms designed
to assure the young are nurtured for as long as necessary is to be
expected in species burdened with extremely helpless young such as
ours. As Ashley Montagu points out, this has necessitated “a continuing
symbiotic relationship between mother and child in the exterogesta-
tion period designed to endure in an unbroken continuum until the
infant’s brain weight has more than doubled.” Montagu expands on
this by stating that love is the cement of this symbiotic relationship: “It
is, in a very real and not in the least paradoxical sense, it is even more
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necessary to love than it is to live, for without love there can be no

healthy growth or development, no real life. The neotenous principle
for human beings—indeed, the evolutionary imperative—is to live as
if to live and love were one.”8
Empathy: The Dawn of Connectedness
All nontrivial behavior is motivated at some level by feelings. Love is
less a single feeling than it is an entire motivational system moving us
to connect with others, and if there is one feeling or emotion that may
be at the core of love it is empathy. Empathy is an ancient capacity
predating the emergence of Homo sapiens that evolved rapidly in the
context of parental care and is found only in mammals and some bird
species.9 Empathy is the cognitive and emotional ability to understand
the feelings and distress of others as if they were our own. The cognitive
component allows us to understand their distress why they are feeling
it, and the emotional component allows us to feel that distress ourselves
(“I feel your pain.”). Feeling distress is discomforting because it triggers
the stress-anxiety hormone cortisol, giving us the unconscious feeling
that we are threatened and motivating us to “do something.” To the
extent that we feel empathy for others, we have a visceral motivation
to take some action to alleviate their distress if we are able. The basis of
empathy is the distress we feel personally when witnessing the distress
of others, and if we can alleviate the distress of others we thereby alle-
viate our own. Thus empathy has a selfish component, but it is a very
good thing that it does because if we were lacking in emotional connect-
edness to others, we would be callously indifferent to their needs and
suffering. Once locked into the human repertoire, empathetic feelings
can be diffused to a wider network of social relationships, which is why
empathy is considered to be “the heart of mammalian development,
limbic regulation, and social organization.”10
One of the reasons that females have a more finely tuned reticular
activating system than males is that mothers must quickly and accu-
rately perceive and automatically relate to the distress signals of their
offspring. Mothers who were not alerted to or who were unaffected
by their offspring’s distress signals or by their smiles and cooing are
surely not among our ancestors. The neural architecture that gives rise
to shared representation of emotional states when they are perceived
is in the form of so-called mirror neurons. Mirror neurons are cells
that fire (respond) in your brain whether you perform some action
or witness someone else performing the action. Thus these neurons
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 Touching Hearts; Touching Minds

“mirror” the behavior of another as though the observer were acting in

the same way. It is not simply a matter of you being aware of the actor
(“Ann is crying”), it is the actual firing of identical neurons in your brain
that are firing in Ann’s brain, and that is why you “feel” her pain. It is
assumed that this neuron mirroring reflects a correspondence between
self and other that turns an observation into empathy.11 When you are
around happy loving people, your mirror neurons literally “reflect” their
feelings; ditto when around hostile and hateful people.
Not surprisingly given their mothering role, females are better than
males in reading or “mirroring” the emotions of others. Brain imaging
studies looking at the relationships between brain areas and empathy
among males and females find that females recruit far more emotion-
related brain areas than males when processing empathy-related
stimuli.12 Males tend to recruit neural networks associated with cogni-
tive evaluation rather than emotional evaluation whereas females, due
to their greater interhemispheric brain connectivity, tend to evaluate
cognitively and emotionally simultaneously.
You may perceive signals of distress and your mirror neurons may
tell you why, but you are not likely to respond helpfully without the hor-
mone that lies behind empathy—oxytocin. A comparison of the mating
and parenting behavior of two different but closely related species of
voles reveals the importance of oxytocin. Prairie voles—little mouse-
like critters—follow a monogamous mating system in which males and
females share a nest and show high levels of parental care. Montane
voles are not so nice. They follow a polygynous mating system with no
nest sharing and little or no parental investment. The female montane
vole displays maternal behavior only in the postpartum period, when
there is a temporary increase in the brain’s oxytocin receptors. Prairie
vole mothers are parental throughout their lives and maintain high
concentrations of oxytocin receptors at all times.13
The “male” hormone testosterone acts antagonistically to oxytocin
and the empathy it induces. This should not surprise us since the syn-
thesis and functioning of oxytocin is largely regulated by the “female”
hormone estrogen. Females are invariably found to more empathetic
than males regardless of the tools and methods used to assess empathy.14
These findings may be traced to the effects of testosterone on men and/
or oxytocin functioning in females, and ultimately to sex-differentiated
natural selection for nurturing behavior.
There is an abundance of studies demonstrating this. A brain imaging
study of females who received either a single dose of testosterone or a
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placebo under their tongues showed that those receiving testosterone

had a significant reduction in empathetic responses to experimental
stimuli.15 Similarly, a study of males showed that a single nasal dose of
oxytocin significantly enhanced their ability to empathize relative to a
placebo control group.16 Another brain imaging study of healthy males
showed that a single intranasal dose of oxytocin significantly reduced
amygdala (an area of the limbic system specializing in processing emo-
tions, especially fear) activity in response to angry faces and threatening
scenarios relative to subjects receiving a placebo.17 The conclusion from
these and other similar studies is that males become more empathetic
with the administration of oxytocin, and females become less so with
the administration of testosterone. These brain responses take place
outside the conscious awareness of test subjects because the target sites
for both hormones are located in the limbic system.

Breast-feeding: Mother Nature’s Health Plan and Baby’s Ode to Joy

If I had to choose an image to represent or symbolize the concept of
love it would have to be the blissful look on a young mother’s face as she
breast-feeds the very contented infant snuggled in her arms—the purest
love it will ever know. The look of pure delight on the mother’s face is
the infant’s primordial experience of love—of one person taking plea-
sure in the existence of another. The infant is experiencing warm tactile
sensations snuggled in its mother’s arms as it closes its lips around her
nipple to drink in her milk of human kindness. This experience both
helps to protect the child from diseases by priming its immune system
and from psychological maladies by sending electrochemical impulses
along its neural pathways to create our noblest emotions. Ashley
Montague is among those who consider breast-feeding to be vital for
optimal mother-infant bonding and for limbic regulation:

Physiologically, the nursing of her babe at her breast produces in the

mother an intensification of her motherliness, the pleasurable care
of her child. Psychologically, this intensification serves to further
consolidate the symbiotic bond between herself and her child. In
this bonding between mother and child, the first few minutes after
birth are crucial.18

Someone wise and witty once said that: “There are three reasons for
breast-feeding: the milk is always at the right temperature; it comes
in attractive containers; and the cat can’t get it.” Of course, there are
a lot of other reasons more important than keeping the cat at bay.
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 Touching Hearts; Touching Minds

The nutritional needs of infants and toddlers were provided through-

out the history of the species almost exclusively by breast milk. Only
in the twentieth century did the urban water supply become safe
enough to allow for bottle-feeding.19 Breast-feeding would thus appear
to be well qualified to be called an experience-expected process.
Nutritionally, mothers’ milk confers many benefits, not the least of
which is its immunological benefits. While newborns have a certain
degree of protection provided by the antibodies circulating in the
mother’s system which the fetus receives through the placenta, their
immune system, like their brains, are highly underdeveloped. The
newborn’s inability to mount a fully effective immune response to all
the antigens in its environment could kill it. Fortunately, newborns
receive a 100 percent safe vaccine in the form of colostrum, mothers
“high octane” milk expressed from about day four to about day eight
of breast-feeding. Breast milk contains many chemical compounds
important for brain development that cannot be duplicated by formula
makers. In fact Anna Petherick writes that: “The fact that there are so
many bioactive molecules in breast milk means that breast-feeding
is an activity that empowers mothers. . . . The more we learn about
the details of breast milk the more we realize that males have a little
chance to influence their offspring by non-genetic pathways. Mothers
have a very rich opportunity.”20
Much of the physiological and psychological products of breast-
feeding are the result of our old friend oxytocin. Placing the newborn
immediately at its mother’s breast induces suckling. This suckling
releases oxytocin which then provokes uterine contractions that
help to reduce bleeding and to expel the placenta. Psychologically,
breast-feeding combines the panoply of sight, sound, smell, touch,
and the tangible evidence in the mother’s arms that affirms her wom-
anhood, and stimulates the release of oxytocin which intensifies the
feelings that released it in a felicitous feedback loop. Oxytocin released
by breast-feeding reduces sensitivity to environmental stressors,
which allows for greater sensitivity to the infant. It does this by trig-
gering the release of a neurotransmitter called gamma-aminobutyric
acid (GABA), which is an “anti-anxiety” molecule. Lactating mothers
show significantly fewer stress responses to infant stimuli, as deter-
mined by skin conductance and cardiac response measures, than
nonlactating mothers, and the oxytocin-generated sense of emotional
warmness motivates significantly greater desire to pick up their infants
in response to infant-presented stimuli.21 Additionally, the brain’s
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 Love

Figure 5.1. Breastfeeding: mother nature’s health plan and baby’s ode to joy.
Courtesy of Amy Walsh.

major “pleasure center,” the nucleus accumbens, is a major target for

oxytocin, so the lactating mother are rewarded by a deep sense of
calm pleasure (see Figure 5.1).22
The symbiotic bond between mother and child is revealed in a num-
ber of studies assessing their very special interdependent relationship.
Infants can recognize the scent of their mothers. Even when they are
asleep they will instinctively turn their heads and start sucking motions
if their mother’s breast pads are placed in their crib. Infants will either
ignore or become fussy and cry if the breast pads of mothers other
than their own are placed in the crib. Most mothers can also distin-
guish their own infants from others by smell, or even from the sound
of their cries disguised by the cries of other infants. One study found that
80 percent of mothers can do this after only 15 seconds of listening.
No father was able to do this regardless of how involved he was in the
care of his infant.23
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 Touching Hearts; Touching Minds

One of the many positive effects of prolonged breast-feeding was

demonstrated in a large study of 13,889 Belarusian breast-feeding
mothers. A random half of these mothers were given incentives to
prolong breast-feeding while the remaining half continued their usual
maternity hospital and outpatient care. When the children were
assessed six years later, it was found that the children breast-fed for
a longer than six months had an average IQ almost six points higher
than the control group children, and received higher academic rat-
ings from teachers24 The experimental design allowed researchers to
measure breast-feeding effects on IQ without biasing confounds such
as the positive relationship between mothers’ IQ and the probability
of prolonged breast-feeding. A study of three thousand British and
New Zealand children born in the early 1970s and IQ-tested in the
1990s found similar results. Children who were breast-fed scored
on average six to seven points higher on IQ tests than nonbreast-
fed subjects.25
Tactile Stimulation: Turning on Your Genes
Tactile stimulation is a fancy phrase scientists use to designate various
kinds of touching. Touching is the simplest of our sensory systems
and the most fundamental means of communicating with others. The
touching of concern here is affectionate touching, kissing, cuddling,
hugging, rocking—tangible assurances for the infant that it is loved
and secure. A mother’s touch communicates her loving emotions and
sends signals of security to her infant. This is what we earlier called
“limbic system resonance.” The importance of tactile stimulation to
infant development has been aptly put by Anna Freud, daughter of
Sigmund Freud:
In the beginning, being stroked, cuddled, and soothed by touch
libidinizes the various parts of the child’s body, helps to build up a
healthy body image and body ego, increases its cathexis [investment
of mental or emotional energy in a person] with narcissistic libido,
and simultaneously promotes the development of object love by
cementing the bond between child and mother. There is no doubt
that, at this period, the surface of the skin in its role as erotogenic
zone fulfills a multiple function in the child’s growth.26

The effect of tactile stimulation on brain wiring patterns can be

appreciated in the understanding that the skin is almost an exten-
sion of the brain, formed as it is from the same layer of tissue during
embryogenesis.27 It has been firmly established that the nerve fibers
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connecting the skin to the central nervous system are better developed
than are the fibers of any other organ. The intimate connection between
the skin and the brain is attested to by many neuroscientists who have
found that even minimal levels of stimuli deprivation during the stage
of active cell growth results in reduced neural metabolism, reduced
dendritic growth, and the atrophy of neuron nourishing glial cells.28
It is of the utmost importance that infants be exposed to plentiful
loving tactile stimulation during this critical experience-dependent
period; the brain doesn’t get another chance. The positive effects of
tactile stimulation on brain development are probably due to its ability
to release the comforting features of oxytocin and the reward features
of dopamine.29
Many of the best studies examining the effects of early touching are
done on laboratory animals because scientists have complete control
over their subjects there. Some of the most exciting studies are in the
burgeoning and exciting field of epigenetics. The prefix “epi” means on
or in addition to the genes, and is defined as “any process that alters
gene activity without changing the DNA sequence.”30 Epigenetics leads
to the idea of genomic plasticity similar to the idea of neural plasticity
because it shows that genes are also calibrated to environmental events,
although the genome does not possess anything like the level of plas-
ticity that the brain does. Epigenetics can be viewed as providing the
software by which organisms respond genetically to their environments
without having to change the DNA hardware.
Epigenetic modifications of DNA affect the ability of the DNA code
to be read and translated into proteins by making the code accessible
or inaccessible.31 The epigenetic regulation of genetic activity is
accomplished by two main processes: DNA methylation and histone
acetylation. DNA methylation occurs when a group of methyl atoms
attach themselves to a strand of DNA. This prevents the RNA mole-
cules that read its instructions from doing so, and hence the protein
the gene codes for is not manufactured. This is illustrated in the top
half of figure 5.2 in which the methyl group (“repressor complex”)
results in “gene X off.” Acetylation involves a groups of atoms attach
themselves to histones (the protein cores around which the DNA is
wrapped) which has the effect of “loosening” or “relaxing” them, which
increases the likelihood of genetic expression.32 Note in the bottom half
of figure 5.2 that the DNA is relaxed allowing it to be transcribed into
messenger RNA (mRNA) and taken into the cell’s cytoplasm where
proteins are made.
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 Touching Hearts; Touching Minds

Figure 5.2. Illustrating the process of methylation (top) and acetylation (bottom).

One of the best studies linking methylation to tactile nurturing

examined the consequences of maternal care among rats. The level of
rat nurturing is indexed by the level of pup licking and grooming (LG)
and arch-back nursing (ABN).33 Examining high- and low-level nur-
tured pups as adults, the offspring of high LG/ABN mothers showed
better responses to stress and were generally more socially adept than
offspring of low LG/ABN mothers. A portion of the pups from each
stain was then cross-fostered (high LG/ABN mothers fostering pups
born to low LG/ABN mothers, and vice versa) to determine how much
of this mother-offspring correlation is attributable to shared genes and
how much to the nurturing experience. It was found that in adulthood
cross-fostered pups exhibited temperaments and behaviors resembling
their adopted mother more than their biological mother, indicating that
early nurturing experiences have a profound impact on adult patterns
of rat behavior.
The upshot of the study was that the behavior of rat mothers led to
similar epigenetic modifications in pups, regardless of whether pups
were the mother’s offspring or cross-fostered, and that these alterations
resulted in stable behavioral differences in adulthood. Low nurtured
pups evidenced high rates of methylation of genes coding for receptors
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in a brain-body system called the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal

(HPA) axis. The HPA axis regulates stress responses, so the methylation
of receptors in the hypothalamus renders many of them inoperable.
Unmethylated genes produce more receptors, which results in better
feedback control of the stress response.
Although some may be suspicious of applying animal research to
humans, researchers do not study fruit flies, rats, or monkeys because
they have a consuming interest in the welfare of those species; they
do so because they hope to learn from them something useful about
humans. Animal models have often proved pivotal to our understand-
ing of all sorts of human physical and psychological problems because
once a biological mechanism has been demonstrated in one species
it is almost always found to be applicable to others.34 Nature does not
create an entire new genome every time species branch off from the
ancestral line. Of course, this does not mean that every gene will have
the same effect on humans as it does on rodents; having shared DNA
does not mean having identical genetic functioning. Rodent pups
develop far more rapidly than human babies, and their “critical periods”
for incorporating experience-expected events into their neurological
and genomic machinery are far shorter.35
On those grounds alone we should predict similar effects on human
infant arising from the human versions of ABN and LG. Indeed, many
studies of orphanage-reared children bring home the importance of
early tactile stimulation for developing healthy attachment bonds. One
of the most scientifically impressive of these studies looked at neglected
Romanian orphans who had been in orphanages an average of 16.6
months before being fostered to American families. After being with
their American families for an average of 34.6 months, children showed
significantly lower base levels of oxytocin and another important neuro-
peptide called vasopressin compared with a control group of American
children reared by their biological parents.36 The orphans also showed
significantly lower levels of these peptides after experimental exposure to
the kinds of interaction with their foster mothers that normally increases
their levels. In effect, these children had been reared during a period in
life without the frequent tactile comfort that is an experience-expected
feature of human rearing. This deprivation leads to the disruption of the
neuropeptide circuitry making it difficult to form secure relationships
with caregivers and social bonds with the wider society.
High rates of methylation have been observed in orphanage-raised
children. One study compared the genomes of children raised since
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 Touching Hearts; Touching Minds

birth in orphanages in Russia with the genomes of children raised by

both biological parents. The researchers found that the institutionalized
children showed a greater methylation of genetic systems controlling
immune response and in mechanisms important in the development
and function of the brain. The research team noted the consistency
with previous animal and human studies, “particularly, the presence
and level of maternal care are highly responsible for the epigenetic
regulation of genes involved in the control hypothalamic-pituitary-
adrenal system.”37 Studies such as these make it imperative that par-
ents of adopted children be made aware of the dire consequences of
low levels of early nurturing and informed that such children require
nurturing to counter these epigenetic changes.
In short, breast-feeding and the tactile stimulation accompanying it
is an experience-expected feature of human brain development, and the
failure of the infant to experience it may be viewed as the deprivation of
important developmental input. The neuroscience literature is replete
with studies documenting abnormal brain connectivity in children
subjected to severe early socioemotional deprivation.38 These connec-
tion abnormalities tend to be primarily between the higher cognitive
areas such as the PFC and areas associated with emotions such as the
amygdala. The lack of frequent bodily contact with mother has to be
interpreted by the infant’s experience-expected mechanisms as aban-
donment, because the infant can only “think” with its skin. The infant’s
contact comfort derived from the sensitive responses of mother (and
other caregivers) during times of duress tells it that everything’s OK,
“My guardian angel is here for me,” I’m safe,” “All’s right in my world.”
If this contact input is not forthcoming the infant’s underspecified and
miss-wired circuits interpret otherwise.39
An Associated Press news story told of a remarkable volunteer
program at New York’s St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Medical Center. St. Luke’s
caters to abandoned or neglected infants, or infants born drug-addicted
or infected with the HIV virus. Lacking the staff to do much more than
care for the physical needs of infants for food and hygienic conditions,
infants received almost no vital skin-to-skin stimulation. It was reported
that these helpless little victims of the sins of their parents would simply
lie listless in their cribs, not even reacting to sound. When caring vol-
unteers provided the human contact that was lacking, dramatic changes
were noted in the infants’ behavior. These volunteers had no medical
training, no special skills or magic potions, and came armed only with
an active concern for the well-being of the infants. Their task was simply
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to pick up the infants, cuddle them, stroke them, and generally to “love
them up.” After a number of “love sessions,” the infants became more
frisky and alive. They smiled, cooed, became reactive to all kinds of
stimuli, and they even began to thrive physically. Commenting on the
remarkable changes noted in the infants, Virginia Crosby, director of
hospital volunteers, remarked: “They began to react to the love, and
you could see a real difference.” This, and many other similar stories,
are truly uplifting demonstrations of the power of love.40
Notes
1. Anonymous Internet blog.
2. Bromage, T., The biological and chronological maturation of early hominids.
3. Hublin and Coqueugniot, Absolute or proportional brain size.
4. van As, Fieggen, and Tobias, Sever abuse of infants.
5. Mellen, S., The Evolution of Love.
6. Parente, Bergqvist, Soares, and Filho, The history of vaginal birth.
7. Perry, B., Childhood experience and the expression of genetic potential.
8. Montagu, A., Growing young, 93.
9. Gonzales-Liencres, Shamay-Tsoory, and Brune, Towards a neuroscience of
empathy
10. Farrow and Woodruff, Empathy in mental illness 51.
11. Agnew, Bhakoo, and Puri,. The human mirror system
12. Derntl, et al., Multidimensional assessment of empathetic abilities.
13. Young and Wang, The neurobiology of pair bonding.
14. Campbell, A., Sex differences in direct aggression
15. Herman, Putman, and van Honk, Testosterone reduces empathetic mim-
icking.
16. Domes, et al., Ocytocin improves “mind-reading in humans.
17. Kirsch, et al., 2005. Oxytocin modulates neural circuitry.
18. Montagu, A., Touching: The human significance of the skin, 63.
19. Huber, J., Reproductive biology, technology, and gender inequality.
20. Petherick, A., Development: mother’s milk, S7.
21. Hiller, Speculations on the links between feelings, emotions and sexual
behavious.
22. MacDonald and MacDonald, The peptide that binds.
23. Morsbach and Bubting, Maternal recognition of their neonates.
24. Kramer, et al., Breastfeeding and child cognitive develoment.
25. Caspi, et al., Moderation of breastfeeding effects.
26. Freud, A., Normality and pathology in childhood 199.
27. Society for Neuroscience, Cells of the nervous system.
28. Penn, A., Early brain wiring.
29. Adams and Moghaddam, Tactile stimulation activates dopamine.
30. Weinhold, B., Epigenetics: The science of change.
31. Gottlieb, G., Probabilistic epigenesis.
32. Walsh, Johnson, and Bolen, Drugs, crime, and the epigenetics of hedonic
allostasis.
33. Weaver, et al., Epigenetic programming by maternal behavior.

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 Touching Hearts; Touching Minds

34. Ridley, M., Nature via nurture.

35. Hensch, T., Critical period regulation.
36. Wismer-Fries, A., et al., Early experience in humans.
37. Naumova, O., et al., Differential patterns of whole-genome DNA methylation 8.
38. Eluvathingal, et al., Abnormal brain connectivity in children.
39. Nelson, C., A neurobiological perspective on early human deprivation.
40. AP News service, Wanted: Someone to love babies if only for an hour.

73
 6
Father Love: The Right Hand
of the Equation
One father is more than a hundred schoolmasters.
—George Herbert, sixteenth-century Welsh poet

Fatherhood among Mammals and Primates

Nineteenth-century English poet Robert Browning once wrote: “Moth-
erhood: All love begins and ends there.” We can agree that love begins
there, but does it end there also—what about fathers? As timeless and
universal testaments to fathers’ love of their offspring, ancient legends
have used father love to tests man’s love of, and obedience to, the gods.
In the familiar biblical story of Abraham and Isaac, Abraham was prom-
ised by God that one day he would have the son he had so long desired.
Isaac was miraculously born when Abraham was one hundred years
old, and his wife Sarah was not far behind. When Isaac was a youth,
God commanded Abraham to offer him up as sacrifice. Abraham was
dutifully preparing to sacrifice his beloved and long awaited son when
God stayed his hand—Abraham had passed the greatest of all tests of
faith. A similar story is that of the Greek king Agamemnon and his
daughter Iphigenia. Agamemnon was supposed to sacrifice Iphigenia
to the Goddess Diana, but she was saved at the last minute by divine
intervention. In both stories the message is clear: the sacrifice of a child
would be a father’s supreme test of love and obedience to the god’s
because the love of his child sits next to the love of his God.
The mother-child bond is a love relationship that is only broken by
the most extraordinary of circumstances; it needs no nuptial oaths or
legal contracts to hold it firm until death’s parting. While anthropologist
Ronald Rohner agrees that love is of the utmost importance for human
infants, he feels that such statements present a glorified and fictional-
ized view of motherhood, because “Mother can be anybody.”1 This is a

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statement of possibility, but the important question is how probable is

it that just anybody can or will encapsulate the infant’s total social and
emotional life the way mothers do? To be sure, anyone can administer
to the physical wants of the infant for food, clothing, and shelter, but
that is not enough. We have seen that a mother is biologically “primed”
to perform all those tasks that go beyond considerations of brute sur-
vival in ways that mother substitutes are not. What we explore in this
chapter is whether father love—strong as it is—is of the same vintage
as mother love. One way to assess this is to explore fatherhood among
our mammalian and primate cousins.
As we have noted many times before, the paramount concern of
Mother Nature is the reproduction of life. There are two ways that
members of any animal species can help her to maximize her goal
among sexually reproducing animals: parenting effort and mating
effort. Parenting effort is the proportion of reproductive effort invested
in rearing offspring, and mating effort is that proportion allotted to
acquiring sexual partners. Because female reproductive success hinges
more on parenting effort than mating effort, females have evolved
higher levels of the traits that facilitate it than males, such as empathy,
and lower levels of traits unfavorable to it, such as aggressiveness. Of
course, both sexes engage in mating and parenting strategies, and both
follow a mixed mating strategy at various times of their lives.
I doubt if anyone disputes the fact that mating effort is more typ-
ical of males and parenting effort is more typical of females. Female
parental investment necessarily requires an enormous expenditure of
time and energy, but the only obligatory investment of males is the time
and energy spent copulating. He can be on his way after a few pelvic
thrusts, but those thrusts may lead to gestation and lactation for her
which lasts many months, and even years. Reproductive success for
males increases in proportion to the number of willing females to whom
they have sexual access, and thus males have an evolved a propensity to
seek multiple partners. Mating effort emphasizes quantity over quality
(maximizing the number of offspring rather than nurturing a few),
although maximizing offspring numbers is presumably not a conscious
motive of any male seeking sex—he lusts after the means, not the ends.
Any male lucky enough to have access to a fertile female can be a
father with very little effort, but what of the kind of father human kids
call “daddy,” the kind of guy that sticks around and to nurture, protect,
and provide for his offspring? It is a rare father in the nonhuman animal
world that does this, except in most bird and fish species where males
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contribute more to offspring survival (incubating the eggs and feeding

the young) than females. In these species it is females who are more
aggressive and promiscuous, and engage in fights over access to males.
Females in these “sex-reversed” species have higher testosterone levels
than males to facilitate their behavior.2
Females are responsible for all, or almost all, parental care in 90 per-
cent of mammalian species and in about 60 percent of primate species.3
We should distinguish between paternal investment and paternal care.
Males in certain species may invest resources in the form of food and
protection while the newborns are very young, but provide no direct
care. Among chimpanzees, our closest genetic relatives, males will
protect females and infants when endangered but provide little else
in the form of paternal care, and demonstrate no interest in their off-
spring. Female chimps, on the other hand, provide intense investment
and care and may breast-feed for three or four years.4 This pattern is
typical among species following a promiscuous mating style, as do
chimpanzees (although only when females are in heat; otherwise they
are pretty asexual). After all, why would a male invest time and energy
in offspring that may not be his? Evolutionary biologists tell us that
paternal investment evolves in proportion to paternity certainly and
alternative mating opportunities. Low paternal certainty and abundant
mating opportunities will reduce paternal investment, and high cer-
tainty and low mating opportunities increase it.5
Primate species (and mammalian species in general) exhibiting
biparental care are monogamous, which is very rare among mammals.6
Monogamous species include titi and owl monkeys, gibbons, wolves,
coyotes, swans, and bald eagles. This does not mean that these species
do not stray occasionally; DNA testing has shown that even in the
so-called monogamous species, offspring are always mommy’s babies
and daddy’s maybes. In some monogamous species, the mating pair stay
faithfully together only for the mating season; so what we really have
is serial monogamy. In terms of paternal investment and care, humans
are typically a lot more like monogamous wolves than promiscuous
chimps, but there are always plenty of exceptions to every rule.
Hormonal Changes in Nonhuman Fathers
All animal species are equipped with neurohormonal mechanisms that
facilitate their mating and parenting practices, whatever they may be.
The hormonal surges of pregnancy prepare females for nurturing, but
in species that exhibit paternal care males do not have that advantage.
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The initiation of nurturing behavior must therefore rely on cues from

the environment to trigger them. In marmoset monkeys, for example,
males often carry their infants. Blood samples show that fathers carry-
ing infants have levels of the hormone prolactin five times higher than
nonfathers. These levels are higher in fathers on days they are carrying
as opposed to days when they are not, indicating that the hormonal
effect is triggered by physical contact with the infant.7 Prolactin is pro-
duced by the pituitary gland with a wide range of effects, primarily to
stimulate lactation in nursing mothers. Males have small amounts of
prolactin and elevated levels decrease their testosterone. Testosterone
is unfriendly to nurturing because it promotes mating rather than par-
enting effort. As well as increasing empathetic nurturance, reducing
testosterone minimizes the emergence of hostile or aggressive behavior
that may be directed toward the infant, and suppresses sexual urges
that may divert energy away from infant care.
We saw earlier that monogamous prairie vole females maintain a
high concentration of oxytocin receptors at all times in their lives, but
promiscuous montane vole females experience high levels only during
the postpartum period. It is not only the female prairie vole who is
affected by oxytocin when the pups arrive, however. Oxytocin in new
prairie vole fathers increase and work to decrease care-inhibiting tes-
tosterone. Testosterone is responsible for significant sexual differences
in what is called the medial preoptic area (MPOA). The MPOA is an
area of the hypothalamus (the home of the oxytocin factory) important
in the control of maternal behavior. Males have significantly more tes-
tosterone receptors in the MPOA than females because it is an area of
the hypothalamus also linked with sexual arousal. New fathers in one
biparental rodent species (Peromyscus californicus) undergo changes
in the MPOA that render it more similar to the female MPOA by
reducing testosterone receptors and increasing oxytocin receptors.8
Among species that show paternal care the mechanisms of maternal
care are evidently recruited to facilitate paternal care also.
Hormonal Changes in Human Fathers
Now we know that males in some mammalian species are hormonally
primed to become caring fathers, what about human fathers? There is
little if any doubt that human males are similar to chimpanzee males
in their apparent lack of interest in babies in general. Pupil dilation is
an unambiguous indicator of the intensity of interest in something,
and psychologists have taken advantage of this fact to study all kinds
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of interesting things. Show males pictures of nude women and their

pupils dilate like saucers; show women pictures of nude men and if any
change in pupil diameter occurs at all, it is constriction. Psychologists
have also studied male and female differences in interest in babies using
pupillary responses. In one such study, males and females were shown
pictures of babies while researchers measured pupillary response.
Females, regardless of age, marital status, or whether or not they had
given birth, showed pupillary dilation, a clear and precise physiological
indicator of emotional arousal and mental interest. When the same
pictures were shown to males, their pupillary response was constricted,
indicating a lack of any kind of interest. The exception was married
men who had children. The lesson of studies such as these is that while
women seem to be genetically prepared for maternal reactions, men
have to learn to be interested in children and appear to do so only after
having had their own.9
A wide range of studies following males over a long period of time
have shown that human males in committed relationships have lower
circulating testosterone levels (just like Peromyscus californicus) than
males not in such a relationship. This is a clear case of an environmental
cue affecting biological change, a change that is reversed in the men
who later divorced. For divorced men testosterone levels rise to that
of single men, signaling a switch from parenting to mating effort.10
Studies such as these, as well as the pupillary response studies, show
how responsive our biology is to environmental circumstances. Show-
ing interest in children after having one’s own, but not before, suggests
that processes similar to those that occur in marmoset and prairie vole
fathers occur in human fathers as well.
Throughout much of history, fathers were distanced from the
birthing experience. Childbirth took place at home and was attended
by female family members and a midwife while their menfolk gath-
ered wood for the fire and boiled the water. In the twentieth-century
hospital-based births became the norm and men waited isolated and
worried in the “stork room” while their wives labored and gave birth.
Then in the 1980s the doors to the delivery room were thrown open
to fathers. Today it is common for husbands to participate in birthing
classes and to be present during labor and delivery of their children.
This participation joins mother, father, and infant to the life cycle event
that is central to family building.
Exposure to all the stimuli preceding, during, and after the birthing
process has profound effects on men experiencing them. One study
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looking at these effects measured hormone concentrations in new

parents before and after the birth of their babies. Mothers and fathers
were exposed to sight, sound, and smell cues from newborn infants,
and it was found that both men and women had higher concentra-
tions of prolactin and cortisol (indicating anxiety) in the period just
before the births and lower postnatal concentrations of sex hormones
(testosterone or estradiol). Interestingly, men reporting more preg-
nancy symptoms (a phenomenon known as couvade) had higher pro-
lactin levels and greater reduction in testosterone than men reporting
fewer symptoms.11
A study conducted by neuroscientists at Emory University went a
few steps beyond measuring testosterone levels in response to paternal
involvement. The research consisted of functional magnetic resonance
image (fMRI) scans of the brains and testes of seventy biological
fathers of children aged between one and two years and living with the
mother of their children. The fMRI measured brain activity as the men
viewed photos of their own child and photos of nonrelated children
of similar age. Their findings showed that both testosterone levels and
testes size were significantly inversely correlated with the amount of
paternal caregiving reported by both the father and mother. That is,
men with smaller testicles are more likely to be directly involved car-
ing for their infants than men with bigger ones. Testes size was also
correlated with activity in the ventral tegmental area (VTA), the area
of the brain associated with dopamine reward. Men with smaller testes
activated the VTA to a greater extent (about three times more) when
looking at photos of their children than did men with bigger bangers.
The researchers concluded that: “Our results suggest that the biology
of human males reflects a trade-off between investments in mating
versus parenting effort.”12
Of course, as the authors point out, correlation is not causation.
Circumstances affect biology just as biology affects circumstances.
The study could not determine whether testes size itself drives paternal
involvement or whether testes shrink as fathers become more involved
with their children. Remember, testosterone promotes mating effort
and nature doesn’t want males chasing outside mating opportunities
while they are parenting. As for the greater activation of the VTA among
less gonadally endowed men, it is possible that the neuron pathways
governing reward become stronger in response to their parenting
involvement rather than the other way around. What the study does
not say is that women should get out the calipers before deciding on
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a future mate, or that men with large cojones will necessarily make
worse dads in the long run.
Another team looked at how testosterone and prolactin levels are
associated with emotional responses to infant cries in fathers and
nonfathers. Overall, their findings indicated much the same thing as
the marmoset monkey studies did. That is, new fathers have elevated
prolactin and lower testosterone levels than nonfathers. The study also
found that second-time fathers have a greater hormonal response than
first-time fathers to infant cries. The authors of the study concluded
that: “These results indicate that, as with a number of other biparental
species, human fathers are more responsive to infant cues than are
nonfathers and fathers’ responses to infant cues are related to both
hormones and to caregiving experience.”13 Finally, in a review of brain
imaging studies using photographs of infants as stimuli, James Rilling
noted that: “What is most remarkable about results for picture stimuli
as a whole is that fathers . . . seem to activate most of the core parental
brain systems that are activated in mothers.”14
Father Love and Mother Love: Different but Complementary
Robert Browning tempered his earlier assertion that love begins and
ends with mother in a later poem: “The fact is, there’s a blessing on
the hearth, A special providence for fatherhood!” he calls fatherhood
a “blessing,” without telling us how or why it is. Some fathers can do
a better all-around job than some mothers, but in general the view
that fathers can function as easily as mothers as primary caregivers is
unsupportable. No known society replaces the mother as the primary
caregiver, but what about secondary caregiving, might that be just as
valuable in some respects? Father love is of great importance, but it
is different from mother love. Mother love is selfless, sacrificial, and
complete. A mother loves her child indiscriminately just because it is
her child, just like God is said to love us all simply because we exist.
This issue of her womb is both an extension and affirmation of herself.
Most new fathers are doubtless proud of their progeny and love
them. His baby is also an affirmation of himself, but his affirmation
will come later. A new father hopes his son will be the kind of man he
always wanted to be, and knows that to his daughter he will always be
king, no matter how many princes court her. If we liken mother love to
unconditional agape, we may liken father love to conditional eros. One
of the luminaries of child psychology, Erik Erikson, wrote some time
ago that mother and father love are qualitatively different, asserting that
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fathers “love more dangerously” because their love is more “expectant,

more instrumental.”15 And the great philosopher of love, Erich Fromm,
wrote of the difference between mother and father love: “Mother is
the home we come from, she is nature, soil, the ocean; father does not
represent any such natural home.”16 He later adds:

Mother loves her children because they are her children, and not because
they are “good,” obedient, or fulfill her wishes and commands. . . . The
nature of fatherly love is that he makes demands, establishes principles
and laws, and that his love for the son depends on the obedience of the
latter to these demands. He likes best the son who is most like him, who
is most obedient and who is best fitted to become his successor as the
inheritor of his possessions.17

Thus father love is love earned; it is conditional on the desirable qualities

of the beloved: “I love you because you are sweet, you are brave, you
do the right things, and because you are like me.” A father’s role in the
family is to be protector and provider and, as George Herbert coun-
sels us in the epigraph, to take on the role of a hundred schoolmasters
for his children. This is a “cold” merit-based instrumental love rather
than the warm, emotional, and unconditional love of a mother. But be
assured that there is a strong dose of agape in fathers, just as there is a
strong measure of eros in mothers. These love types are “pure types”
that are more characteristic of one sex than of the other. These two
styles of loving are not superior and inferior but simply different, and
they are complementary, just like wheels and cranks, nuts and bolts,
and the sun and the moon.
Think back to how fathers in committed relationships you knew
loved their children when they were young versus how their mothers
did. If your experiences were like mine, you noted that mothers fussed
more about keeping children fed, changed, rested, clean, and cuddled,
while fathers cared more about roughhousing with them, making them
laugh, and about what they could and couldn’t do. Fathers encouraged
their children to push their limits, to climb a little higher and to run
or ride a little faster, while mothers counseled them to be careful and
not to hurt themselves. Concerned fathers make sure that their sons
and daughters know the importance of observing the rules of fairness
and duty in their pursuit of valued goals. Observing these rules, they
stressed, would get them good grades, good jobs, and good incomes.
Mothers taught them about relationships, about care and compas-
sion, and emphasized that attention to such things leads to pleasant
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 Father Love

friendships, great marriages, and an all-round happy life. Let’s remem-

ber again that there is a large measure of a mother’s concerns evident
in a father’s parenting style, and a generous ratio of a father’s style in
a mother’s.
Both parenting styles complement one another in that each provides
the necessary checks and balances to the other; either one alone may
not to be too healthy. Socialization exclusively in fathers’ hands may
encourage risky behavior without consideration of consequences and
lead children to consider a successful life to be defined only in narrow
instrumental terms. On the other hand, socialization exclusively in the
hands of mothers may lead to an aversion to all risk, fail to build a sense
of independence and self-confidence, and leave the child unprepared
for the harsh realities of this competitive world. It is highly desirable,
then, that children be exposed to a loving team of mom and pop to
create a healthy balance in their lives. Mother love makes the child
capable of love; father love takes that capability and cultivates it through
the inculcation of the ideals of humanity and makes the child worthy
of love. If you think of it for a moment, a socialization that included
only unconditional and uncritical love might well breed some pretty
sad human beings. Individuals assured of love no matter what their
behavior forgive themselves for anything. A mother who loves, cher-
ishes, and excuses her offspring right up to the executioner’s gurney
may have helped to put him there. “My offspring, right or wrong” can
be as dangerous as the zealous nationalist who has the same sentiments
about his country.
The Effects of Father Absence
The good news that modern hospital practices can lead to more nur-
turing fatherhood by inducing neurohormonal changes that promote
it has been offset by the epidemic of fatherlessness witnessed over the
past few decades. While some lucky children may be the recipients of
greater father love than perhaps was the case before the introduction of
modern hospital practices, this positive trend has been counterbalanced
by a massive surge in deadbeat dads. The crisis of fatherless children has
been called “the most destructive trend of our generation.”18 The trend
is driven both by high rates of out-of-wedlock births where feckless
males impregnate their partners and walk away, and by family breakups
arising from “no-fault” divorce laws. In the latter case, many men may
have involuntarily left their children, since women file for divorce in
about 70 percent of the cases.19 In these circumstances, children may
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continue to benefit from at least some paternal interaction and from

child support payments, but in the first case the norm is permanent
estrangement and an impoverished upbringing. In neither case does
the growing number of children growing up without the benefit of two
parents bode well for the future of society. As Black activists, actor Bill
Cosby and psychiatrist Alvin F. Poussaint, point out in their book Come
on, People: On the Path from Victims to Victors: “A house without a
father is a challenge. A neighborhood without fathers is a catastrophe.”20
From a variety of sources, Edward Kruk supports what Cosby and
Poussaint have to say and paints a grim developmental picture of the
growing number of children being reared by single, poor, and often
isolated mothers:

Eighty-five percent of youth in prison have an absent father, 71% of

high school dropouts are fatherless, 90% of homeless and runaway
children have an absent father, and fatherless children and youth
exhibit higher levels of depression and suicide, delinquency, pro-
miscuity and teen pregnancy, behavioral problems and illicit and
licit substance abuse, diminished self-concepts, and are more likely
to be victims of exploitation and abuse.21

One of the most glaring consequences of lacking a father in the home

is poverty. According to 2012 data from the US Census Bureau, median
family income for Asians-Pacific Islanders was $75,027, for whites it
was $62,545, for Hispanics $39,730, and for African Americans it was
$38,409.22 Could these figures have something to do with different rates
of father absence in these racial-ethnic groups? It appears so because
these median income figures have a perfect inverse correlation with
out-of-wedlock births among the racial-ethnic categories. In 2011,
the US Department of Health and Human Services (2011) lists rates
of out-of-wedlock births of 73.5% for African Americans, 53.3% for
Hispanics, 29%, for whites, and 17% for Asian Americans.23
More than twenty-five years ago researchers noted that the prev-
alence of single-parent families is so high in the African American
community that: “[A] majority of black children are now virtually
assured of growing up in poverty, in large part because of their family
status.”24 A study by the US Census Bureau broke down family types
by race and income. The study showed white single-parent households
were more than twice as likely as black two-parent households to have
an annual income of less than $25,000 (46% vs. 20.8%). To state it in
reverse, a black two-parent family is less than half as likely to be poor
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as a white single-parent family.25 Liberal commenters tend to attribute

black poverty to everything under the sun except that which is star-
ing them in the face—a tragically high rate of fatherlessness. It is no
wonder that a huge survey of the pertinent research on the benefits
of marriage prepared for the US Department of Health and Human
Services noted that “children from two-parent families live longer and
enjoy overall better health than children from single-parent families
or whose parents divorced in childhood.”26
Biological fathers can be replaced by surrogates such as stepfathers.
A stepfather in the home generally improves the finances of the house-
hold, and that is good, but it is typically not as beneficial to the child as
having a biological father present. The stepparent-stepchild relationship
is more fragile than the biological parent-child relationship because it
does not rest on the firm basis of early bonding, and therefore not on the
mutual trust, nurturance, and solicitude that such a relationship prompts.
This is evidenced by the fact that one of the biggest risks for children in
modern societies growing up without a biological father is the risk for
abuse and neglect. A nationwide American study found that stepchildren
were 9.2 times more likely to witness family violence, 4.6 times more
likely to be maltreated, and 4.3 times more likely to be sexually assaulted
than children living with two biological parents.27 Studies from many
different countries find that the rate of fatal abuse of children (the risk
is greater the younger the child) living with stepparents or live-in boy-
friends is at least one hundred times greater than if children live with
both biological parents.28 Needless to say, the vast majority of stepdads
do not kill or abuse their step children, and many may do a much better
job of parenting than the biological father could have. However, the fact
remains that having a male other than the child’s biological father in the
house greatly elevates the risk of many kinds of abuse.
This is not only true in the United States, of course. A Finnish study
of 201,211 children between the ages of one and fourteen found that
compared with children of married parents, children of single parents
carried a higher risk of death. Among children aged one through four
years, children without a biological father in the home were just over
twice as likely to die, and among children between the ages of five
and nine, they were 44 percent more likely. These deaths were mostly
attributable to accidents and violence and were concentrated among
children of single, less-educated, and lower-income parents.29
An even bigger Swedish study of 986,342 children investigated differ-
ences in mortality, severe illness, and injury between children living in
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single-parent households with those living in two-parent households.

This study found that children with single parents showed greatly ele-
vated risks of psychiatric disease, suicide or attempted suicide, injury,
and drug and alcohol addiction. The study’s authors concluded that:

Growing up in a single-parent family has disadvantages to the health

of the child. Lack of household resources plays a major part in
increased risks. However, even when a wide range of demographic
and socioeconomic circumstances are included in [statistical] mod-
els, children of single parents still have increased risks of mortality,
severe morbidity, and injury.30

Finally, a British study following three thousand children from age

three to sixteen found that the marital status of parents was a critical
factor for children predicting many important life outcomes. Children
in two-parent households were found to be more confident, healthy,
responsible, and less antisocial than children raised in single-parent
homes or homes of cohabiting, but unmarried partners.31
All of the studies mentioned are really expensive corroboration of
everyday common sense. Unfortunately, common sense is often found
to be most lacking among the “elite” in many so-called “progressive”
societies were radical busy bodies in academia come up with such
inanities as “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle,” and tell
those who will listen that any family form other than the nuclear family
is preferable because other forms are more “egalitarian.” People like
this have done a huge disservice to us all by their efforts to normalize
the abnormal. The situation wrought by the weakening of the family is
well summed up by Robert Wright: “Whenever marital institutions . . .
are allowed to dissolve, so that divorce and unwed motherhood are
rampant, and many children no longer live with both natural parents,
there will ensue a massive waste of the most precious evolutionary
resource: Love.”32
Notes
1. Rohner, R., They love me, they love me not, 60–61.
2. Barash and Lipton, Making sense of sex.
3. Úbeda, F., Evolution of genomic imprinting with biparental care.
4. Fernandez-Duque, Valeggia, and Mendoza, The biology of paternal care.
5. Geary, D., Evolution of paternal investment.
6. Of the 2,545 mammalian species studied by Lukas and Clutton-Brock (The
evolution of social monogamy ), only 229 (9%) were classified as socially
monogamous.
7. Rilling, J., The neural and hormonal bases of human parental care.

86
 Father Love

8. Gubernick, Sengelaub, and Kurtz, A neuroanatomical correlate.

9. Wilson, G., Love and Instinct.
10. Gray, P. et al, Human male pair bonding.
11. Fleming, et al., Testosterone and prolactin. Couvade (from the French “to
hatch”) has long been recognized, but it is not an established medical con-
dition. No one knows why it happens or why it is apparently becoming more
common. It may be because fathers play a much larger role in pregnancy
and birth these days. Because of fathers’ larger role, mind-body connections,
and the functioning of mirror-neurons, the couvade effect may indeed be
rooted in biology.
12. Mascaro, Hackett, and Rilling, Testicular volume, 15746.
13. Fleming, Corter, Stallings, and Steiner, Testosterone and prolactin, 399.
14. Rilling, The neural and hormonal bases of human parental care, 744.
15. In Pruett, K. (1987). The Nurturing Father. 49.
16. Fromm, E. The Art of Loving, 42.
17. Ibid., 65–66.
18. Blankenhorn, D., Fatherless America, 1.
19. Baskerville, S., Is there really a fatherhood crisis?
20. Cosby and Poussaint, Come on, people: On the path from victims to victors, 3.
21. Kruk, Arguments for an equal parental responsibility presumption, 49.
22. U.S. Census Bureau, Statistical Abstract of the United States.
23. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Births: Preliminary data
for 2010.
24. Ellwood and Crane, Family changes among black Americans, 81.
25. McKinnon and Humes, The Black Population in the United States.
26. Wood, Goesling, and Avellar, The effects of marriage on health, 48.
27. Turner, Finkelhor, and Ormrod, The effects of lifetime victimization.
28. Daly and Wilson, Is the “Cinderella effect” controversial?
29. Remes, Martikainen, and Valkonen, The effects of family type.
30. Weitoft, Hjern, Haglund, and Rosén, Mortality, severe morbidity, and injury.
289.
31. Sylva, Melhuish, Sammons, Siraj, and Taggart, Students’ educational and
developmental outcomes.
32. Wright, R., The moral animal, 104.

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 7
Lovelessness and Lawlessness
Criminal, delinquent, neurotic, psychopathic, asocial
behavior can, in the majority of cases, be traced to a
childhood history of inadequate love.
—Ashley Montagu, British American anthropologist

The Family: Nursery of Human Nature

In the hit Broadway musical West Side Story there is a scene in which
two warring gangs belt out their explanation for their delinquent
behavior in the song “Gee, Officer Krupke:”

Our mothers all are junkies,

Our fathers all are drunks.
Golly Moses—natcherly we’re punks.

One of the gang members then further comments via the spoken word:
“Hey, I’m depraved on account I’m deprived!”
Pundits on both the political left and right would agree with them.
The left blames criminal behavior on financial poverty, and the right
moral poverty. While it is true that most criminals have grown up in
conditions of financial and moral poverty, their real deprivation is of
love. This deprivation leaves empathy and altruism, the feeling and
action components of compassionate love, foreign to them. They feel
neither the joy nor the pain of others, nor do they feel pride in doing
right or guilt in doing wrong. Altruism, fed by empathetic feelings, sig-
nals a concern for the welfare and feelings of others, is the polar opposite
of criminality. The heartless and ruthless predation of criminals who
inflict physical and psychological harm on others for personal benefit
indicates only a concern for their own immediate self-gratification.
Before entering academia I worked in corrections and law enforce-
ment for a number of years during the course of which I became acutely
aware that the very worst criminals—those who kill, rob, rape, and

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steal without hesitation or remorse, had the most abominable family

backgrounds. Almost all grew up in fatherless homes, and many were
physically and/or emotionally abused and neglected by promiscuous,
substance abusing “caretakers,” and/or their successive stream of live-in
lovers. Being consistently rebuffed, these children spent much of their
time in the streets in the company of others like them and soon fell
afoul of the law. Since they never developed ties of love and affection
with any adult figure, they never acquired the ability to sympathize,
empathize, or love, and “natcherly we’re punks.”
The family is society’s foundational institution and is literally the
nursery of human nature. Infants arrive in this world with the biolog-
ical potential to be human beings, but it is the family that first takes
hold of their potential and begins the process of actualizing it. There
are many family forms in the anthropological record, with the type
of family arrangement existing in a culture depending on existing
ecological, economic, and cultural conditions. Underneath all family
forms, natural selection has provided us with “a set of dispositions
regarding mating and kin behavior, and these interact with differing
social environments to produce a variety of family systems.”1 The most
basic family form is the triad of man, woman, and child because it is
the core (nucleus) around which the web of kinship in all its family
forms revolves. It is the minimal core of the “expected environment”
of human rearing and a biological adaptation par excellence. If the
family is an adaptive experience-expected environment of rearing for
humans, we can expect a variety of negative outcomes when children
experience wide deviations from it.
The importance of the family was starkly in evidence when in 1928
the Soviet Union tried to destroy it, viewing it as a “bourgeois” institu-
tion of oppression. The Soviet government passed legislation legitimiz-
ing unmarried cohabitation and any offspring of such, making divorce
available on demand, and encouraging “free love” as the “essence of
communist living.”2 The human cost of these “reforms” was stagger-
ing, as anyone not besotted with this pernicious ideology would have
predicted. We have seen that free love (promiscuity) is incompatible
with pairbonding and biparental care throughout the animal kingdom.
These “reforms” resulted in Ivans abandoning their Natashas from Riga
to Vladivostok, leaving thousands of fatherless children roaming the
streets who “formed into gangs, and who would rob and attack people
in the street, or even invade and ransack apartment blocks.”3 After
viewing the chaos wrought by family disruption, the Soviet government
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responded by reversing itself and extolling the family, the sanctity of

marriage, the evils of divorce, the joys of parenthood, and restoring
the legal concepts of legitimacy and illegitimacy.
China plowed a similar reckless path after its revolution in 1949,
followed by the same U-turn when faced with the consequences.4 There
are many social science studies of family disruption, but these two “nat-
ural experiments” more forcefully inform us of the importance of the
family for the development of healthy prosocial human beings than all
of them put together. It is appalling that those who are contemptuous
of the traditional family and its values are apparently as ignorant of
history as they are of biology. Let them at least contemplate the words
of Spanish American Philosopher Jorge Santayana who, despite a tone
that will upset some feminists, succinctly captures the essence of the
family and the benefits it provides for all its members:

The family is one of nature’s masterpieces. It would be hard to con-

ceive a system of instincts more nicely adjusted, where the constitu-
ents should represent and support one another better. The husband
has an interest in protecting the wife, she in serving the husband.
The weaker gains in authority and safety, while the wilder and more
unconcerned find a help-mate at home to take thought for his daily
necessities. Parents lend children their experience and a vicarious
memory; children endow their parents with a vicarious immortality.5

The Evolution of the Family

Scientists as well as philosophers sing the family’s praises, calling it
a “specialized and very basic adaptation that greatly extended the
investment parents could make in their offspring.”6 Of course, there is
no DNA specifically allotted to forming families any more than there is
DNA allotted to a maternal instinct. Long before civilization invented
formal marriage bonds, families arose spontaneously as the result of
bonding. The biology of bonding was, and is, enough to make mating
couples want to stay together at least long enough to reasonably assure
their progeny will survive. We saw how Mother Nature rounded up the
previously untapped source of parenting effort as monogamous pair-
bonding slowly replaced male battles over access to females. Pairbond-
ing resulted in more offspring surviving because the more individuals
that share the burden of any task the easier it is. We can thus define the
“best” family form as one that optimally nurtures children to reproduc-
tive age. Given this criterion, the best family arrangement will always be
one in which children are surrounded by many blood relatives, which
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was the case for most of our evolutionary history.7 Unfortunately, such
an arrangement does not fit the economic and social requirements of
modern societies, and we are left with the nuclear family as that which
“works best to produce offspring who grow up to be both autonomous
and socially responsible, while also meeting the adult needs for intimacy
and personal adjustment.”8 Given that human infants were raised for
millennia surrounded by many kin who cared for them, such a rearing
environment may be experience-expected in the sense that we have
a set of biological mechanisms that demand affection for our optimal
development. If these deprived of these expectations we may “natch-
erly” become depraved human beings.
Not surprisingly, three decades of polling professional criminolo-
gists about their opinions about which theory in their discipline best
accounts for criminal behavior have found that theories centered in
the family to be paramount.9 Predictably, such theories are loathe to
use the word love—“unscientific and ineffable, don’t you see?” Yet love
weaves in and out of the narratives of such theories disguised as “attach-
ment,” “social support,” or social capital. Of course, some scholars use
the term unabashedly. Ashley Montagu, adding to the epigraph of this
chapter, writes: “Show me a murderer, a hardened criminal, a juvenile
delinquent, a psychopath, or a ‘cold fish’ and in almost every case I will
show you a tragedy that has resulted from not being properly loved
during childhood.”10
Social-Bonding, Self-Control, and Criminal Behavior
A theory of criminal behavior with a strong emphasis on the family
that has long been preeminent in criminology is Travis Hirschi’s social
bond theory. Rather than assuming that criminal behavior is learned
and asking what causes it, this theory asks why most of us behave well
most of the time. It tells us that we behave well if our ties to prosocial
others are strong, and that we may revert to predatory self-interest
if they are not. After all, children who are not properly socialized
hit, kick, bite, steal, and scream, whenever the mood strikes them.
They have to be taught not to do these things, which in the absence
of a loving cultivation of our wild natures, “come naturally.” Gwynn
Nettler said it most colorfully: “If we grow up ‘naturally,’ without
cultivation, like weeds, we grow up like weeds—rank.”11 Social bond
theory is thus about the role of social relationships that bind people
to the social order and teach them to behave responsibly and respect
the rights of others.
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Travis Hirschi formulated his theory with some foundational facts

about the “typical” criminal. The “typical” criminal is a young male
who grew up in a fatherless home in an urban slum, has a history of
difficulty in school, and who is unemployed. From this he deduced that
those most likely to commit crimes lack the four elements of the social
bond that form the foundation of prosocial behavior—attachment,
commitment, involvement, and belief.
For Hirschi, attachment refers to the emotional bond existing
between at least two people, and is the “master” bond that lays the
foundation for all other social bonds. Attachment implies strong
emotional relationships in which persons feel valued, respected, and
admired; in short, one in which they feel loved. The attachment that
develops between an infant and its mother during the first year of life
is the template for future attachment experiences. Infants experience
this special bond as a source of safety, comfort and pleasure and will
become distressed when it is interrupted. This attachment functions
as a kind of emotional umbilical cord establishing conduits leading
to limbic resonance and to understanding the minds of others. As a
result of early experiences, children develop a mental model of what
to expect in the world, a kind of internal working guide of what future
relationships with others will be like. Securely attached children are
certain of the availability and sensitivity of their caregivers and will view
the world as a friendly place wherein they will find love and happiness.
They will become attuned to empathy, the most powerful inhibitor of
criminal behavior we know of. Those who are not securely attached
may come to view the world as a hostile and unfriendly place, fail to
develop empathy, and act accordingly.
Children who do not care about parental reactions are those who
are most likely to behave in ways contrary to their wishes. Risking the
good opinion of another is of minor concern when that good opinion
is not respected and valued. Parental opinion may not be valued if
parents have not earned the love and respect of their children because
of physical and/or emotional neglect and abuse, the lack of intimate
communication, erratic and unfair disciplinary practices, emotional
coldness, or for any number of other reasons. Lack of attachment to
parents and lack of respect for their wishes easily spills over into a lack
of attachment and respect for the broader social groups of which the
child is a part. Much of the controlling power of others outside the
family lies in the threat of reporting misbehavior to parents. If the child
has little concern for parental sanctions, or parents neglect to apply
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any, the control exercised by others has little influence on the child’s
behavior. Hirschi sums up the role of attachment in creating prosocial
humans thusly: “The essence of internalization of norms, conscience,
or superego, thus lies in the attachment of the individual to others.”12
Hirschi considers attachment necessary for the other elements of
the social bond to form: “If a person feels no emotional attachment to a
person or institution, the rules [of that person or institution] tend to be
denied legitimacy.”13 Acquiring a stake in conventional society requires
disciplined application to tasks that children do not relish but which
they complete in order to gain approval from parents. Attachment is
thus the essential foundation for commitment to a prosocial lifestyle.
Commitment is the rational component of conformity and refers to
a lifestyle in which one has invested considerable time and energy in
the pursuit of a lawful career. People who invest heavily in a lawful
career have a valuable stake in conformity, and are not likely to risk it
by engaging in crime.
The third element is involvement, which is direct consequence of
commitment; it is a part of an overall conventional pattern of existence.
Structured time spent in socially approved activities means less time
available for antisocial activities. Individuals actively engaged in con-
ventional endeavors such as employment and sports have less time
and opportunity to engage in antisocial activities, even if they have the
inclination. The unemployed, on the other hand, have time to spare,
and “The devil finds work for idle hands.” Involvement in work, par-
enting, and healthy activities regimented discipline, which discourages
antisocial behavior.
The final element of the social bond is belief in the moral validity of
social values and norms such as respect for the private property and
for the rights of others. Persons lacking attachment, commitment, and
involvement tend not to believe in conventional morality and are con-
cerned only with narrow self-interest which they justify with a set of
antisocial values and attitudes. Control theory does not view a criminal
belief system as motivating criminal behavior. Rather, criminals act
according to their urges and then justify or rationalize their behavior
with a set of statements such as “Suckers deserve what they get,” and
“Do onto others as they would do onto you—only do it first.”
Hirschi further elaborated his theory by adding the concept of
self-control. With his colleague Michael Gottfredson, Hirschi defined
self-control as the “extent to which [different people] are vulnerable
to the temptations of the moment.”14 Noting that most crimes are
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spontaneous acts requiring little skill and earn the criminal minimal,
short-term satisfaction, Gottfredson and Hirschi conclude that crim-
inals are oriented to the present rather than to the future, and they
lack patience, persistence, and diligence. Crime affords such people
immediate gratification, exciting and risky adventures, quick and easy
ways to obtain money, sex, revenge, and so forth without experiencing
pangs of guilt.
For Gottfredson and Hirschi, low self-control is the result of incom-
petent parenting. Children do not learn low self-control; rather it is
the default outcome that occurs in the absence of adequate parenting.
Parental warmth, nurturance, vigilance, and the willingness to practice
“tough love” are necessary to forge self-control in their offspring.
These things are difficult (not impossible) to establish in fatherless
homes. Indeed, the impact of a fatherless upbringing is noted across
cultures. It breeds increased risks for hypermasculinity, violence, and
hypersexuality: “Societies in which children are reared in mother-child
households or the father spends little time in child care tend to have
more physical violence by males than do societies in which fathers are
mostly around.”15
Creating Criminals
The downside of the brain’s wonderful plasticity is its vulnerability to
early stressful experiences. Experiences with strong emotional content
are particularly likely to be physically captured in the brain, and in an
infant’s brain these experiences organize it. Abusive and neglectful treat-
ment indexes a deficit in secure attachments to important caregivers.
Well-grooved synaptic pathways established in early life become a “pro-
cessing template” and are more resistant to detours than pathways laid
down later in life. These pathways have been stabilized, and thus they
become internal representations of how the world works which subcon-
sciously intrude into our transactions with others across the lifespan.
Children are fairly resilient creatures if reared in the normal range
of family environments, but tragically some children are born into
family environments that are far beyond the pale of species-expected
environments. Children in these environments are subjected to more
family and neighbor conflict and instability, abuse and neglect, and
numerous other stress-inducing problems than are the vast majority of
children. Such stressors are endemic in many inner-city environments
in which children simply find themselves and have done nothing to
create. Relentless stress can alter neurobiological stress mechanisms
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in such a way as to put those who experience them at an elevated risk

for all kinds of antisocial behavior.
Stress is a state of psychophysiological arousal experienced when we
perceive a threat to our well-being. Stress is an inevitable part of life; it
energizes and focuses us, and without it we would seriously handicapped
in our ability to cope with life’s challenges. Those of us who experienced
normal levels of stress during childhood possess brains calibrated to
better navigate life than those of us who were protected from almost all
stress. While stress is functional, toxic long-term stress damages vital
brain areas responsible for memory storage and behavioral regulation.16
Frequent activation of stress response mechanisms during childhood
may lead to the dysregulation of these mechanisms and subsequently to
a number of psychological, emotional, and behavioral problems.
The stress response is mediated by two separate but interrelated
systems controlled by the hypothalamus: the autonomic nervous system
(ANS) and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. When we
are presented with a stressful situation the hypothalamus—the center
of the hormonal world—directs the ANS to mobilize the body for vig-
orous action by pumping out the hormone epinephrine (adrenaline).
When we feel that the threat is over, the system restores the body to
its normal state, stable state (homeostasis).
The HPA axis response occurs more slowly than the ANS response
and lasts longer. The HPA axis is activated in situations that call for a
prolonged rumination rather than the gut-felt immediacy of the ANS’s
preparation for fight or flight in the face of imminent threat. The HPA
axis response begins with the hypothalamus feeding various chemical
messages to the pituitary gland, which leads to further chemical prod-
ucts that stimulate the adrenal glands to release the hormone cortisol.
The brain is a major target for cortisol, the fuel that energizes our coping
mechanisms by increasing vigilance and activity. Cortisol is thus a very
useful thing within the normal range, but like a lot of other thing, too
much of the stuff has a toxic effect on the neurons.
Frequent and intense HPA axis arousal may lead to upward or
downward dysregulation. Upward dysregulation is the result of over-
production of cortisol (known as hypercortisolism). Overproduction
leads to anxiety and depressive disorders, and is most likely to be found
in females who have been maltreated. This is because females activate
significantly more brain systems associated with emotion situations and
with encoding those situations into long-term memory than males.17
Females will thus have emotional experiences more readily available
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for rumination than males, and the constant pondering of those expe-
riences increases their strength over time. Hypercortisolism signals the
failure of the system to adjust and leads to problems such as chronic
depression and posttraumatic stress disorder.
Underproduction of cortisol (hypocortisolism), on the other hand,
suggests an adaptive downward adjustment to chronic stress and leads
to externalizing problems. It is adaptive because frequent stressful
encounters habituate the HPA axis to them, and as a consequence it
does not react to further encounters as it had previously. Habitua-
tion means that both HPA axis and ANS response mechanisms have
turned down low such that it requires very high levels of stress to
activate them. Hypocortisolism is linked to early onset of aggressive
antisocial behavior, to criminal behavior in general, and is more likely
to be found in maltreated males than in females.18 Danish psychiatrist
Wouter Buikhuisen writes at length about the process by which the
stress-regulating systems of an abused and unloved child respond:
“After some time he feels rejected and no longer loved by his parents.
The continuous stress he is experiencing makes it necessary to look for
defense mechanisms. To avoid being hurt, he develops a kind of flat
emotionality, a so-called indifference with its physiological pendant:
low reactivity of the autonomic nervous system.”19
The process of upward or downward regulation of the ANS and HPA
axis is an example of allostasis. Whenever a bodily system is aroused
it is necessary for it to return to homeostasis; that is, to its normal
physiological set points. Allostasis is “stability through change,” and
refers to mechanisms that enable a bodily system to adjust to potentially
harmful stimuli by retuning the system to different (rather than the
same) set points. Chronic abuse and neglect influence the function of
these systems and change their set points. Changes made are adaptive
in the short term, but the cumulative cost of long-term adjustment
leads to what is called “allostatic load.” Allostatic load is essentially
the failure of a system to habituate to repeated stressors, and in the
case of downward regulation of the stress systems, the production of
individuals with low levels of anxiety and fear—very useful traits when
contemplating and executing criminal behavior.20
Numerous studies find that males high in criminal traits lack
stress-induced increases in cortisol displayed by males low in criminal
traits. Blunted arousal means a low level of anxiety and fear, something
quite useful for those committing or contemplating a crime. It is largely
through these changes to the ANS and HPA axis in conjunction with
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the development of poor limbic resonance that leads to low levels

of fear and empathy. Low levels of empathy and fear are the natural
allies of crime for obvious reasons, just as high levels of both are its
natural enemies:

Empathy is other oriented and prevents one from committing acts

injurious to to others because one has an emotional and cognitive
investment in the wellbeing of others. Fear is self-oriented and pre-
vents one from committing acts injurious to others out of fear of the
consequences to one’s self. Many other prosocial tendencies flow from
these two basic foundations, such as a strong conscience, altruism,
self-control, and agreeableness.21

Love’s Absence: Sociopaths, Serial Killers, and Bloody Dictators

The scariest criminals go by such names as psychopath and sociopath.
The most evil of all criminals are serial killers whether they kill millions
in state-sponsored bloodbaths or kill a single person at a time. The
causes of sociopathy and serial killing are contested and would take
hundreds of pages to explore. I am only interested here in the role that
love deprivation may play in their creation.
A “quick and dirty” way of evaluating criminals that shrinks and
probation officers have is to examine the difference between their verbal
IQ (VIQ) and performance IQ (PIQ). VIQ reflects the ability to solve
language-based problems in a logical way by through an understanding
the relationships between concepts and analogies, similarities, and
comparisons. PIQ measures visuospatial abilities (visualizing rotating
objects in space) and visual-motor integration. A person’s full-scale IQ
is obtained by averaging the VIQ and PIQ subscales. While most people
have VIQ and PIQ scores that closely match, criminal offenders are
typically found to have significantly lower than average VIQ scores, but
not lower PIQ scores, than nonoffenders. This PIQ > VIQ discrepancy is
called intellectual imbalance. The creator of the most frequently used IQ
tests, David Wechsler, remarked long ago that: “The most outstanding
feature of the sociopath’s test profile is the systematic high score on
the performance as opposed to the verbal part of the scale.”22 Overall,
VIQ > PIQ boys are under-represented in delinquent populations by
a factor of about 2.6, and PIQ > VIQ boys are over-represented by a
factor of about 2.2.23 A “significant” PIQ > VIQ imbalance is considered
twelve points or higher.
Positron emission and fMRI brain scans show that VIQ is localized
in the left hemisphere of the brain, and PIQ is localized in the right
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hemisphere. A significantly superior PIQ over VIQ reflects superior

right hemisphere vis-à-vis the left hemisphere, and vice versa. This
PIQ > VIQ profile is frequently found among abused children, and is
linked to what professionals who deal with such children call “frozen
watchfulness.” The notion of frozen watchfulness involves children
who are hypervigilant to mood changes among its caregivers and avoid
attracting attention to themselves. It is suggested that the abused child
become very sensitive to cues that punishment is imminent, and this
favors development of the visuospatial skills of the right hemisphere
relative to the left hemisphere. One brain scan study concluded that the
findings “suggest differential intellectual impairment associated with
child abuse, with a sparing of visual non-verbal functions . . . depressed
verbal and elevated non-verbal IQ.”24
If PIQ > VIQ discrepancy is frequently found among delinquents and
criminals, and if love deprivation in the form of abuse and neglect are
also common among them, might there be a relationship between PIQ >
VIQ and love deprivation? One study of love deprivation, violent delin-
quency, illegitimacy, and PIQ > VIQ among 513 juvenile delinquents
found that children born out of wedlock had a record of violent offenses
twice as great as delinquents from intact homes, had a love deprivation
score (a composite of a variety of indicators of abuse and neglect) 68
percent higher, and had a PIQ > VIQ score over five times greater.25
Men who kill for pleasure and power are the epitome of evil. There are
those who say that evil does not exist because it has no shape and does
not occupy space. Evil is an intangible like beauty, justice, intelligence,
and happiness, but we see manifestations of these intangibles all the time,
and no one says that they don’t exist. If we want to get supertechnical,
there are everyday concepts we take for granted like cold and darkness
that do not exist in the rarefied world of the physicist. According to the
laws of physics, when I say I feel cold what I should be saying is in that
I am feeling a relative absence of heat. Heat exists; it is what transmits
energy from one substance to another by the motion of molecular
particles. Cold has no such properties and is a word we’ve invented
to describe a condition we experience if we don’t have enough heat to
feel comfortable. Likewise, darkness is the absence of light. Light has
properties in the form of streams of photons. Physicists don’t measure
darkness; they measure the amount of light present, and darkness is a
term we use to describe a space without light. Perhaps evil is something
that does not exist unto itself also. We feel evil like we feel cold, we expe-
rience it like we experience darkness, but it emerges when love is absent.
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Of course, love is also intangible, but it exists because it has its

basis in empathy. British psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen, author of
The Science of Evil, sees evil as the absence of empathy. Like light and
heat, empathy has physical properties (it has brain circuitry, and has
hormonal and genetic underpinnings) and can be manipulated up (by
administering oxytocin) or down (by administering testosterone).26
Love is empathy-plus, so I will, perhaps to the annoyance of Baron-
Cohen’s apparent dislike of anything smacking of metaphysics, insist
that evil is the absence of love and briefly explore the lives of some of
the most evil men of recent history.
Summing up the profile of serial killers contained in a manual used
by about two thousand law-enforcement agencies in the United States,
Dillingham writes: “The serial killer is likely someone who grew up in a
single parent home, was abused as a child, often sexually, and had family
members who were addicted to drugs or alcohol.”27 The worst mass killers
of recent times have been political dictators such as Hitler, Stalin, and
Saddam Hussein. These three monsters certainly fit the profile, as do
most other tyrannical dictators. They can justly be called serial killers
because countless innocents were killed for their pleasure and power.
A number of “armchair” diagnoses made by psychologists and psychi-
atrists who never actually met these men but made extensive studies of
their biographies find that they all had highly elevated scores on traits
such as paranoia, narcissism, and sadism, and all had brutal, loveless lives.
In his book The Psychopathic God, historian Robert Waite has much
to say about Hitler’s loveless childhood. Hitler’s central emotional
experiences in childhood were anxiety, tension, and cruelty. He often
witnessed his father beating his mother in drunken rages, and he was
also frequently the victim of his father’s abuse. Waite saw the young
Adolf being overwhelmed by terror, fear, rage, and mistrust of his fellow
humans.28 He had no empathy and was evidently quite fearless, being
the genuine winner of the coveted Iron Cross, the German equivalent
of America’s Medal of Honor, fighting in the trenches of World War I.
The deaths caused by the Soviet “experiment,” mainly the work of
Joseph Stalin, was worse than the Nazi holocaust both in terms of the
number of victims and of its duration. Stalin’s parents were serfs, so
he was born into a life of grinding poverty. Like Hitler, Stalin and his
mother were often the victim of his father’s drunken violence. One
of Stalin’s childhood acquaintances wrote that, “Those undeserved
and fearful beatings made the boy as hard and heartless as his father.”
Whatever the cause, Stalin seemed to be mired in permanent paranoia
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and distrust of others, which resulted in his ordering the arrest, torture,
and executions of even the most loyal party members.29
Saddam Hussein’s father died before Saddam was born, leaving his
mother so distraught that she tried to abort him and to kill herself.
When Saddam was born, his mother sent him to live with an uncle. At
the age of three Saddam returned to his mother’s care after she remar-
ried. His new stepfather physically and emotionally abused him, and
like Hitler (whom he admired) Saddam grew up bitter, self-absorbed,
paranoid, and fearless. Saddam “made his bones” as an enforcer for
the Baath Party that was later to rule Iraq. Saddam was more sadistic
than Hitler, actually killing people himself (there is no solid evidence
that Hitler ever personally killed anyone outside of his WW I serviced)
and enjoying watching torture.30
After reviewing the life histories of many tyrants and serial killers,
Colin Wilson was led to conclude in his A Criminal History of Mankind:
“And so insecure social bonds prevent a capacity for love and affection
from being channeled into stable relationships, and the resentment
lies dormant, like a volcano, waiting to be detonated into violence by
stress.”31 Violence is the frustration of love, and sooner or later we all
pay for the loveless lives led by far too many children. Children are the
heirs to our tomorrows; as long as we allow them to suffer today there
is little cause for optimism for the future.
Notes
1. Smith, M., Evolution and developmental psychology, 232.
2. Hazard, Butler, and Maggs, The Soviet legal system, 470.
3. Hosking, G., The First Socialist Society, 213.
4. Fletcher, R., Mating, the family, and marriage.
5. Santayana, J., The life of reason, 104.
6. Lancaster and Lancaster, The watershed, 188.
7. Sear and Mace, Who keeps children alive?
8. Popenoe, D., The family condition of America, 94.
9. Cooper, Walsh, and Ellis, Is Criminology Ripe for a Paradigm Shift?
10. Montagu, A., A scientist looks at love, 46.
11. Nettler, G., Explaining crime, 313.
12. Hirschi, T., The Causes of Delinquency, 18.
13. Ibid, 127.
14. Gottfredson and Hirschi, A general theory of crime, 87.
15. Ember and Ember, Facts of violence, 14.
16. Narvaez and Vaydich, Moral development and behaviour.
17. van Voorhees and Scarpa, The effects of child maltreatment.
18. van Goozen, Fairchild, Snoek, and Harold, The evidence.
19. Buikhuisen, W., Aggressive behavior and cognitive disorders, 214.
20. Walsh and Yun, Epigenetics and Allostasis.
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21. Walsh, A., 2011, Feminist criminology through a biosocial lens 124.
22. Wechsler, D., The measurement and appraisal, 176.
23. Walsh, A., Intelligence and antisocial behavior.
24. Naude, Du Preez, and Pretorius, The impact of child abuse, 10.
25. Walsh, A., Illegitimacy, child abuse and neglect.
26. Baron-Cohen, S., The science of evil.
27. Dillingham, S., Manual on catching ones who kill and kill, 24.
28. Waite, R., The psychopathic god: Adolf Hitler.
29. Stal, M., Psychopathology of Joseph Stalin.
30. Coolidge, and Segal, Was Saddam Hussein Like Adolf Hitler?
31. Wilson, C., A criminal history of mankind, 623.

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 8
Love and Physical Health
and Illness
The main reason for healing is love.
—Paracelsus, sixteenth-century Swiss physician

The Invisible Physician: Dr. Love

St. Augustine saw love as the one true human emotion. All other emo-
tions he saw as derivatives of this single source: “Love eager to possess
its object is Desire; possessing and enjoying it is Happiness; shrinking
from what opposes it is Fear; being aware of effective opposition is
Sorrow.”1 Freud might have added that its thwarting is aggression, its
rejection is hate, and its protracted absence is pathology, illness, death,
and destruction.
So men of God and men of science look upon love as something we
humans need, and need very badly. But what an overworked word need
is. A simple enumeration of the many things some scientist or another
has considered to be a human need would fill many pages. The term has
been tossed around so casually and carelessly that much of the mean-
ing has been washed out of it. Let’s agree that the term need implies
an urgent necessity, the absence of which undermines the well-being,
or even the survival, of the organism. A force so central to our human
existence as love must surely qualify as a need in its most precise sense.
Love is an abstraction, albeit with tangible neurobiological substrates,
but it alone among the desirable abstractions of nature (beauty, truth,
and justice) meets this demanding criterion.
The best demonstration of the functional importance of A to B is
to view what becomes of B in the absence of A. Deprived of oxygen
the survival time for the human organism is measured in minutes
and seconds. Deprived of food and water it is measured in weeks
and days. While the lack of affectionate mother love has sent many a

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poor infant to an early grave, many other unloved souls have lived out
their threescore years and ten. This observation does not diminish the
status of love as a basic human need one iota. Few human beings are
totally deprived of warmth and affection throughout their entire lives.
Nevertheless, as Plato once commented: “He whom love touches not,
walks in darkness.” The results of such a pointless and lonely journey
are numerous and tragic.
In apparent agreement with St. Augustine, Howard Whitman, in an
article entitled “The Amazing New Science of Love,” saw love as a kind
of panacea for all that ails when he wrote:
The psychiatrists, in their lurid battle against mental illness have
finally concluded that the great taproot of mental illness is love-
lessness. The child psychologists, wrangling over scheduled versus
demand feeding, spanking versus non-spanking, have found none of
it makes much difference so long as the child is loved. The sociolo-
gists have found love the answer to delinquency, the criminologists
have found it the answer to crime, the political scientists have found
it the answer to war.2

Is love really so powerful a need as to be responsible, at least in part,

for all the problems wrought by its absence as Whitman suggests? The
reader may be forgiven for feeling that Dr. Whitman and others like
him invest love with too much power as an explanation for the various
pathological syndromes he enumerates. A thorough examination of the
dynamics of such syndromes demands that attention be paid to biolog-
ical, psychological, and sociocultural variables and their interaction.
Nevertheless, perusing the literature relating to these syndromes, I am
struck with the consistency with which researchers of stature include
the lack of warm and loving relationships in their lists of causal, pre-
ventative, or healing factors. This does not mean that love deprivation
is a necessary and sufficient cause of any disease syndrome. It is best
considered as a factor that makes a person vulnerable to various dis-
eases and less able to cope and conquer once he or she has them.
Until quite recently, any claim that disease and death could result
from and/or be worsened by a lack of loving ties with other human
beings would be met with icy silence among medical professionals.
Today, health and general well-being is viewed more holistically.
“Health,” says the World Health Organization, “is a state of complete
physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of
disease or infirmity.”3 The idea that disease may result from a dishar-
monious relationship between human beings and their environment
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is not a new idea. It is rather the resurgence of an old idea buried for
over two centuries by the spectacular successes of the germ theory
and the infectious model of disease. According to the germ theory,
illness is the result of some pathophysiological activity exacerbated
by unhealthy physical habits such as smoking, poor hygiene, poor
diet, lack of exercise, and so forth. This is a great model of disease,
and most of us have all been beneficiaries of its remarkable fruits. The
only problem with it is that it doesn’t go far enough in recognizing the
human factor in disease.
We now know that stress, the kind of people we are, how we interpret
and evaluate the world, and how we interact with others, have con-
sequences for our health. These things can alter brain chemistry, and
even our genomes via epigenetic modifications, making us susceptible
to numerous pathologies. Stress can also suppress the functioning of
the immune system, thus impairing our ability to fight off all manner
of infections, and it can affect the level of fatty lipids in the blood,
leaving us open to a number of cardiovascular ailments. In short,
modern medicine is catching up with the genius of Freud, who wrote:
“A strong ego is protection against disease, but in the last resort we
must begin to love in order that we may not fall ill, and we must fall ill
if, in consequence of frustration, we cannot love.”4
The annals of medicine contain numerous studies which point to
the importance of love for healthy human functioning. The lack of love
in its various manifestations is seen largely in terms of either inducing
stressor exacerbating it. Chronic or intense acute stress has damaging
effects on the cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, respiratory, and endo-
crinal systems. This is not to say that love deprivation “causes” illness
in the same sense as say, an invading virus. Rather, it is a major stressor
which generates harmful biochemical changes in the body. Exposure to
stress over an extended period may eventually lead to the exhaustion
of the body’s defensive capacity, thus weakening its capacity to deal
with future stressors.
One of the earliest studies of the tragic consequences of early love
deprivation was Rene Spitz’s work in the 1940s with institutionalized
infants. Spitz was concerned with the high mortality rates of infants in
foundling homes. Abnormally high numbers of infants were dying of no
apparent organic causes in these institutions, despite high standards of
hygiene and nutrition. In an effort to determine the cause, Spitz com-
pared conditions in a foundling home with those existing in a nursery
in a female penal institution. While the medical care, hygiene, and
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nutrition in the foundling home were superior to those in the penal

institute, there was significantly less illness and death among infants
in the penal institute. The real tragedy of the story is that within two
years after the start of the study 37 percent of the foundling children
were dead, while all of the penal children were alive five years later.
Given all the apparent advantages of the foundling-home infants,
why such tragic consequences? For Spitz, the answer was obvious. The
penal children were cared for by their own mothers. They were the lucky
recipients of kissing, cuddling, stroking, talking, and play—in short,
they were loved. These species-expected experiences raise the infants’
“happy chemicals,” oxytocin and dopamine. The foundling-home
children had no opportunity to develop this kind of relationship with
caregivers and doubtless shared the same epigenetic profile of the
Romanian and Russian orphanage children discussed in chapter 5.
Despite the greater technical efficiency of the professional nursing
staff of the foundling home, nurses simply did not have the time, even
if they had the inclination, to develop this kind of bond with the babies
in their care.5
In the early part of the twentieth-century mortality rates in orphan-
ages were as high as five times greater than in the general population
despite generally having higher standards of hygiene and nutrition than
found in the general population. Jonathon Haidt maintains that the high
standards of hygiene was actually one of the causes of the problem,
along with the psychological fads of the time—psychoanalysis and
behaviorism. In the crusade against germs, orphanages and hospitals
isolated children, nurses and physicians hid behind masks, and mothers
were berated for violating quarantine rules. Under the influence of psy-
choanalysis, infants were thought to love only the breasts, with love for
the mother coming only later when infants realized she was attached to
them. Worst of all, under the influence of behaviorism: “Unconditional
love—holding, nuzzling, and cuddling children for no reason—was seen
as the surest way to make children lazy, spoiled, and weak.”6 The tragic
stories of children’s experiences in early twentieth-century orphanages
gob smacks us with the realization that love really is a need.
Love and Failure to Thrive
The lack of love has adverse effects on physical as well as intellectual
growth and emotional development. Pediatricians use the label “fail-
ure to thrive” for children whose physical development is significantly
below other children of similar age and sex. Such children may be
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dramatically shorter than other children of similar age, and may

even lack the usual changes that occur at puberty. An early study of
neglected children at the Cleveland Jewish Orphans Home found that
love deprivation (“socioemotional deprivation”) played a crucial role
among the factors responsible for retarded physical growth. Another
early study concluded that no physical cause could be detected to
account for the dwarf-like stature of children subjected to extreme
emotional deprivation.7
The most dramatic and well-studied syndrome of physical failure
to thrive is termed psychosocial or deprivation dwarfism. Children
suffering from psychosocial dwarfism usually fall below the third per-
centile in height for their age, meaning that about 97 percent of their
age peers are taller than they. Dwarfism can occur in loving families
and have purely biological causes (such as an underactive pituitary
gland). Biochemistry is always deeply involved in illness states, but
as one British scientist put it “Love is biochemistry’s chief assistant.”8
There are ways of distinguishing between organic and emotional
causes of psychosocial dwarfism. If it is accompanied by strange behav-
ior patterns such as social apathy and withdrawal, accident proneness,
delayed language and IQ development, and bizarre feeding habits such
as gorging, vomiting, hoarding, eating from garbage, and drinking
stagnant water and toilet water, emotional disturbance is strongly sus-
pected. Another way of distinguishing focuses on mothers who exhibit
pathological behaviors, such as anxiety, depression, abuse of children,
and social and marital instability. Alcoholism and absence of the father
are also frequently observed in the homes of such children. A study
by a team of pediatricians at French children’s hospital concluded that
the crux of the psychosocial dwarfism problem is the absence of loving
mother-child relationships.9
A third way of differentiating between organic and emotional causes
is to see if abnormal hormone function is rectified upon removal from
the home without hormonal treatment. If it does we have clear evi-
dence of the pernicious effects of a home bereft of love on hormonal
functioning. Research indicates that such children typically show dra-
matically accelerated rates of emotional and physical growth when they
are removed from a loveless environment and placed in a less stressful
and emotionally positive environment.10
The fear, anxiety, and depression wrought by parental hostility,
maltreatment, and rejection lead to abnormal levels of cortisol, which
inhibit the secretion of pituitary hormones, including the growth
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hormones. A loveless and neglectful environment results in sleep pat-

terns that alternate between insomnia and stupor. The regulated release
of somatotrophin (growth hormone) increases sharply during the early
hours of sleep and requires normal sleep patterns. Sleep is essential for
the maintenance of a healthy body, mind, and spirit. It plays a crucial
role in the regulation of emotion and mental health as hormones go
about the business of repairing damaged tissues and building new ones.
Shakespeare said it most poetically in Macbeth:
Sleep that knits up the raveled sleave of care, The death of each day’s
life, sore labour’s bath, Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second
course, Chief nourisher in life’s feast.

The palpable manifestations of love and care such as cuddling lead

to relaxation and a sense of calm security (the brain’s polypeptides at
work). Muscular relaxation and a warm feeling that “all is right with
the world” is a prerequisite for healthy sleep. Muscular rigidity and
anxiety, as we all know, is no conducive to a good night’s sleep. In early
childhood, the lack of a good night’s sleep can evidently lead to less than
adequate amounts of growth hormones and ultimately to the agonies
of being exceptionally short in a world that values tallness.
Summing up their review of the literature on psychosocial dwarfism,
Wayne Green and his colleagues speculate that the processes that trans-
late love deprivation into psychosocial dwarfism runs something like
this: The child perceives it is not loved. This perception is relayed to the
hypothalamus, where the deprivation is emotionally experienced. The
emotional experience of not being loved leads to sleeping difficulties,
which upsets the normal cortisone-endorphin balance. Due to this
imbalance, hypothalamic releasing factors are inhibited when sleep does
occur. Although Green and his coworkers acknowledge that the precise
mechanisms are far from clear, they conclude: “The presence of a strong
emotionally positive relationship may enhance physical growth more
than has previously been suspected.”11 Another prominent researcher in
this area writes similarly: “Deprivation dwarfism is a concrete example
of an ‘experiment of nature,’ so to speak-that demonstrates the delicacy,
complexity and crucial importance of infant-parent interaction.”12
Love and Cardiovascular Health and Illness
The role of love in the exploration of heart disease should satisfy the
romantics among us, since poets have long written about “broken
hearts” resulting from the loss of loved ones. Some hardnosed scientists
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are also beginning to see the importance of the fracture or disruption

of human relationships on the heart. James Lynch, scientific director of
the Psychosomatic Clinic at the School of Medicine at the University
of Maryland has written that: “Growing numbers of physicians now
recognize that the health of the human heart depends not only on such
factors as genetics, diet, and exercise, but also to a large extent on the
social and emotional health of the individual.”13
Heart disease is the number one killer of adults in the United States.
Hypertension, or high blood pressure, is a major precursor of many
other cardiovascular problems such as coronary artery disease, myocar-
dial infarction, chronic renal failure, and strokes. Essential, idiopathic,
and primary hypertension are the various terms applied to hypertension
with no known pathophysiological cause. Approximately 80 percent of
hypertensive cases fall into this category, and as you may have guessed,
stress is a major player in the cardiovascular game.14
One of the most useful instruments in evaluating the amount of
stress that an individual experiences is the Holm Rahe Life Change
Scale. This instrument is an attempt to quantify the degree of stress an
individual experiences in a year in response to major life changes. Each
life change is assigned a numerical score according to how stressful the
change is assumed to be. According to this scale, the death of a spouse
is assigned the maximum score of 100. The next three highest scores
are all assigned to other disruptions of interpersonal relationships
(divorce, marital separation, and death of a close family member).
A large number of subsequent studies have found that the higher a
person’s life change score—and hence the sum of his or her stressful
experiences—the higher the probability of the occurrence of many
types of diseases, particularly cardiovascular diseases.15
My own research in this area has been on the effects of immigration
on blood pressure levels.16 There are few more profound and com-
prehensive life changes that an individual can undergo than moving
to alien shores. Immigration changes almost everything, especially if
one’s sources of love and security are left behind in the native coun-
try. Hippocrates noted many centuries ago that whenever people
migrated into new social settings, “a terrible perturbation always
followed.” A whole library of studies has documented the fact that
immigrants have significantly higher rates of many types of chronic
diseases and psychiatric problems than host nationals, regardless
of the country of origin or country of settlement. Careful analyses
have shown that generally these high rates are not attributable to
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pre-existing symptoms but rather to the stresses and strains of the

immigration experience.17
Suppose, for instance, that an immigrant’s country of origin, his
accent, or his mannerisms is the butt of some negative remarks as he
sits with his coworkers at lunch. If he perceives the remarks as insulting
and derogatory, his perceptions will be communicated to the limbic
system, arousing negative feelings such as anger and embarrassment.
These limbic feelings then activate the autonomic nervous system,
resulting in the secretion of epinephrine (adrenaline) from the adrenal
glands preparing him for “fight or flight.” If the result of experiencing
stressful stimuli is actually fight or flight, stress hormones are rapidly
metabolized by the lipoprotein lipase enzyme after they have accom-
plished their task.
In modem society where stressors are perhaps more frequent, if not
as immediately threatening as those facing our ancestors, the response
is likely to be far less energetic. Our insulted immigrant is not too likely
to punch his detractors in the nose or to flee the lunchroom. He is
much more likely to “sit and seethe” than to fight or flee. While such a
response is prudent, it does not activate enzymes to restore hormonal
balance. If he has experiences such as this fairly often, his biological
legacy will be an unhealthy accumulation of unconsumed fatty lipids
in his blood stream, which results in elevated blood pressure over time.
My studies of hypertension have centered on the social support
immigrants report receiving. Social support is a powerful adaptive
mechanism in primate evolution. Social support was conceived of as
a network of valued others who provide the immigrant with emotional
sustenance that acts as a buttress to the stresses of adjusting to a new
culture. Immigrants who were secure in the knowledge that they had
valued others upon whom they could lean when necessary, and who
appreciated, respected, and cared for them had significantly lower
blood pressure levels and were more assimilated into American culture
than immigrants who lacked such a network. The relationship between
social support and blood pressure levels held true after adjusting for
the effects of other variables known to influence blood pressure levels
such as age, sex, diet, exercise, and smoking habits, as well as socio-
economic status.18
After reviewing a wide range of literature attesting that poor
interpersonal relations can produce dangerous or even lethal cardiac
changes, James Lynch states: “If the lack of human love or the memory
of earlier traumas can disturb the heart, then just as clearly the presence
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of human love may serve as a powerful therapeutic force, helping the

heart to restore itself.”19
Simple touching, stroking, and holding have been shown to be ben-
eficial in reducing heart rate in human beings. A study by Vincent Dre-
scher and his colleagues at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine showed
a significant reduction in heart rate following an aversive stimulus after
being touched on the wrist. Subjects in this experiment were subjected
to painful ice water stimulation under two conditions. In one situation
the experimenters held the wrist of the subjects while their hands were
immersed in the ice water, and in the other the subjects’ hands were
not held. Average heartbeat rates were significantly lower in the first
experimental situation. Summing up their findings, the researchers
wrote: “Our speculation is that touching represents a potent primitive
mechanism for establishing an emotional attachment between mother
and infant which persists into adulthood.”20
Perhaps the most dramatic study of the effect of human relationships
on the heart was carried out by William Knaus and his colleagues at
the George Washington University School of Medicine. The study
involved 5,030 intensive care unit (ICU) patients (many of whom were
cardiac patients) in hospitals across the United States over a five-year
period. The intent was to determine what factor was most important
in terms of its impact on the survival of ICU patients. They examined
many factors, such as the prestige of the hospital, technological sophis-
tication, level of professional expertise of physicians and nurses, and
patient-caregiver ratio. To their astonishment, none of these turned
out to be the crucial one. The crucial variable was the quality of the
relationship existing between caregivers and patients. The hospitals in
which nurses were allowed to interact with patients at an emotional
level—talking, reassuring, and holding patients—were the hospitals
with the best ICU survival rates.21 This study shows that sometimes all
the buzzing and clicking of expensive monitoring equipment and the
extensive knowledge of armies of MDs cannot match the wondrous
life-giving power of human love.
Telomere Tales of Love
Inside every one of our approximately fifteen trillion cells there is a
nucleus containing about six feet of DNA tightly wrapped around the
chromosomes. Cells must constantly divide to produce new ones and to
replace worn-out ones. When cells divide they take our DNA along for
the ride. DNA must be accurately copied to make the protein products
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that keep us alive and functioning properly. Molecules called telomeres

keep a molecular eye on our chromosomes as they copy themselves.
Telomeres are regions of DNA at the end of our chromosomes that,
along with an enzyme called telomerase, protect the ends from deterio-
rating or from fusing with neighboring chromosomes. They are a sort of
cap like the plastic tip of a shoe lace keeping the lace from fraying. They
fray a little each time a cell divides until they can no longer protect the
integrity of the chromosome. If your shoe laces fray, you probably get
another pair, but if the telomeres fray there’s no replacing them. Badly
frayed telomeres are no longer able to protect our chromosomes and
cells, paving the way to aging and to diseases typically associated with
old age such as heart problems, diabetes, and strokes.
DNA is added to the telomeres by the enzyme telomerase in a valiant
effort to keep them intact, but over time the telomere reaches a critical
short point and the cell dies. Telomere shortening is a natural (but
unwelcome) part of our bodies “rusting” out, but extremely stressful
environments hasten the process just like the winters of the northeast-
ern United States will accelerate your car’s rusting.
All very interesting, but what does it have to do with love? An
ongoing study called the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study
looked at the effects of telomere length in children in stressful home
environments. The study participants were born between 1998 and
2000 and were from twenty different US cities. From a sample of two
thousand six hundred children, researchers selected boys experiencing
the most severe stress, defined as by such factors as parental income,
nurturing practices, and family stability (intact vs. single mother), and
boys enjoying the most positive environments. The researchers found
that children living in the most stressful conditions had telomeres that
were on average 40 percent shorter than those of the children living
in the most nurturing settings. This is a truly remarkable difference
given that the boys were only nine years old at the time of the study.22
The authors were careful to take into consideration genetic mech-
anisms which may make people more susceptible to the negative or
positive environments. They looked at a variety of genes driving the
serotonin and dopamine systems and found that genetic factors play
a large part in how environments affect individuals. It was found that
boys from disadvantaged homes with the highest “genetic sensitivity”
scores (based on genotyping) had shorter telomeres than boys from
similarly disadvantaged homes with low genetic sensitivity scores.
That is, they were more affected by the same bad environment than
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boys with different genotypes. Boys from advantaged homes with high
genetic sensitivity (to positive environments) had longer telomeres than
boys from advantaged homes with less genetic sensitivity. This is what
geneticists call gene-environment interaction, a phenomenon summed
up by the old saying that “The heat that melts the butter hardens the
egg.” Nevertheless, it was stressful environments that most directly
affected telomere length; genetic differences simply made boys more
or less sensitive to them.
Another study of childhood stress gauged by parental quality found
similar results. That is, children in lower nurturing environments had
significantly lower telomere length than children with responsive,
nurturing parents. These researchers hypothesized that HPA axis
dysregulation (discussed in the previous chapter) is the mechanism by
which this occurs. They propose that the increased levels of cortisol
produced by frequent stress result in increased production of what is
known as “free oxygen species” (ROS).23 ROS are chemically reactive
molecules containing oxygen that can cause irreparable breaks in
telomeres. ROS comprise both the more familiar “free radicals” and
the less familiar nonfree radicals.
Of course, we need oxygen to live, but too much of a good thing is
toxic. We get our energy by combining the food we eat with oxygen,
but this metabolic process generates nasty byproducts called free
radicals. As you might remember from chemistry class, atoms have a
stable number of protons and electrons. A free radical is an atom that
has an unpaired electron in its outer shell, and is thus unstable. Like an
unstable human radical running amok in the social world, the molecular
counterpart frantically searches the molecular terrain looking to plun-
der precious electrons from others. Free radicals in the atomic world
strip electrons from any other atoms or molecules they run into in order
to gain electrical stability. In doing so they create instability in other
atoms or molecules making them unstable in turn, causing molecular
chaos. By the time the riot subsides, these molecular malcontents may
have caused quite a bit of damage if they have reacted with vital cellular
components such as DNA or cell membranes.
Fortunately, the body has a special task force called antioxidants
to battle them. Antioxidants are molecules that interact with free
radicals and put a stop to the molecular riot before they can infect
too many other molecules with their discontent. Unhappily, the body
cannot recruit sufficient enzymatic resources to do the job by itself; it
needs help from a diet rich in vitamin E, beta-carotene, and vitamin
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C. Sadly, the typical diets of poor, neglected, and abused children are
not likely to include the fish oils, fruits, and vegetables that contain the
necessary antioxidants. To the extent that this is the process by which
telomere shortening occurs in response to stress, we can say that the
lack of loving care has deleterious consequences all the way down to
the atomic level.
Love and Immunology
A breed of scientists calling themselves psychoneuroimmunologists
recruit insights from many scientific fields to investigate how real
organic diseases can be linked to how we feel and think about our-
selves and our relationships. These scientists have published a cascade
of research showing that loneliness, loss, bereavement, and other life
stresses are associated with sometimes dramatic decreases in immune
system functioning, leaving us susceptible to a wide range of diseases.
Their growing ability to outline precise mechanisms linking our experi-
ences and how we relate emotionally to them has given a new respect-
ability to holistic medicine. They have gone beyond the psychobabble
of earlier holistic theorists by opening the “black box” to discover the
“nitty-gritty” of the mind-body relationship.
Imagine you are peacefully fishing by a stream, only dimly aware of
the throbbing in your thumb where you stuck yourself with a dirty fish
hook thirty minutes ago. Unknown to you, a virus has entered your
blood stream via your wound. As it moves swiftly through the veins and
arteries carrying blood throughout your body, a life and death drama is
taking place. If the virus is allowed to live and multiply, you will soon
be as dead as the fish in your basket. Doing its best to see that no such
fate befalls you is a vast army of chemical creatures that collectively
comprise your immune system.
The body’s immunological system is a fascinating one with a
complexity approaching that of the brain itself. Unlike other bodily
systems such as the central nervous, cardiovascular, and digestive
systems, the immunological system exists as subsystems scattered
throughout the body. We often use the analogy of machines, pumps,
and pipes to describe the physically connected cardiovascular system.
The immunological system is more analogous to a society of separate
but interrelated families. It is a society of well-knit subsystems that is
constantly on a war footing. Its many enemies (antigens) include invad-
ing bacteria, viruses, pollens, and genetically unrelated human fluids
and tissue. Unfortunately, like a Central American army, it sometimes
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revolts and attacks its own host body. When it runs amok it produces
a number of autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and
multiple sclerosis.
Since chemical foreign substances can invade the body at many
different sites, nature wisely dispersed the immune system throughout
the body. The lymphocytes, the masterminds of the immune system,
come in two varieties: T-lymphocytes, which are under the influence of
the thymus, and B-lymphocytes, formed in the lymph nodes scattered
throughout the body. Other components of the immune system such
as natural killer cells, granulocytes, and complement proteins are man-
ufactured in the bone marrow and the liver. These chemical defenders
destroy invaders in several ways. For instance, lymphocytes work in
concert with antibodies to combat viral infections; the lymphocytes
cause cells containing viruses to disintegrate, and the free-floating
viruses are then destroyed by circulating antibodies. Most relevant for
our discussion is the discovery that receptors for a variety of chemical
messengers—hormones, endorphins, and neurotransmitters—have
been discovered on the surface of lymphocytes. This discovery demon-
strates that the mind-body connection is more intimate than previously
thought, and strongly suggests that since there are receptors for these
molecules on lymphocytes, they must influence immune system activity
in terms of where to go and what to do.24
Macrophages (“big eaters”) are giant circulating white blood cells
that look like a nightmare from some science-fiction movie. They are
slimy, slithery, scavenging blobs, but they are the “shock troops” of the
immune system. They reach out and gobble up cells damaged by foreign
invaders and release protein fragments from the invaders that are then
recognized and attacked by T-cells. Macrophages themselves release
neuropeptides, which leads some to speculate that macrophages may
be free-floating nerve cells able to engage in two-way communication
with the brain either directly or via hormones.25
The discovery of chemical links to the brain may be the key to
explaining how the immune system remembers encounters with invad-
ing antigens so it can mount a stronger and more speedy attack in future
encounters. The brain encodes chemical memories of our conscious
day-to-day experiences so that we can more efficiently deal with similar
experiences in the future. Because the brain and the immune system
both have receptors for the same molecules, it is entirely possible that
both memory processes (the conscious brain and the unconscious
immune system) are intimately linked. Because these system “talk” with
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one another, it is the route by which one’s emotional state influences

one’s immune system for better or for worse.
One of the pioneering studies in psychoneuroimmunology found
significantly lower levels of T-lymphocytes circulating in the systems
of twenty-six bereaved spouses in comparison to twenty-six control
subjects. Another study found that natural killer cell activity was sig-
nificantly different among women, depending on how depressed and
lonely they were. Natural killer cells are another kind of lymphocyte
that has the ability to recognize and attack malignant cells without
having previously encountered them. The same researchers also found
an increase in the ratio of T-suppressor to T-helper cells as loneliness
and depression became more severe.26 T-helper cells are the field
commanders of the immune system. They do not themselves attack
invaders, but they are experts in identifying their chemical structure.
When they recognize this structure, they rush to recruit and activate
the killer cells and guide their activity. T-suppressor cells, on the other
hand, downregulate the production of antibodies and are associated
with an increase in autoantibodies that attack their own bodies.
Yet another study among the lonely and loveless found that “high
loneliness” subjects showed significantly lower levels of natural killer
cell activity and significantly elevated levels of immune-suppressing
cortisol than “low loneliness” subjects.27 These studies show that a
lack of connectedness with other people leaves us both more prone to
stress-related diseases and less able to effectively combat autoimmune
diseases. Psychoneuroimmunologist Paul Pearsall put it this way: “To
love and be loved is perhaps the single most important result of being
healthy. When we fail to love, our supersystem [the immune system]
is jeopardized.”28
We can conclude from the numerous studies presented in this
chapter that the role of love in the prevention of real organic illness, as
well as its ability to heal those who are afflicted, is becoming more and
more recognized by modern science. Any physician or nurse will tell
you that in their care of the sick it is the individual who is well loved,
happy, and contented with life—all other things being equal—who has
the best chance of a speedy recovery. Expressions of love and affection
are the greatest medicines we can give one another. Man or woman,
young or old, whatever our race, creed, or ethnicity, we need to know
that we are loved and are important to somebody. Love and social
connectedness reach deep inside our bodies helping them to regulate
our most fundamental molecular processes.
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Four hundred years before the birth of Christ, Hippocrates, the father
of medicine, emphasized the importance of the laying on of hands:
“for where there is love of man, there is also love of the art. For some
patients, though conscious that their condition is perilous, recover
their health simply through their contentment with the goodness of
the physician.”29 How very modern was his recognition that touch
conveys concern and reassurances to patients and turns an anatomical
technician into a physician.
Notes
1. Barnaby, J., Amar dei, 95.
2. Whitman, H., The amazing new science of love, 76.
3. Terris, M., Approaches to the epidemiology of health, 1037.
4. Freud, S., On narcissism, 42.
5. Spitz, R. Hospitalism.
6. Haidt, J., The happiness hypothesis, 108.
7. Montagu, A. A scientist looks at love.
8. Young, M., The Rise of the Meritocracy, 30.
9. Bouras, Bourneuf, and Raimbault, La relation mere-enfant dans le nanism.
10. Green, Campbel, and David, Psychosocial dwarfism.
11. Ibid., 46.
12. Gardner, L., Deprivation dwarfism, 107.
13. Lynch, J., The broken heart, 13.
14. Phipps, Long, and Woods, Medical surgical nursing, 1177.
15. Holmes, and Rahe, The social readjustment rating scale.
16. Walsh, and Walsh, Social support.
17. See Hull, D., Migration, adaptation, and illness, for a review.
18. Walsh, A., The prophylactic effect of religion on blood pressure.
19. Lynch, Ibid., 113.
20. Dreschner, Whitehead, Morrill-Corbin, andCataldo, Physiological, 99.
21. William Knaus study cited in D. Holtzman, Intensive care nurses, 56.
22. Mitchell, Hobcraft, McLanahan, et al., Social disadvantage.
23. Asok, Bernard, Roth, Rosen, and Dozier, Parental responsiveness.
24. Ziemssen and Kern, Psychoneuroimmunology.
25. Kumar and Yeragani, Psych and soma.
26. Bartop, Lazarus, Luckhurst, Kiloh, and Penny, Depressed lymphocyte
function.
27. Kiecolt-Glasser, Ricker, George, et al., Urinary cortisol levels.
28. Pearsall, P., Superimmunicy, 287.
29. Hippocrates, Hippocrates. Precepts VI, 5.

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Mental Health and Illness
He whom love touches not walks in darkness.
—Plato

Love: The Ultimate “Feel-Good” Medicine

A distinguished British physician once wrote: “By far the most signif-
icant discovery of mental science is the power of love to protect and
restore the mind.”1 Similarly, American psychoanalyst Reuben Fine has
asserted that, “at bottom, the psychoanalytic explanation of mental
illness is a simple equation: love equals mental health, lovelessness
equals mental illness.”2 Across the wide spectrum of mental health
professionals we hear the same thing; that is, so many of the wounds
afflicting the minds of their patients result from a lack of love, or at least
a love not made manifest. Whatever therapeutic tradition mental health
professionals come from we hear the same equation being preached:
we must love and be loved if we are to be mentally wholesome beings.
Love helps us to tolerate the most intolerable of conditions by empow-
ering us with the passion to survive and providing us with hope for the
future. But without love, life is a lonely, barren treadmill, devoid of all
joy and creativity. One can either leave the treadmill by discovering the
power of love, or one can withdraw into mental illness, crime, substance
abuse, or completely, into the oblivion of suicide. Psychotherapist Dr.
Tian Dayton beautifully explains the healing power of love:

When we talk about mental health, we should probably talk about

the role that love plays in creating it. How love holds us to another
person, how it moves us to empathy, to carful and caring interactions.
Love brings its own kind of sanity because it gives us the strength
to face what we have to face, to feel what we have to feel. Love pulls
us toward its own center, the way a mother’s attention pulls a child
towards warmth and brings her back from the edges of aloneness
or fear, toward balance and connection. Love breathes. Love relaxes

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us, it restores what was lost and mends what was broken. It lets us
feel whole and alive, a part of something bigger than ourselves. So
when we talk about mental health, when we speculate on how it is
built and rebuilt, we should probably talk more about love.3

We have seen numerous times that the experiences and circum-

stances of our lives are physically captured by the brain in experience-
dependent fashion. Memories are not simply ghostly immaterial
“mind-things”; they are real physical brain circuits that commemorate
real experiences, and they are there whether we are conscious of them
or not. These entrenched circuits function in such a way that adult
experiences that may be only mildly negative for most of us will, for
those who were deprived of love as children, produce a cascade of bio-
chemical switches along well-worn synaptic routes to awaken painful
childhood memories. These hidden whispers of the past will then color
that person’s responses to the present situation and to life in general.
Psychiatrist Michael Liebowitz puts it this way:
If someone grows up in a cruel, neglectful, uncaring, or cold atmo-
sphere, the chances are that as an adult he or she is going to have a
store of painful memories. What this means is there will be a series
of well-established links between memory and displeasure centers.
As adults these people will be more prone to depression, sadness, or
pessimism. Any time an unhappy childhood memory is evoked, the
displeasure circuits will be activated.4

Clinical Depression: The “Slings and Arrows” of Life

Depression is often classified as one of the neuroses, a broad category
of mental illnesses that do not involve radical disconnection from
reality. Of the different neuroses that could be highlighted to examine
the role of love, I focus on clinical depression because it is estimated
that one in six people in the United State will develop depression
severe enough to require treatment.5 As emphasized in the previous
chapter, love or its absence is not a necessary and sufficient cause of
any disease syndrome. Children who are loved with their parent’s
entire hearts and souls have been struck with incurable diseases, and
some children have even committed suicide despite being dearly loved.
A loveless life, however, may serve to hasten the onset of a mental
illness for which a person has a congenital disposition, or worsen it
once it arrives. On the bright side, a person’s history of loving and
being loved may help to turn tears to laughter and hasten the healing
process if illness should strike.
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Shakespeare’s Hamlet described depression most poetically when he

said: “How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses
of the world.” We all feel a down and sad when things don’t go right for
us. Such “Slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” as losing a loved
one, a major spat with a spouse or friend, not getting the promotion
we wanted, or the onset of a serious physical illness will naturally send
us into a blue funk. This is normal, and is called reactive or subclinical
depression. Reactive depression can be severe, but as long as we avoid
dwelling on the problem and realize that while we can’t change the
wind we can control the set of our sails, time will put us back on an
even keel without the need of pills and potions.
Clinical or major depression, on the other hand, is often a devas-
tating descent into hopelessness and helplessness; a psychic black
hole into which all life’s pleasures are sucked into an inescapable void.
While stress is often a contributing factor in clinical depression, it
may occur without any apparent reason. When in the deadly grip of
clinical depression, all pleasure centers in the brain are on strike; the
afflicted don’t want to eat, have sex, or work, and some, haunted by
the desperate hopelessness of it all, don’t want to live. When clinical
depression occurs without any apparent precipitating event, genetic
causes are sought. We know that depression runs in families, and that
the disease is moderately heritable.6
Genes involving the serotonin system appear to be the primary
culprits. The first hints of the involvement of serotonin came with the
realization that it plays a major role in mood regulation, activity level,
appetite, sexual activity, and cognitive functioning, all of which are
slowed to a crawl when depressed. Serotonin is billed as the “feel good”
molecule that provides us with feelings of competence, contentment,
security, and self-worth, so the idea that low serotonin was to blame
made sense. Genes involved with neurotransmitters regulating anxiety
(GABA) or energy (norepinephrine) also being implicated.
The major treatment for depression today is a prescription for selec-
tive serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) such as Prozac, Zoloft, or
Paxil. We have seen how messages are relayed from neuron to neuron
by neurotransmitters at the synapse, and that excess chemicals have
to be removed from the synaptic gap to prevent garbling when new
messages are received. When a neuron’s receptors receive a sufficient
amount of serotonin to get them message, they signal the sending
neuron to stop pumping out more and start taking it back. This is done
by special proteins called transporters that grab the excess molecules
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and take them back to the presynaptic knob for repackaging and reuse.
As their name suggest, SSRIs prevent this reuptake from occurring by
blocking reuptake sites, thus boosting the concentration of serotonin
at the synaptic gap.
Although SSRIs increase serotonin immediately, patients typically
don’t feel relief from their depressed state for several weeks, and about
40 percent of SSRI users do not experience any relief at all. Thus,
depression cannot be primarily caused by low levels of serotonin if all
patients do not experience remission as levels of the neurotransmitter
increase. Clearly, the problem is not just a serotonin deficit. If your
car doesn’t run, you don’t necessarily blame it on an empty gas tank.
Likewise, when something goes awry in the brain causing depression,
the fault may be found in many places. It may be that serotonin recep-
tors are oversensitive or insensitive to serotonin, or the sending axon
may pump out too little of it. An overly efficient reuptake system may
clear away too many serotonin molecules before they have the chance
to bind to postsynaptic receptors on other neurons, or serotonin may
not be performing its downstream functions on other brain systems.
In other words, the answer to the conundrum formed by both the
long delay before SSRIs have their effect, and why they don’t work on
a large proportion of people who take them, may lie in indirect rather
than direct functioning of serotonin. Neuroscientists now believe that
mood improves only after new neurons grow and form new connec-
tions, and that SSRIs are instrumental in making this happen. It appears
that the increased serotonin made available by the actions of SSRIs
spurs the growth and branching of new neurons and the also func-
tioning of their circuits in the amygdala, thalamus, and hippocampus.
This process is called neurogenesis—the birth of new brain cells, and
the birth and growth of fresh cells has a major impact on depression
relief. Many of these newborn neurons die shortly after birth, but the
survivors become functionally integrated into their neural neighbor-
hoods. Fresh neurons are more excitable than older ones and function
in the hippocampus (and perhaps in the amygdala) to better control
the stress responses of the HPA axis.7
Clinical Depression and the Triune Brain
Psychotherapist Arthur Janov, who has been treating depression for
over forty-five years, has developed a novel theory of depression. For
Janov, depression is not a “feeling,” it is a defense against feeling a
person’s lifetime accumulation of imprinted pain. He believes that the
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serotonin hypothesis has got it backward—serotonin dysfunction does

not cause depression; rather a patient’s unresolved backlog of negative
feelings cause depression. He acknowledges that the chemical imbal-
ances we’ve been discussing are certainly and unmistakably involved,
but they are the effect, not the cause.
Janov writes of three levels of consciousness that reflect MacLean’s
Triune brain concept discussed in chapter 3. He says that: “At each level
of brain development, we have specific needs that must be fulfilled
uniquely. The earlier the more lasting the consequences when they are
not fulfilled, and the more grave the imprint.”8 Janov takes the dating of
this imprint all the way back to the womb. In doing this he agrees with
the eighteenth-century English poet and philosopher Samuel Taylor
Coleridge, who wrote: “The history of man for the nine months preceding
his birth, would, probably, be far more interesting and contain events of
greater import than for all the three score years and ten that follow it.”9
Dr. Janov cites research indicating that the epigenetic process
resulting from stress at the earliest stages of postnatal life play a key
role in later depression. He notes that we store our mother’s history
of anxiety, depression, hormonal changes, and substance abuse in our
unconscious reptilian brain structures while still in the womb. He also
notes the importance of being tenderly nurtured and touched, and if
we are not, DNA methylation will program the HPA axis and serotonin
system for survival in a harsh environment rather than a loving one.
You might recall at this time the studies of the effects of low nurturing
on methylation patterns in the HPA axis in rodents, and the similar
effects on human orphans discussed in chapter 5.
The second level of consciousness lies in the limbic system. At this
level, asserts Janov, “we seek fulfillment of emotional needs: to be lis-
tened to, to feel secure and supported, to get empathetic responses to
our hurts and fears.”10 Early love experiences stoke the hypothalamus
to produce a profusion of oxytocin that aid us in establishing loving
relationships that keep us content and that dull the normal pains of
life. Writing about the role of love as an enemy of depression, Janov
states that: “Love is the major painkiller for a young child, so it is no
accident that with early love our ‘love hormones’ are more in abun-
dance.”11 Conversely, if we are lonely, abused, or neglected as children
we will suffer chronically low levels of the hormone which will make
to establishment of later positive relationship problematic.
The final level of consciousness involves the neocortex, the part of
the brain we associate with being fully conscious. Although we may
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think of the neocortex only in terms of high-level cognition, it is deeply

connected to the limbic system. It is the neocortex that gives meaning
to our feelings and emotions, allowing us to name and pigeonhole
them and thus providing us for a basis for understanding them. It is
here that we come to consciously know whether or not we are loved,
valued, and respected.
The appeal of Janov’s model of depression is that it logically and
effectively integrates brain regions as they relate to stress that reflect
our evolutionary history. He does not deny those who claim that
depression is about chemical imbalances, inadequate neurogenesis,
or current trauma and stress. Rather, he integrates all into a coherent
whole. His primary notion is that we need clear channels between all
levels of consciousness, and that early traumas of diverse kinds can
cause a disconnect among them. In his own words: “Essentially, neurosis
is driven by lower brain centers that are trying to communicate with
higher ones but are unable because a disconnection has occurred, a
disconnection caused by the imprint of an early lack of love that spells
hopelessness and helplessness.”12
An additional avenue not explored by Janov is the possible effect of
SSRIs on oxytocin. A number of studies have shown functional inter-
action between the serotonin and oxytocin systems, giving rise to the
speculation that SSRIs may partially have their antidepressant effects
by releasing oxytocin.13 Serotonin neurons have receptors of oxytocin,
and oxytocin modulates the release of serotonin.14 It is perhaps the
case that loving interactions with others (which, of course, is difficult
to accomplish while depressed), might in due course recalibrate the
serotonin system via the oxytocin that accompanies such relationships.
Such “natural cures” are never as immediately effective as pharmaco-
logical interventions, but neither do they carry the risks.
One of the undesirable side effects of SSRIs is a significant loss of
libido. But how can something that makes you feel better reduce your
sex drive? The answer is that serotonin does several things besides
making us feel contented. Serotonin is part of the human approach-
avoidance system that evolved to help us to respond appropriately to
signals of reward and punishment in our social worlds. Thinkers from
Plato to Freud have written about the hedonic tug-of-war we humans
play with ourselves as we struggle to meet our wants and needs while
being aware of the wants and needs of others. Dopamine is the “go
get it” chemical of the approach system that obeys the Freudian plea-
sure principle. Unless governed by a watchful avoidance system, our
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approach system cares not (or is oblivious to) whether the means
used to satisfy them are appropriate or injurious to self or to others.
The watchful avoidance system is driven by serotonin and is activated
when the search for pleasure exceeds reasonable limits. Brain receptors
habituated to too little serotonin that is now getting a lot means that
serotonin’s avoidance function can dominate dopamine’s approach
function. When this happens the motivation for seeking pleasure,
including sexual pleasure, is dulled.15
If a person is suffering from debilitating depression, a subpar sex
drive is preferable to crippling enervation. It is estimated that between
30 and 50 percent of SSRI users report reduced libido, but by the same
token it also means that at least half of SSRI users still manage to enjoy
their sex lives.16 Switching to other antidepressant medications such as
Wellbutrin may help those with reduced libido. Wellbutrin is dopamine
and norepinephrine inhibitor, and may also work to make the recep-
tors of these neurotransmitters more sensitive to them. Although this
drug works well to alleviate depression, some people get too much
energy and get jittery to the point of trebling and some people report
a worsening of their depression. The lesson is that all drugs have their
negative side effect except the one true health and healing elixir—love.
Suicide
Many are the immediate conditions that lead people to take their own
lives. Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy revels the pain he feels
from his father’s murder and his mother’s marriage to the murderer.
He ponders the issue of whether he should continue to live or:

To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to.

According to the World Health Organization, millions of people world-

wide debate Hamlet’s question with themselves, and between 10 and
20 million each year decide that it is better “not to be” and attempt sui-
cide, and about 1.5 million actually succeed.17 I must emphasize again
that while most suicide victims have suffered major depression, and
many have suffered a terrible loss and have histories of love deprivation, it
does not mean that many more were not dearly loved and dearly missed.
In one of the first pieces of scientific sociology, French sociologist
Emile Durkheim showed that suicide varied inversely with the strength
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of the ties one enjoyed with other people. He showed that across Europe
suicide is higher in urban areas, where there is greater anonymity, than
in rural areas; it is also higher among the unmarried and the divorced
than among the married, higher in marriages that are childless than
among marriages that produce children, and higher among the lonely
than among the socially active. Loving relational ties to others ties one
to life itself. If one is sensitized to pathological reactions by love depri-
vation during the early years of life, subsequent rejections, breakups,
and the vagaries of life in modern society are less well coped with in a
nonpathological manner.
In an interview on the TV show Headstart, Maribel Dionisio of
Love Institute Philippines said that love, or lack of love, is usually what
causes a person to decide to commit suicide: “The number one reason
for suicide is love. The number two reason for suicide is no love.”18 In
the first instance, Dionsio is referring individuals who find that the
loss of someone near and dear, either through death or rejection, too
difficult to bear. Romantically, it is possible to be “hooked” so strongly
on some other person that the addicted person will attempt suicide at
the loss, or threat of loss, of the loved one. This is termed “manic love”
by sociologist John Lee (see chapter 13), and what Abraham Maslow
calls “D-[deficit] love.” The manic lover is extremely possessive and jeal-
ous, clinging to object of his or her addiction like a leech, and sinking
into deep depression at any hint of nonresponse from the loved one.
A person who loves this way seems to love so intensely because he
or she, ironically, is loved so little. D-lovers have been so deprived of
loving experiences that they crave love in the worst way. The partner
is valued for his or her ability to satisfy an intense hunger, resulting in
a growth-inhibiting feeling some call love but which is really a craving
to fill a deep psychological hole. Those who so singularly invest their
“love” are at greater risk for suicide in the event of a breakup than those
whose love is more freely given in an adult manner.
We are all, of course, deeply grieved at the loss of a loved one. But if
we are part of a wide circle of loving human beings, we can share our
tribulations with them. “A trouble shared is a trouble halved,” as an
old saying goes. Social support at a time of loss is crucial, regardless
of whether we are talking about a loss of a loved one or a fracture in a
relationship. Those unfortunate souls lacking wide social support are hit
with a cross that they may find impossible to bear alone. It was the lack
of a wide circle of loved ones that led the aggrieved to invest so much
of the self in the loved one in the first place. With the departure of the
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love object, life is all the more lonely and brutal during the interlude.
For such people, it is not “better to have loved and lost than never to
have loved at all.”
A number of studies support the view that love functions as a shield
against suicide. This is particularly true for young people between the
ages of fifteen and twenty-four. Adolescence can be a trying period,
regardless of early childhood experiences. Psychologists Rosenthal and
Rosenthal found among a clinical sample of behaviorally disturbed
children that abused and neglected children were significantly more
likely to attempt suicide than nonabused and nonneglected behavior-
ally disturbed children.19 A study of juvenile delinquents found that
the 39 juvenile delinquents who had attempted suicide were signifi-
cantly more love deprived than those who had not and another study
conducted found that abused and neglected boys were 3.8 times more
likely to attempt suicide than a control group of nonabused boys; the
corresponding ratio for girls was 6.1.20 If parents demonstrate by their
abuse and neglect that they do not consider their children lovable and
worthwhile, this evaluation will be internalized by the child and become
his or her own evaluation. Suicide is often a cry for help: “Love me, value
me, respect me, treat me right!” Let me emphasize again that for any
number of reasons a deeply loved person may take his or her own life.
Chemical tags left in a suicide victim’s brain typically show profiles
indicative of abuse and neglect. One major review article examined
research across decades that looked into the role of neuropeptides such
as oxytocin in suicidal behavior and found molecules that function pri-
marily in the HPA axis and modulate emotional processing are present
at significantly different levels in suicides and suicide attempters than
in control subjects.21 We also see epigenetic markers of life stresses in
suicide victims. An autopsy study examined brains lodged at the Quebec
Suicide Brain Bank for epigenetic markers in twelve male suicide victims
with a history of abuse, twelve male suicide victims without such a his-
tory, and twelve male controls who died of other causes. Life histories
of all thirty-six individuals were thoroughly researched. Tissue samples
were taken from the hippocampus and centered on genes that affect a
person’s ability to deal with stress. The receptor sites of abused suicide
victims were found to be heavily methylated at the glucocorticoid
promoter region. The stress hormone cortisol binds to glucocorticoid
receptors and regulates its activity. This pattern of methylation was not
found in the brains of the twelve suicide victims who were not abused
or in the brains of the twelve nonsuicide control cadavers.22
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Another group of scientists compared DNA methylation patterns

in the hippocampus of forty-six suicide victims with those of sixteen
nonpsychiatric sudden-death subjects. They found that methylation
levels are significantly greater for several genes in suicide completers
relative to control subjects. In addition, to hypermethylation of some
genes, they also found a number of hypomethylated gene sequences
in some brain areas of suicide completers. The researchers concluded
that: “our results show DNA methylation differences in gene promoter
regions throughout the genome in the hippocampus associated with
suicide. These changes in methylation levels are in genes involved in
the regulation of behavioral and cognitive processes that have been
shown to be altered in individuals with suicidal behaviors.”23
Abuse, neglect, and a general lack love upbringing thus leave their
marks at the molecular level and take us beyond thinking about such
things as “merely” psychological. Sorokin and Hansen sum up the rela-
tionship between love and suicide thus: “We know that the main cause
of suicide is psychosocial isolation of the individual, his state of being
lonely in the human universe, of not loving or caring for anybody and
not being loved by anybody. Each time one’s love and attachment to
fellow men multiply and grow strong, one’s chances of suicide decrease.
This means that love is indeed the intensest vital force, the central core
of life itself.”24 To which I can only add, Amen!
Alcohol Abuse
Numerous clinical studies of suicide attempters and completers have
found that, on average, they score high on impulsivity and aggression
(both traits associated with low serotonin) and higher rates of alcohol-
ism compared with people in general. It is easy to imagine that impul-
sive and aggressive people might spontaneously turn that aggression
on themselves when aggression and impulsivity are buttressed by the
false bravado of alcohol. This observation warrants a brief digression
into the subject of alcohol abuse.25
We humans have an infernal love of ingesting substances that alter
our moods from undesirable states to desirable states. We swallow,
sniff, inhale, and inject with a relish, which suggests that sobriety is a
difficult state for us to tolerate. Alcohol has always been humankind’s
favorite way of temporarily escaping reality. We drink this powerful
drug to loosen our tongues, to be sociable, to liven up our parties, to
feel good, to sedate ourselves, and to anesthetize the anxieties and pains
of life. Alcohol allows us to reinvent ourselves as superior beings; it can
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thus make those of us with worries and who lack confidence relatively
carefree and confident, making it a very powerful reinforcer. The very
wise and with it Founding Father, Benjamin Franklin gave alcohol its
ultimate tribute when he supposedly remarked: “Beer is living proof
that God loves us and wants us to be happy.” It is no wonder that alcohol
is the world’s favorite way of drugging itself. Given what alcohol does
for us in social situations, it is difficult to think about what it might do
to us later on. This honeymoon phase with alcohol sometimes leads
to getting hooked into a horrendously bad marriage to it, and then to
a very painful divorce, a process that takes the rest of the person’s life,
with alimony being paid in blood, sweat, and tears.
Of course, most people who abuse alcohol do not become alcoholics.
Alcoholism is a chronic condition marked by progressive incapacity to
control alcohol consumption despite psychological, spiritual, social, or
physiological life disruptions. Most abusers of alcohol will not become
alcoholics unless they have the genes underlying the condition. Alco-
holism is strongly heritable; with the genes most involved being those
governing the dopamine, serotonin, and gamma aminobutyric acid
(GABA) systems. Although it is ultimately a brain-numbing depressant,
at low-dosage levels alcohol is actually a stimulant because it raises
dopamine levels. It also reduces anxiety, worry, and tension by increasing
GABA. Alcohol also reduces serotonin functioning. Increased dopamine
motivates us to do things we wouldn’t normally do, GABA reduces our
anxiety over doing those things when sober, and our behavioral avoidance
system is weakened by reduced serotonin—no wonder alcohol causes so
many problems. One-third of all arrests (excluding drunken driving) in
the United State involve alcohol, and about 80 percent of all homicides
and 75 percent of robberies involve a drunken offender and/or victim.26
Most of us, of course, drink happily without harming anyone or
ourselves. The difference between the alcohol abuser (no necessarily
an alcoholic) and the occasional imbiber, according to the President’s
Task Force on Drunkenness, is that the chronic drinker “has never
attained more than a minimum of integration in society . . . he is isolated,
uprooted, unattached, disorganized, demoralized, and homeless.”27 We
cannot say to what extent these characteristics are consequences rather
than causes of alcohol abuse. Nevertheless, the Task Force’s conclu-
sions again point to the importance of reciprocal love relationships for
healthy human functioning.
Having only minimal integration into society precipitates high levels
of stress and anxiety, which in turn, prompts such unfortunate souls to
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turn to “the beast in the bottle” for comfort (the anxiety-stress reduction
action of GABA). Stress and anxiety have multiple causes, but some
people are more susceptible than others. We have considerable evidence
that high susceptibility to stress and anxiety, and thus to addictive
behavior, could have its origin in poor development of the oxytocin
system. The oxytocin system is not fully developed until a child is three
years old,28 and although genes play a large role in its development, early
childhood adversity can severely dampen it, as we saw in the orphanage
studies discussed in chapter 5. Research on rodents and on humans
has shown that intranasal dose of oxytocin blocks alcohol withdrawal
symptoms and is effective in reducing drinking.29 Commenting on
these studies, Arthur Janov noted that oxytocin release in the face of
social support may underlie the many success stories of Alcoholics
Anonymous: “Now we understand why such support groups such as
alcoholics anonymous work. They help raise the oxytocin levels and
by so doing suppress the pain. Conversely, if there had been love very
early on, the levels would be high and pain levels low and there would
have been no need to drink. So the support groups are patching up the
ugly hole generated early in life by the absence of love.”30
Notes
1. Vickers, G., Mental health and spiritual values, 524.
2. Fine, R., The meaning of love in human experience, 336.
3. Dayton, T., The Role of Love in Mental Health.
4. Liebowitz, M., The chemistry of love, 45.
5. Krishnan and Nestler, Linking molecules to mood.
6. Garrett, B., Brain and behavior.
7. Schloesser, Manji, and Martinowich, Suppression of adult neurogenesis.
8. Janov, A., The mystery known as depression. 82.
9. Quoted in Walsh, A., Science wars, 93.
10. Janov, A., 82.
11. Ibid., 92.
12. Ibid., 84.
13. Marazziti, Baroni, Giannaccini, et al., A link between oxytocin and serotonin.
14. Mottoles, Redouté, Costes, et al., Switching brain serotonin.
15. Prabhakar and Balon, How do SSRIs cause sexual dysfunction?, 30.
16. Ibid.
17. Tauser, R., Neurochemical basis of treatment in suicide, 73.
18. ABS-CBNNEWS.com, Love is number one reason for suicide.
19. Rosenthal, R. and S. Rosenthal, Suicidal Behavior by Preschool children.
20. Deykin, Alpert, and McNamara, A pilot study of the effect of exposure.
21. Serafini, Pompili, Lindqvist, et al., The role of neuropeptides.
22. McGowan, Sasaki, D’Alessio, et al., Epigenetic regulation.

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23. Labonte, Suderman, Maussion, et al., Genome-wide methylation, 519.

A promoter is a region of DNA that initiates the transcription (the first
step of gene expression in which a segment of DNA is copied into RNA
for transportation in the protein factory in the cell nucleus) of a gene. A
methylated slice of DNA cannot be read by the enzyme RNA polymerase,
and thus there is no gene activation and no protein manufactured.
24. Sorokin and Hanson, The power of creative love, 126.
25. Mann, Waternaux, Haas, and Malone, Toward a clinical model.
26. Walsh, A., Criminology: The essentials.
27. President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice,
Taskforce report. 11–13.
28. Buisman-Pijlman, F. et al., Individual differences.
29. Pederson, C., et al., Intranasal oxytocin.
30. Ibid., Janov, A.

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 10
Self-Love: The Basis for Love
of Others
This above all: to thine own self be true,/ And it must follow,
as the night the day,/ Thou canst not then be false to any man.
—William Shakespeare, Hamlet

Self-Love: Nasty or Nice?

Jesus commanded us in Matthew 22: “You shall love your neighbor as
yourself.” Jesus took it for granted that we love ourselves; the problem
was how to extend that love to others. It is obvious that Jesus did not
consider love of oneself to be a bad thing, for if was then loving others
would be a bad thing too. However, the notion of self-love is virtually
taboo in some circles as the opposite of moral virtue. Sixteenth-century
French theologian John Calvin epitomized this belief, seeing self-love
as a hindrance to the love of others and of God, and thus the greatest
of sins: “We all rush into self-love with such blindness that each of us
seems to himself to be justly proud and despises all others.”1 Calvin
never addressed the issue of why, if it is a virtue to love others, it is a
vice to love ourselves? Does self-love makes us strong enough to share
that strength and love with others, or does it preclude us from loving
others? The reconciliation of these seemingly contradictory positions
lies in confusion over the word “selfish.”
No one has made the distinction between good and bad self-love bet-
ter than eighteenth-century Swiss philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
Rousseau called the desirable form of self-love that Jesus had in mind
amour de soi, and the destructive kind self-love Calvin had in mind
he called amour-propre. Rousseau saw amour de soi as entirely natural
due to the innate requirements of self-preservation and, significantly,
as the source of all positive emotions. Amour de soi is self-acceptance;
recognizing weaknesses in our character and vowing to correct them.

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It is having quiet pride in your strengths and acknowledging although

it is nice to have, your positive self-regard should not require that
everyone love, respect, and admire you. Amour propre is bad because
it bases our self-regard on our perceptions of how others regard us.
While we all get a large part of our self-concepts from our perceptions
of the appraisal of others, the singular concern for universal approval
and the desperate search for self-validation is problematic.2
The German term selbstsucht (“self-addiction”) is the best single
word to express how Calvin viewed self-love. This is self-preoccupa-
tion and self-addiction, and like all addictions, it denotes an insatiable
concern for the object of addiction which can never be satisfied. Each
fix is only a temporary balm before the search begins again for the next,
leaving the person unable to bring energy to bear on the concerns of
others. In common with all addicts, those afflicted with selbstsucht do
not genuinely love themselves and are therefore incapable of loving
others. It is puffed-up pride gained by invidious comparisons of one’s
assumed superiority with the assumed inferiority of others that pre-
vents union with others in friendship and love. Love is assuredly the
increase of self by means of other, but we must give as well as receive.
We call a person in the grip of selbstsucht today a narcissist. As usual,
Shakespeare gets to the heart of narcissism poetically in his Sonnet 62:
Methinks no face so gracious is as mine,
No shape so true, no truth of such account;
And for myself mine own worth do define,
As I all other in all worths surmount.

Narcissists are “mirror, mirror, on the wall” egotists totally absorbed

with their own wants, needs, and concerns. They are constantly seeking
validation of their superior self-worth from others. They feel entitled to
be loved, respected, and admired, but they do not feel it necessary to
earn these things. They concern of others have no meaning for them.
People are to be used only as validators of the narcissist’s grandiose
sense of superiority. Despite their claims of superiority, narcissists are
insecure and hypersensitive to criticism. Psychiatrist Willard Gaylin
tells us that: “Narcissism is a vessel that cannot be filled. If the differ-
ence between loving and being loved is the difference between the well
and the cistern, the narcissist is a cistern with a leaky bottom or no
bottom at all.”3 Any hint of real or imagined disapproval or disrespect
may, depending on their other dispositional traits, send the narcissist
into sullen depression or violent rage.
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We all start on life’s journey as lovable little narcissists. We lose

much of it in late childhood, regain some of it as teenagers when we
are desperate to be accepted by our peers, and retain a smidgeon of it
in adulthood. Infants and toddlers live in the center of their own little
reptilian and limbic universes. They will cry, scream, and sometimes
throw a fit when others don’t attend to their needs, wants, and whims.
This does not mean that their self-absorption is bad at this stage of utter
dependence on others. On the contrary, it is imperative for them to
be this way, just as it is imperative for all animals if they are to survive
their early years. Infants cannot know or be concerned with the effect
of their demands they make will have on others—they must be utterly
self-absorbed and indifferent to the concerns of others.
It is this natural self-centeredness that has to be curtailed as children
are brought to the realization that their wants and needs are tightly
tied to the wants and needs of others. Infants and children have yet
to develop the neomammalian ability to decenter from their own per-
spective to see themselves from the standpoint of others. According
to George Herbert Mead, American philosopher and sociologist, this
ability comes when the child is able to make the distinction between
the “I” and the “Me.”4 The “I” is the self-as-subject, known by the indi-
vidual’s bundle of impulses (roughly analogous to the Freudian id).
The “Me” is the self-as-object, known by the person’s accumulated
understanding of how others perceive him or her (roughly, the ego).
The slowly acquired ability to see ourselves as others see us is what
Freud had in mind with his socialization dictum: “Where id was, there
shall ego be.”5 Recall that the id is that part of us that demands instant
gratification of our natural urges and is ruled by the pleasure principle.
The ego is that component of our personalities that, while not denying
the pleasure principle, forces us to deal with the demands of social
reality by ensuring that the demands of the id are satisfied in effective
and socially appropriate ways.
Altruism and Selfishness: Same or Different?
The problem with understanding selfishness is that it means different
things in the minds of laypersons and in the minds of biologists. In
everyday language it is considered morally reprehensible because it
implies nastiness, crabbed greediness, cheating, and Machiavellian
manipulation. Altruism, on the other hand, is seen as morally noble
by laypersons because it is assumed to be devoid of self-interest. Few
people want anything to do with a selfish a person; he or she will end
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life bitter and lonely, but we all love altruists and want to be part of their
lives. Ask yourself, which of these persons are truly serving their “selfish”
interests. Selfishness in the vernacular may be self-serving in the short
run because it satisfies some immediate want at little or no cost, but
it is self-destructive and very costly in the long run. Self-destruction
is surely not a sensible concern for one’s self-interest, so “selfishness”
as the layperson understands it is “unenlightened” self-interest, and is
not self-serving in any meaningful sense.
Selfishness as biologists understand it is morally neutral. They rec-
ognize that all organisms are designed to be principally concerned with
their own survival and reproduction, and will do what they have to in
order to realize these concerns.6 For the evolutionary biologist, altruism
and selfishness are not opposites; altruism is driven by concerns for
the self, although its self-serving nature is rarely consciously perceived
by ourselves or others. We benefit ourselves (intrinsically or extrinsi-
cally, immediately or later) by cooperating, behaving altruistically, and
acting justly. Because others benefit from nonexploitative selfishness,
selfishness is a positive thing, even highly desirable in a social species.
The great American biologist Edward O. Wilson saw self-interest as
the basis for civil society when he wrote: “Human beings appear to be
sufficiently selfish and calculating to be capable of infinitely greater har-
mony and social homeostasis. This statement is not self-contradictory.
True selfishness, if obedient to the other constraints of mammalian
biology, is the key to a nearly perfect social contract.”7
That selfishness is a good thing if “obedient to the other constraints
of mammalian biology” is not an insight specific to modern evolution-
ists. Moral philosophers and all three founding fathers of sociology
(Durkheim, Marx, and Weber) saw selfishness as a good thing when
properly cultivated. John Duns Scotus, perhaps the greatest mind of
the middle ages, saw all activities sparked by love, but insisted that this
love was necessarily self-centered because nature exhorts us to seek
above all things our continued survival.8 Although individual organ-
isms are adapted to act in their best interests, not to behave for the
good of the group, their goals are best be realized by adhering to the
rules of cooperation and altruism—by “being nice”—and that is “for
the good of the group” as well as for the good of the individual person.
Although altruism is ultimately rational self-interest (“enlightened”
self-interest), this fact does not diminish the value of altruism to its
beneficiaries one bit. That is to say, If you help another person in need it
is altruism regardless of whether it lights up your pleasure center, gains
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you brownie points with God, puffs up your chest, or enhances your
status in the group.
Altruism was viewed for a long time as a fly in the ointment of evo-
lutionary logic because it involves extending a benefit to others at some
expense to the self. But altruism is only “expensive” in the short term: in
the long term it is beneficial to benefactors and recipients alike. Many
discussions of altruism begin with an examination of supersocial insects
such as ants. Soldier ants work and die selflessly for the colony, the very
epitome of noble altruism. Of course, these creatures have no choice;
their “nobility” is a hard-wired instinct. Being sterile themselves, they
cannot directly pass on their genes, so the colony as a whole represents
their nepotistic patch of DNA (this is called inclusive fitness). This
kind of sacrificial altruism is “biological” altruism because it is entirely
defined by its fitness consequences and is exercised without any sort of
conscious intentionality. Human altruism is obviously not like this, but
inclusive fitness and kin selection theory (the tendency to favor close
genetic relatives over others) does help to explain how altruism could
have been selected for in any species. Biological fitness-related theories,
however, do not explain altruism when its beneficiaries have no genetic
link to their benefactors, and who may even be total strangers to them.
The theory of reciprocal altruism accounts for intentional altruism
among nonkin. Reciprocal altruism is tit-for-tat back-scratching that
occurs when an organism provides some benefit to another without the
expectation of immediate repayment, although there is a subconscious
expectation of future reciprocity. A requisite condition for reciprocal
altruism is the ability to recognize reciprocators and nonreciprocators.
If someone reveals unwillingness to respond in kind to the good will of
others, it is not likely that they will continue to extend their good will
to such a malefactor. This notion is captured in the saying: “Fool me
once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” It is because of the
mutual benefits that accrue to reciprocal altruism that Homo sapiens
is a species with “minds exquisitely crafted by evolution to form coop-
erative relationships built on trust and kindness.”9
But reciprocal altruism per se does not explain acts of altruism
aimed at strangers (it could be anything from dropping a dollar in a
beggar’s hat to risking one’s life to save another). We call this kind of
altruism “psychological altruism.”10 Psychological altruism is apparently
motivated by internal rewards, such as the joy experienced when ben-
eficiaries express their gratitude for the benefactor’s largesse. In other
words, we act altruistically because we feel good when we do, and
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because such behavior confers valued social status on us by identifying

us as persons who are kind, reliable, and trustworthy. Possessing the
neural architecture that produces warm, fuzzy feelings when we do
good things for others is part and parcel of the altruism adaptation.11
Because altruism is ultimately designed to serve the purposes of
the altruist, it does not mean that we have genes urging us to behave
altruistically in order to maximize our reproductive success, or that we
make rational cost-benefit calculations when deciding to help others.
We cooperate and behave altruistically because our distant ancestors
who did enjoyed greater reproductive success than those who did not,
thus passing on the genes for the neural structures and transmitters
that underlie altruism. Altruistic behavior is so built into us that most
of us engage it almost automatically when we perceive someone is
in need.12 Our immediate rewards for helping others are feelings of
contentment and self-satisfaction—we feel plain good about ourselves
when helping others. Our more distant reward is the unspoken promise
of reciprocal behavior in the future, but even if the recipient of our
beneficence is a stranger we are unlikely to meet again, we still receive
the surge of neurochemicals that make us feel good.13 Brain imaging
studies consistently show that our pleasure centers “light up” when
either giving or receiving something valued, but also that brain areas
associated with the pleasures of social attachments only fire when
giving.14 Modern science has vindicated Jesus’ proclamation in Acts
20:35 that “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” Don’t we get far
more pleasure at Christmas watching our children and grandchildren
opening up their new mini microscooter or princess doll that cries and
wets than we do unwrapping yet another gaudy tie we’ll never wear or
the perfume that makes us smell like cabbage?
Loving “Unselfishly”
If biology agrees with Jesus that self-love is natural and good, moral
philosophers tend to lean more toward Calvin. Moral philosophers are
troubled by the idea that altruism is ultimately self-serving and part
of our evolved natures because if something is natural, it cannot be
said to have a moral basis. Eighteenth-century German philosopher
Immanuel Kant was such a person. Kant tells us that there are some
people who “find an inner pleasure in spreading happiness around
them and can take delight in the contentment of others as their work.”
While most of us would surely praise such people as morally good
because their benevolence is not motivated by obvious self-interest
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(“what will this do for me”) nor by vanity (“everyone will think me a
wonderful person”), but from the pleasure they derive in the happiness
of others. But for Kant, wonderful as the consequences might be, they
do not perform these actions from moral duty but from their natural
inclinations. Can we praise people for following that which they have
a natural propensity to do? While most to us praise and blame actions
according to whether their consequences are good or bad, and praise
or blame those who perform them, for Kant any praiseworthy action
that comes from natural sources “lacks moral content” regardless of
their consequences.15
For Kant, a praiseworthy (moral) person is one who for various rea-
sons has “extinguished all sympathy for the fate of others” but “tears
himself out of this deadly insensibility and does the action . . . for the
sake of duty alone” is a person whose actions have “genuine moral
worth.”16 When acts are neither in our best interests nor in accordance
with our inclination, but we nevertheless perform them, then we are
truly acting from moral duty. Kant refers to the same biblical passage
from Matthew about love our neighbors that I opened this chapter with
to further illustrate his point. We cannot be commanded to love our
neighbor; it is not within our power to change our inclinations as such.
But it is within our power to will ourselves to be kind and respectful to
our neighbors and to those who we are not inclined to like from duty:
“it is this practical love alone which can be an object of command.”17
Kant believed that it is natural to want one’s own happiness, so it is
morally or ethically neutral to want it. At the same time, it is our duty
to seek happiness since we cannot fulfill our other duties adequately
if we are not happy, and we are not happy if we don’t love ourselves.
But he believed that rational self-love comes only from doing one’s
duty. It is a duty to love others “practically,” and that is a moral virtue.
In thinking this way, Kant is taking love from the reptilian and limbic
brains that demand physical and emotional fulfillment and placing it
solely in the neocortex that commands us to do our duty. This is a cold
and sterile position. I courted, married, and stay with my wife because
of the intensely selfish rewards, pleasures, and satisfactions I received
from being with her, and I know she loves me just as selfishly. I have two
guiding principles relating to my wife. The first is “Happy wife, happy
life,” and the second comes from a wall on the “man cave” of one of my
sons: “When the queen is happy there is peace in the kingdom.” These
little aphorisms make it plain that her happiness makes me happy; if
that makes me selfish, then I don’t want it any other way. How do you
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think she would feel if I told her that although I feel no pleasure in her
company I nonetheless love her “unselfishly” from a sense of duty, and
that I stay with her only because I pity her and feel morally obliged to
seek her happiness, however painful it may be for me?
To Be Loved Be Loveable
Despite Calvin and Kant, romantic love is a wonderfully selfish expe-
rience in which two people bring sensual pleasure, emotional delight,
childish fun, and adult contentment into each other’s lives. Love is the
deepest positive emotional experience of humanity for those capable
of experiencing it in its fullness. It has its roots in many things: the
biological necessity to reproduce, the pleasures of sexuality, the human
need for affiliation and security, the unique sights, sounds, smells, taste,
and touch of the beloved, the need to feel worthwhile and wanted, and
the need to complement the self. These are the important determinants
of romantic love; no doubt others could be enumerated. But what if,
despite all these powerful motivators, we cannot love? “To be loved,
be lovable,” counseled the Roman poet Ovid.
What if we’re not lovable? Psychiatrist William Glasser’s theoretical
backdrop for his system of psychotherapy posits that all human beings
have two basic psychological needs: the need to love and the need to feel
worthwhile to themselves and to others.18 These needs are intimately
related, for it is rare indeed to find a person who loves and is loved
who does not have positive self-regard, and one who has amour de soi
is usually one who loves and is loved. It is obvious that to meet these
needs we require other people, so what we think of ourselves is, to a
great extent, the product of our interpersonal experiences. How we
think of ourselves is also the producer of experience, and as Nathaniel
Hawthorne once said, how a person thinks of himself contains his
destiny. If we think of ourselves as unlovable, it is difficult to accept
that someone else could love us. If we believe that we are inherently
lovable, we can gladly and joyfully accept the love of others. But how
do we come to view ourselves as inherently lovable if we have not been
loved? Let’s turn Ovid on his head and say, “to be lovable, be loved,”
and explore the meaning of this statement.
Willard Gaylin remarks that we must “turn to individual develop-
ment in childhood to find the main roots for the adult’s capacity for
love.”19 This observation brings us full circle to the early infancy and
childhood experiences. The old adage stating that “the child is the father
of the man,” is perhaps nowhere more true than in the area of romantic
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love. Another psychiatrist, Otto Kernberg, emphasizes the importance

of tactile stimulation (“skin love”) during infancy to positive romantic
involvements in adulthood:
Two major developmental stages must be achieved in order to estab-
lish the normal capacity for falling—and remaining—in love: a first
stage, when the early capacity for sensuous stimulation of erogenous
zones (particularly oral and skin eroticism) is integrated with the
later capacity for establishing a total object reaction; and a second
stage, when a full genital enjoyment incorporates earlier body-sur-
face eroticism in the context of a total object relation, including a
complementary sexual identification.20

Taking the first of Kernberg’s developmental stages, recall that infants

receive their first messages of their lovableness and worth through the
medium of the skin. The pleasure received in mother’s arms sent love
messages swinging from synapse to synapse in the neuronal jungle
to lodge itself in those special places in the brain reserved for it. The
infant’s subconscious neuronal “memory tapes” recorded at this time
are reinforced later as it receives conscious messages relating that he
or she is loved and valued or that he or she is not. Lacking the capac-
ity to do otherwise, children accept unquestionably the messages
communicated to them by their parents, which has a way of etching
itself indelibly in our brains via experience-dependent wiring. The
ease with which children learn basic information is why childhood
lessons, whether painful or pleasurable, have a way of intruding into
their thoughts and behavior for the rest of their lives. If their messages
assure them that they are loved, they will feel worthwhile, and will be
able to extend that love to others. If those messages were otherwise,
they will not feel worthwhile and loving themselves and others will
prove difficult for them.
The unloved child will grow up to be an adult with low self-esteem.
Low self-esteem does not diminish the need for love. Indeed, individ-
uals who have a poor opinion of themselves are starving for love. Being
thus starved, they will be more receptive to the approval of others and
perhaps more likely to “fall” in love unwisely with anyone who shows
the slightest hint of approval than will those with more secure personal
identities. If love-hungry persons do manage to attract a mate, the rela-
tionship becomes possessive, clinging, and demanding of exclusivity.
Such people think that being connected means being merged, and that
they should be in all respects like Siamese twins; being always together
and thinking, believing, and doing alike. Each must realize that just as a
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tree becomes stunted in the shadow of another tree; their partner needs
a degree of separateness to grow in his or her unique way. Lebanese
American artist, poet, and writer Khalil Gibran expressed this thought
most poetically: “Let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the
winds of the heavens dance between you.”21 And German philosopher
Georg Hegel likewise stated: “In love the separate does still remain, but
as something united and no longer as something separate; life [in the
subject] senses life [in the object].”22 It is important to connect, but it
is also important to be an individual. The balance between connection
and separateness is important to psychological well-being.
Two love hungry souls locked in a mutual admiration society will
soon grow weary of each other’s incessant demands for assurances of
love. The constant seeking of strokes from the other party precludes
loving the source of approval. He or she is valued as a source of fulfilling
their need, not for what they are. Energies are exhausted in eliciting
words and actions of approval rather than in loving. “Hungry” love is
Maslow’s D love, or the Buddha’s “love that leans,” in contrast to “love
that lifts.” Leaning love is destined to quickly fail because of the con-
stant strain on its human leaning post, for such folks forget that love is
what you give as well as what you get. You can only be enriched in love
to the extent to which you enrich the one you love. The affirmation of
worth of the woman is rooted in the strength of the genuine selfhood
of the man, and the affirmation and worth of the man is rooted in the
genuine strength of the selfhood of the woman.
Love, Self-Esteem, et la Petite Mort
The second of Kernberg’s developmental stages toward romantic love
involves the incorporation of “earlier body-surface eroticism” into the
context of romantic sexual eroticism. We humans have been called
the “sexiest animals,” and along with our cousins, the bonobo chimps,
appear to be programmed to enjoy sex more strongly than any other
species. As intelligent and creative animals, we have many pleasurable
activities to occupy our time. To compete with and maintain priority
over other pleasures, Mother Nature had to continually elaborate on the
components of sexual pleasure until it reached its present unassailable
position in the hierarchy of human pleasures; she cares not one whit
about the pleasures you get from your golf game, stamp collection, or
exotic cooking. Since we have been able to divorce our sexuality from
reproductive concerns, as far as we know, we humans and bonobo
chimps are the only creatures who engage in sex solely for the pleasures
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it provides. But the act of making love goes beyond physical pleasures
of the buildup and release of sexual tension. When we make love to that
one special person we are quite literally “making” (i.e., creating) love.
Sexual intercourse is a tangible celebration of love; its sights, sounds,
and feelings infuse our beings with a profound feeling of spiritual union
with our partner. As Kernberg intimates, if we grow up alienated from
our sexuality and from ourselves, we will not create love in the process
of making love: we will simply be, to put it bluntly, fucking.
We know from many sources that abused women tend to report
little joy in sexuality, and only a few report ever experiencing orgasm.23
Why is that? Well, an area of the limbic system called the septum is
the center of the orgasmic experience; what the French call la petite
mort. The septum is another “pleasure center,” but unlike the nucleus
accumbens upon which it sits, the septum seems to specialize in sexual
pleasure. The septum works in tandem with the amygdala, which you
recall is the site of emotional memories, particularly memories of situ-
ations evoking fear and anxiety. One of the septum’s roles is to quieten
the amygdala, but the amygdala can also silence the septum, and as we
have seen, which one is the stronger depends on how frequently and
strongly each have been activated in the past.24
This arrangement between the septum and the amygdala can explain
how sexual desire can overwhelm fears and anxiety associated with
potentially dangerous sexual dalliances, or how particularly strong
memories of unpleasant events lodged in the amygdala can spoil the
feast promised by the septum.25 It is not surprising, then, to find that
women who were abused as children do not find much joy in the form
of orgasm during sexual activity. It is clear that love is a conjunctive
emotion we create anew when we move toward involvement with
another. The way in which an infant first experiences need-gratification
is critical to the later experience of romantic love. The foundation of
romantic love is built upon the gratification of pleasure we experienced
in our mother’s loving arms. If that foundation is not well laid, or it is
sabotaged by later abuse, we will have difficulty in loving. Romantic
love is indeed a straight-line progression “from skin love, to kin love,
to in love.”
Having stressed the importance of love to self-esteem, I should point
out that the effects of love on self-esteem are experienced somewhat dif-
ferently by males and females. I pointed earlier to Lord Byron’s famous
aphorism that while for men “love is a thing apart,” for a woman it is
her “whole existence.” A woman is deeply embedded in the emotional
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life, revolving as it does around her intimate personal relationships.

If love is indeed the vital core of the feminine existence, we should
observe female self-esteem fluctuating more in sync with a woman’s
love experiences than would be the case among males.
This is exactly what Grace Balazs and I found in a study of 253 adults
with an average age of 41. We found that love (the subjective appraisals
of the extent to which person perceived themselves to be loving and
loved on two separate questionnaires) was the most important factor
among the several we looked at in determining self-esteem levels for
both men and women. It was also discovered that love was approxi-
mately 2.9 times more important in determining self-esteem for women
than it was for men. Women who were low on our love scales had much
lower self-esteem than men in the same sorry love boat, but women
who saw themselves deeply connected in their love relationships had
significantly higher self-esteem than males who enjoyed the same high
level of love.26 So women have both lower and higher self-esteem than
men, depending on how well they love and are loved. On the whole, it
appears that women put most of their self-esteem eggs in one basket,
while for men the origins of self-esteem are considerably more diverse.
“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so,” wrote
Shakespeare in Hamlet. The truth of this statement is a message of hope
for those who have suffered from love deprivation. We have to believe
that negative experiences are reversible in terms of the influence they
have over present behavior. We do not have to let our memory tapes
control ourselves, although they certainly will if we don’t believe in
the possibility of change. We can begin to convince ourselves that we
are individuals of worth, and hence worthy of love, despite our early
conditioning. It is not an easy task to accomplish if our early experi-
ences taught us otherwise. But no individual reading this book had
experiences that were all negative, and hopefully no one has had a life
totally devoid of love. We can improve our loving and our lovableness.
As Aristotle once said: “Assume a virtue and you have it.” One way of
doing this is to embark on a systematic program of self-esteem enhance-
ment. We cannot change our past love experiences, but we can work
on how we feel about them and how we will respond to future love
experiences. Just as love deprivation lies on a continuum rather than
being an all or nothing experience, so does self-esteem. This book is
not the place for a detailed discussion on improving self-esteem, but
we must all come to regard ourselves positively if we are to be loved
and to love positively. As Eric Fromm strongly emphasized: “Love of
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others and love of ourselves are not alternatives. On the contrary, an

attitude of love towards themselves will be found in all those who are
capable of loving others.”27
In the final analysis it remains to be said that we must love. Love
is to the human being as rain is to the grass and sunshine to the rose.
When we surrender ourselves to love, we do not lose the self, we dis-
cover a much larger, more beautiful, and more complete shared self.
Love is the creative medium by which the self evolves in all sorts of
directions, setting in motion a felicitous spiral of self-growth, lovable-
ness, more self-growth, and more lovableness. When entwined lovers
whisper their love to each other it is as much a biological fact as it is a
romantic fantasy, for they are responding with all the emotional power
of hundreds of thousands of years of evolutionary pressure to feel that
way. Pain and agony we also discover in love, for to love romantically
is to become vulnerable. But as we bear any love-forged crosses, we
can still glory in the knowledge that we are the only creatures in the
universe who can grasp the meaning and joy of love.

Notes
1. Bouwsma, John Calvin.
2. Kolodny, The explanation of amour-propre.
3. Gaylin, Rediscovering love. . 213
4. Baldwin, George Herbert Mead.
5. Freud, Normality and pathology in childhood. 80.
6. Tang, Foundational paradigms.
7. Wilson, E. Human Nature, 157.
8. Vos, The philosophy of John Duns Scotus.
9. Allman, The stone age present. 147.
10. Kruger, Evolution and altruism.
11. Barkow, Happiness in evolutionary perspective.
12. Altruism is heritable, meaning that some people are more altruistic than oth-
ers for genetic reasons. A review of the literature reveals that the heritability
coefficient is around .50, which means that 50 of the variance (difference)
among people on altruism is attributable to genetics and 50 percent to the
environment. Thus we can become more (or less) altruistic by experience.
Reuter, et al. Investigating the genetic basis.
13. Brunero, Evolution, altruism and internal reward.
14. Moll, Krueger, Zahn, et al. Human fronto-mesolimbic networks.
15. Kant, Groundwork, 66.
16. Ibid., 66.
17. Ibid., 67.
18. Glasser, Reality therapy.
19. Gaylin, Rediscovering love note 3, 206.
20. Kernberg, Barriers to falling and remaining in love, 486.
21. Gibran, The prophet, 15.
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22. Hegel, ‘Love’, Early theological writings, 305.

23. Mccabe and Giles, Differences between sexually functional.
24. Komisaruk, Beyer, and Whipple, The science of orgasm.
25. Baird,Wilson, Bladin, Saling, and Reutens, Neurological control.
26. Walsh and Balazs, Love, sex, and self-esteem. For those who are familiar
with statistics, the “2.9 percent more important . . .” refers to the respective
percentage of the variance in self-esteem uniquely accounted for by love in
regression models for women (53.3%) and men (18.4%).
27. Fromm, The Art of Loving, 46.

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 11
Romantic Love: Its Origin
and Purpose
Between two people, love itself is the important thing, and that is nei-
ther you nor him. It is a third thing you must create.
—D. H. Lawrence, twentieth-century British poet, writer, and painter

In the Beginning was the Female

”Male and female created He them,” says the Book of Genesis. We are
eternally grateful for this dual creation, but Genesis got it backward.
The basic being is female; Adam, not Eve, is nature’s afterthought.
Each human being is the product of the union of a woman’s egg and a
man’s sperm. The egg carries only the X chromosome and is therefore
wholly female while spermatozoa carry either the male Y chromosome
or the female X chromosome and will thus determine the sex of the
little creature their combined chromosomes will create. As previously
noted, the precious egg is about eighty-five thousand times larger than
the single sperm that will penetrate and fertilize it. That single sperm
has won a frantic race with about 280 to 480 million of its brothers and
sisters for the privilege of fusing with the waiting egg to form the human
zygote (from the Greek, “yoked,” or “joined together”). Y spermatozoa
are slightly more vigorous than their female counterparts (they don’t
have so many genes to lug around), so slightly more males are born.
The ratio of male to female babies is about 52:48, although this ratio
more than reverses itself over the lifespan due to the greater mortality
rate of males at all ages.
Sex differentiation begins with the Y chromosome, a stumpy little
creature that evolved from a pair of autosomes (nonsex chromosomes)
in vertebrates many millions of years ago. Estimates of the number of
genes residing on the Y chromosome range from a low of twenty-seven
to a high of three hundred, with most ranging between fifty and sixty.

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The X, shared by both males and females, encodes for about one thou-
sand five hundred.1 Most genes on the Y do not code for proteins, but
are involved in interpreting and controlling other genes in the male
genome. The truly vital gene on the Y is the SRY (“sex-determining
region of the Y chromosome”). In mammalian species, maleness is
induced from an intrinsically female form by processes initiated by
the SRY at around the sixth week of gestation.
Interestingly, in the Jewish version of the creation story we find
echoes of Arisophanes’s account of creation in Plato’s Symposium. This
account, which is also found in some Christian Gnostic texts, maintains
that God created Adam as a hermaphrodite. Like Zeus, God concluded
that it was not good for Adam to be alone, and put Adam in a deep sleep
during which he separated the feminine from the masculine. With the
creation of Eve, God brings her to Adam to once again confirm their
oneness (“This at last is the bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh”).
The point is that we all began life as little hermaphrodites. A tiny
being gestating in its mother’s womb starts out sexually undifferen-
tiated; it is not until about five or six weeks that we can distinguish
between male and female embryos, and it’s all due to the SRY. All males
would develop as females without the SRY gene, which is why I said
Genesis got it backward. The major function of the SRY is to switch on
its downstream genetic partners on the autosomes to start building the
testes from the gonads—which are sex-neutral prior to the initiation
of this process—rather than the ovaries that would otherwise develop
in its absence.
When the testicles are in place they begin producing androgens
with a vengeance in order to activate androgen receptors in the brain
to masculinize it. Masculinization by the so-called “androgen bath”
bathes relevant parts of the brain, most notably the limbic system,
making them sensitive to androgen hormones such as testosterone. An
androgen-sensitive brain simply means that the threshold for firing the
neurons governing characteristic male responses to stimuli is lowered.
This brain sexing takes place during the second half of gestation, and
as a result “the structure and functioning of these regions become
altered, as are the behaviors they control . . . high concentrations of
prenatal androgens result in male-typical behavior . . . female-typical
behavior develops in the absence of androgens.”2 Sexual differentiation
of a female depends only on the absence of androgen. The testes also
produce Mullerian inhibiting substance (MIS) which causes internal
female reproductive organs such as the uterus and fallopian tubes in
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XY individuals to atrophy.3 Because the process of fetal masculinization

will inform some of our later discussions, we will briefly look at what
happens when the process goes astray.
The greater male tendency toward extremes and abnormalities of
all kinds may be viewed as a function of the male’s departure from the
“standard” human being. All the additional steps required to switch
the male brain from its “default” female form results in significantly
more males than females suffering from neurological problems such as
ADHD, dyslexia, autism, stuttering, and language delays, because things
can go awry when perfectly good systems are meddled with. We see
more geniuses among men but also more fools, more madness, more
criminality, and more deviant behaviors of almost every kind. Among
females, any genetic abnormality, whether positive or negative, that may
be present on one of the X chromosomes can be offset by its partner
on the other. For instance, a female may carry a defective gene for the
manufacture of the blood-clotting protein fibrin that is responsible
for hemophilia, but it is almost always males who suffer from it. For a
female to suffer from hemophilia she would have to be the daughter of
a female carrier and a hemophiliac father—a vanishingly rare occur-
rence. If a male inherits the defective gene causing hemophilia from
his mother, he lacks the second X chromosome to counteract it. This
is an example of nature’s “bias” in favor of women. It seems that there
is less departure from the norm in females in either direction, because
they are too valuable to the species for nature to experiment with.
Gender Bending and Blending
The immensely complicated process of sexing the brain is a real wonder
of nature that conforms to the Goldilocks principle in which everything
goes “just right” in the vast majority of cases. But sometimes Goldi-
locks finds the bed is too hard, the chair too tall, and the porridge too
cold, and she doesn’t get what looking at the chromosomes led her to
expect. These are people born with a number of congenital conditions
in which their chromosomes do not comport with gender identity or
with anatomical sex. We called these people pseudohermaphrodites
or intersex anomalies in the past; today we call them people with a
“disorder of sex development” (DSD). About 1.7 percent of individuals
are born with some sort of DSD.4 Scientists who want to get to the
bottom of gender differences in all sorts of things study these people
because using the atypical to gain insight into the typical is a well-worn
backdoor approach in science. One way of organizing out discussion
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of DSD people is to look at them on a feminine-masculine continuum

indexed by testosterone level.
At the extreme feminine end of the feminine-masculine continuum
is the androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS). AIS individuals have all
the essentials of maleness—the Y chromosome, SRY gene, and testicles,
but to themselves and all others they are totally female in mind and
body. AIS is the result of a mutation of the androgen receptor gene
located on the X chromosome, making cell receptors that normally
bind androgens partially (PAIS) or completely (CAIS) inoperative. If
the receptors are completely inoperative, the XY genotype develops
a female phenotype. CAIS individuals have the SRY gene and thus
androgen-producing testicles, although they are undescended. Even
though they produce androgens they cannot bind to their receptors,
so their internal male reproductive organs do not develop. Because
their testes secrete normal amounts of MIS, they don’t have internal
female sex organs either. The external genitalia are unambiguously
female, although the vagina is shallow and leads to a dead end. CAIS is
typically not diagnosed until the teen years when the individual consults
a physician about failure to menstruate or about painful intercourse.
Unresponsive to the masculinizing effects of androgens on the brain,
CAIS individuals tend to conform to typical attitudinal, trait, and
behavioral patterns of normal females, often exaggeratedly so, and
remain comfortable with their sexual and gender identities after their
condition is revealed to them.5
PAIS individuals are only partially insensitive to androgens, the ambi-
guity of their genitalia varies with the degree of androgen resistance.
PAIS children are assigned and reared as males or females according
to the degree of virilization (the biological developmental changes that
make male bodies different from female bodies) they exhibit because
the degree of genital masculinization provides a gauge for the degree of
brain masculinization. Although most PAIS individuals report satisfac-
tion with their assigned sex-gender identity, there is a small percentage
(11 to 14 percent) who express anxiety, confusion, or discomfort about
their assigned gender (gender dysphoria) and want to change it, either
from male to female or female to male.6
The most common DSD condition is congenital adrenal hyper-
plasia (CAH). Classic CAH (about 95 percent of all cases) is caused
by a deficiency in an enzyme called 21-hydroxylase that converts
progesterone—a precursor of testosterone—to cortisol. Progester-
one buildup results in high levels of interuterine testosterone which
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results in precocious sexual development in males (six-year-olds with

bald spots and pubic hair) and some degree of masculinization of the
genitalia and brain in females. The degree of masculinization of female
genitalia (the degree to which the clitoris resembles a penis and the
degree of fusion of the labia) signals the degree to which the brain has
been masculinized. CAH females possess more male typical traits than
non-CAH females, such as a liking for rough and tumble play, better
visuospatial than verbal skills, lower maternal interests, less interest
in marriage, more interest in careers, and a greater probability of
bisexuality and homosexuality.7 CAH females tend to dislike feminine
frills such as jewelry and makeup and playing with dolls, score higher
on more male typical skills, and have lower empathy scores than unaf-
fected females.8
At the maleness extreme of the continuum is the XYY syndrome. This
syndrome has generated more interest than any other DSD among those
interested in antisocial behavior. XYY males are not “supermales” or
“born criminals” as used to be thought, but they evidence exaggeration
of male typical behavioral traits. Most descriptions of the behavioral
phenotype suggest that compared to XY males, XYY males have higher
levels of aggression, hyperactivity, and impulsiveness, a performance
IQ significantly greater than verbal IQ (recall our discussion of this in
chapter 6), and atypical brainwave patterns.9 Testosterone concentra-
tions of XYY men are usually found to be higher than average. Although
most XYY males lead fairly normal lives, they are at elevated risk for a
diagnosis of psychopathy and for committing sex crimes, and they are
imprisoned or in psychiatric hospitals at rates greatly exceeding their
incidence in the general population.10
Another interesting DSD is 5-alpha-reductase deficiency (5-ARD).
Because of this enzyme deficiency, testosterone cannot be converted
to dihydrotestosterone (DHT), which is the androgen required for
normal masculinization of the external male genitalia. Males afflicted
by 5-ARD are born with ambiguous or completely female genitalia and
almost always reared as girls. At puberty testosterone rather than DHT
is responsible for the emergence of male secondary sexual character-
istics and penile growth, and in 5-ARD males the testes descend and
the “clitoris” markedly enlarges to become a penis, although it does
not always grow to full adult size. Ninety to 96 percent of 5-ARD boys
reared as girls from birth change to a male gender identity at puberty.11
Another DSD with the horribly long name of 17beta-hydroxysteroid
dehydrogenase deficiency (17-BHSD) results in less dramatic gender
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changes at puberty. These individuals are chromosomal males born

with ambiguous or fully female genitalia and are typically reared as girls.
At puberty they develop similarly to 5-ARD boys, but only about 50
percent switch gender identity.12 The different rate of gender switching
between 5-ARD and 17-BHSD individuals is probably a function of
the roles of the two different enzymes involved. In 5-ARD individuals
the problem is conversion of testosterone to DHT, which does not
affect the role of testosterone in masculinizing the brain. In 17-BHSD
individuals, the deficiency is in the enzyme involved in the final step
in testosterone synthesis, which results in a deficit of testosterone
available for brain masculinization.13
Transsexuals
Transsexuals are persons who feel strongly that they inhabit the body
of the wrong sex. Transsexuals reveal just how complicated is the
process of sexing what all mammals are prior to that momentous sixth
week—undifferentiated hermaphrodites. How can a male-to-female
(MtF) transsexual with completely masculinized genitalia, and thus
with all the requisite androgens for further masculinization, know
that “he” is a “she”? The cognitive and emotional conviction that they
inhabit an alien body is so strong that many transsexuals are willing
to endure the pain and financial cost of surgical and other procedures
to synchronize their minds and bodies.
MtF transsexuals may share certain things with 17-BHSD individuals.
Because of their normal male genitalia, MtF transsexuals must have
retained the ability to convert testosterone to DHT, but genital sexing
takes place weeks before brain sexing, and these two processes are
independent of one another.14 Thus, while the genitals develop the
normal XY way, the androgen receptors may have be compromised by
17-BHSD deficiencies leading to the failure of brain masculinization.15
Brain scan studies have shown that there are significant trait differences
attributable to brain structures in MtF transsexuals that are interme-
diate between females and control males.16
Another possibility (not mutually exclusive) is that transsexuals
have less efficient androgen receptors (ARs). Studies have shown
that MtF transsexuals have a significantly greater percentage of the
long repeat polymorphism of the AR gene than control subjects.17
A “polymorphism” is a variant of a gene coding for a protein; in this
case the AR receptor gene. A “long” repeat means that this version of
the gene repeats a nucleotide (the familiar CGAT letters of the DNA
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code) sequence more times than the short repeat. The upshot is that the
long repeat of the AR gene leads to less efficient testosterone function-
ing and to less brain masculinization relative to males with the short
repeat versions. It’s all very complicated and makes one wonder what
Mother Nature went to the trouble of inventing sex in the first place.
The Origin of Sex
Nature loves symmetry; it arranges things in pairs. If we envision Adam
and Eve in their naked splendor cavorting in the Garden of Eden, we
see two eyes and two ears behind which are two frontal lobes. Each has
two arms, two legs, two kidneys, two lungs, and Eve has two breasts;
Adam has two vestigial breasts and two testicles between his legs. It is
between the legs that nature departs from symmetry, providing Adam
with a penis and Eve with a vagina. But Adam and Eve themselves are
a pair just as necessary to one another as, say, the two frontal lobes
each of them possesses. The penis and the vagina are the instruments
that restore an apparent departure from symmetry to make male and
female parts a complementary whole.
Why do humans come in pairs? Why aren’t we complete in ourselves
as individuals? Why the perennial search for our “better halves,” a search
that generates a lot of jealousy, anger, depression, anxiety, suicide,
and even murder, as well as joy and pleasure? It is not simply that sex
is necessary for reproduction, because it isn’t. Asexual reproduction
abounds in nature and is more efficient and faithful to its template
than sexual reproduction, but not nearly as much fun. Earthworms,
for instance, house both sexes in a single body. To reproduce them-
selves earthworms simply do what unfriendly types with a fondness for
vulgarity tell us to do when we anger them—they fertilize themselves.
Then there’s the whiptail lizard, a female-only species that reproduces
only females. These creatures may be the icons of radical feminists
since they literally do not need males to reproduce, but they do need to
engage in “mating” behavior with other females to stimulate ovulation,
hence the nickname “lesbian lizards” for this species.
Sexual reproduction is messy and requires more energy that the
organism could spend in other pursuits. So the question is: why did
sex evolve in the first place? The answer to this lies in the necessity for
evolutionary adaptability. The genetic variation needed for adaptability
to new environmental challenges can only be achieved by the scram-
bling into new permutations of genetic material from two genetically
unrelated organisms. It is the constant shuffling of genes between
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males and females generation after generation that is the engine of

evolution. Sexual reproduction produces novel genotypes, increased
resistance to parasites, and clears out deleterious genetic mutations.
There would be no biological improvement if we reproduced asexually
each reproduction would be only a carbon copy of the self. Amoebas
simply divide like Aristophanes’s spheres, and that is why a modern
amoeba, with the exception of changes brought about by random
mutations, is no different from an amoeba of 500,000,000 years ago.
Asexual reproduction is a treadmill going nowhere; sexual reproduction
is a ladder allowing the genome to reach for better things.
Love? Why Not Just Sex?
If humans need sexual coupling to reproduce, why not leave it at that as
with the case of most sexually reproducing species? Why introduce the
whole tangled process of love into the reproductive equation? Amoeba
and other asexually reproducing species don’t need to love in order to
complement themselves; they are complete in themselves. This must
be very boring, but I don’t suppose amoebas care. Men and women do
need one another to reproduce, and love may be considered a byproduct
of the sexual reproductive imperative. While reproduction is nature’s
imperative, it is not the sole raison d’etre of sex. In fact, the means for
accomplishing nature’s reproductive design are so pleasurable that the
end constitutes only a rare motive for exercising the means. People
hardly ever consider nature’s “grand design” or “higher goal” when male
and female bring their genitals into intimate juxtaposition. We are aware
of it, however, and usually take steps these days to subvert nature’s plan
by using birth control devices when partaking of our sexual pleasures.
Nature made us smart as well as horny, so we are able to have sex a lot
more for recreation than we do for procreation.
If reproduction were the sole purpose of sex, we would not see the
diversity of elaborate courtship rituals throughout the world, which
have nothing to do with reproduction. Biologist E. O. Wilson notes
that if reproduction were the sole biological function of sex: “It could
be achieved far more economically in a few seconds of mounting and
insertion.”18 (I can hear a chorus of cynical females responding: “Do
you mean there’s more?”). In species where pairbonding does not exist,
insemination is in fact accomplished without ritual and foreplay in a
few brief seconds. No emotion accompanies the frenetic mating among
lions, dogs, chickens, and so on. After accommodating the cock, the hen
nonchalantly shakes her ruffled feathers and resumes pecking her feed.
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Among human beings, probably only the prostitute-john relationship

is as emotionally cold as animal copulation. Frequent and prolonged
(relative to other species) sexual intercourse facilitates and cements
human pairbonding, and that’s the second grand design that nature
has fashioned from sex.
The uniquely human pattern of mating probably has a lot to do with
the evolution of love. Compared to humans, most mammalian species
are extraordinarily individualistic. Their short infant dependency
periods and sharp survival instincts make them much less reliant on
others and more complete in themselves. Even among the most social
of mammalian species, members resemble more the rugged Yankee
individualist than the Parisian bon vivant. For most of the year the
nonhuman male is supremely uninterested in the female, and vice versa.
This lack of interest dramatically changes when the female sends out
olfactory or other signals, such as swelling and redness of the genitals,
that she is “in heat” (estrus) and ready to accommodate the male sex-
ually. Nonhuman mammals become much more “social” during these
periods of estrus, and feathers, fur, and blood may fly as males compete
for sexual access. Females among our close relative the chimpanzee
may make up for their former asexuality by copulating with up to fifty
males in a single day. Once the female is impregnated she ceases to be
receptive to further copulations, and will not be in estrus again until
the young are weaned, which is typically in four to five years.
In contrast to nonhuman animals, the human female is sexually
receptive at all times. Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha contrast
the strictly reproductive intent of chimpanzee sex with human sexual
practices and those of the turbocharged sexuality of bonobos. Female
bonobos have clitorises three times bigger than human females, and
use sex with both sexes as a form of conflict resolution—they take seri-
ously the old hippie adage: “Make love, not war.” Bonobos, along with
chimps, share the privilege of being the primates most closely related
to humans, both sharing about 99 percent of their DNA with us. Ryan
and Jetha note that humans, like bonobos, have a lot of nonreproduc-
tive sex for no particular reason than it feels good. They inform us that
bonobos are like humans sexually, because they engage in “frivolous”
nonreproductive sex whereas chimps are like “animals” only having sex
as often as “the Vatican recommends.” They then ask:

Does all this frivolous sex make our species sound “animalistic”?
It shouldn’t. The animal world is full of species that have sex only

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during widely spaced intervals when the female is ovulating. Only

two species can do it week in and week out for nonreproductive
reasons: one human, the other very humanlike [bonobos]. Sex
for pleasure with various partners is therefore more “human” than
“animal.”19

The human female is the only mammal that has concealed ovulation;
even the randy bonobos retain estrus. Although the human female’s
sexual desire waxes and wanes slightly according to her monthly cycle, it
is never an “all or nothing” situation. This continual receptiveness makes
the human female continuously attractive to the human male. The evo-
lutionary advantage conferred by constant intersexual attraction may be
to some extent responsible for the human loss of estrus. Evolutionary
biologist Richard Morris speculates that there was undoubtedly a time
in history when human females experienced estrus. Some females must
have had a genetic mutation allowing them to enjoy (or endure) longer
periods of sexual receptivity than others. Males would naturally be
more solicitous to these women, providing them with extra food and
protection, thus enhancing their survival prospects as well as those of
their offspring. Over time, natural selection would spread the genes for
longer sexual receptivity throughout the population, eventually leading
to the disappearance of estrus altogether.20
This is a plausible speculation for the human loss of estrus. It has
been noted among primates that males are far more attentive to females,
and more generous in sharing food with them, when females are in
estrus. It seems that erotic after dinner expectations are not limited to
the tuxedoed “naked ape.” Why is it then, given the benefits accruing
to receptive females, that other species have not lost estrus? I would
argue that they have not done so for two reasons. First, the females
of other species are not so dependent on male protection and food
sharing because the short dependency period of their offspring soon
leave mother and infant free to forage for themselves. Second, human
females are intelligent and are aware of the advantages of continual
male support and protection. They were able to make the connection
between their sexual receptiveness and the attention they receive
when they were. They were then able to turn this awareness to their
advantage and to the advantage of their children. It is not difficult to
imagine prehuman females “faking” estral signals and copulating with
an ever-willing male in exchange for continued support. After all, the
literature tells us that it is not uncommon today for human females to
pretend receptiveness and orgasm for much the same reason.21
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So far, we have pairbonding between men and women because each

offers the other some concrete advantage: for him, guaranteed sex, for
her, guaranteed protection. But what has this businesslike quid pro
quo to do with love? We certainly would not deem a couple to be in
love today if their only reason for being together was for mutual back
scratching. We know that love can exist without sex; some of the great
loves in history and literature were unconsummated, and certainly the
so-called sexual revolution of the late sixties and early seventies showed
(if it was ever doubted) that sex can be divorced from love.
Concealed ovulation was probably a major player in the evolution
of love. We have already looked at the literature maintain that pair-
bonding was a strategy probably selected for because biparental care
was more likely to result in offspring survival. But some evolutionary
psychologists such as David Buss maintain that mate guarding preceded
pairbonding in evolutionary time.22 We do indeed see mate guarding
in some primate species in the absence of any signs of “bonding” or
paternal care.23 Not wanting to lose a scarce young, attractive, and
sexually receptive female, and having her display signs of sexual
involvement with a particular male to potential rivals may have warned
them off and advised them look elsewhere. Women mate guarded
also, not wanting to lose a source of protection and resources to other
attractive women. The purely instrumental strategy of mate guarding
to fend off potential poachers and to prevent mates from straying may
have eventually evolved into emotional attachments, and them to the
feeling we call love.
How the mutually advantageous exchange led to that deep emotion
we call love must necessarily involve a great deal of speculation, but it
almost surely must have had something to do with human intelligence.
According to zoologist Desmond Morris, the available anthropologi-
cal evidence suggests an intimate relationship between the evolution
of intelligence and the evolution of love. Morris speculates that our
ancestors faced an ecological crisis millions of years ago as the African
forests receded to give way to the grassy savanna; a dangerous place
for such physically puny animals as they were. Having to keep their
wits about them as they trudged through the tall grasses, evolutionary
pressures placed them on a trajectory toward becoming upright and
bipedal. Assuming that the trajectory toward bipedalism was taking
place at the same time as that toward the loss of estrus, sight would
have slowly replaced smell as the impetus to mating. Upright males and
females could now view one another in their full splendor face to face.24
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Assuming our ancestors liked what they saw and given the change
in bodily configurations accompanying an upright stance (genitals to
the fore), the human practice of face-to-face intercourse could not be
far behind. Frontal intercourse involves far more skin contact between
lovers than the old impersonal method of seizing the female from
behind and staring out into space. Because of the intimate connection
between the brain and the skin, humans find tactile stimulation most
pleasing—the more skin contact the greater the pleasure. For our
ancestors sexual intercourse increasingly recalled the pleasures lovers
once found in their mothers’ arms. The sucking of the lover’s breasts,
the warmth of skin-skin contact, eye gazing, and the feeling of security
and that all is right with the world—all evoked deep memories of the
mother-infant bond, the fountainhead of all loving. As British writer
Jill Tweedy unabashedly puts it:

Face-to-face intercourse became essential to strengthen the bond

over and above the ordinary promiscuous sexual drive because only
by looking into the face while fucking could you mimic and capitalize
on the mother/child bond and begin to know the individual from, as
it were, the faceless bottom of old-style mounting.25

Frontal intercourse involves more of the senses than are involved in

belly-buttocks coupling. Noses are nuzzled, lips covered, tongues are
mingled, and eyes are gazed into. Lovers are now communicating their
pleasure to one another through their shared bodies. The evolution of
human language enabled lovers to translate their physical and visual
pleasure into words, to whisper sweet nothings, and to name each other.
The human intellect now cannot help recognizing the unique features
of the lover. He or she is no longer merely a set of genitals that looks
and smells like every other set; he or she is now a distinct and separate
individual who captures and holds the imagination. Human imagina-
tion allowed our ancestors to replay previous sexual encounters with
their lovers and to anticipate future ones. This reflection made for the
wedding of emotion and intellect, a ceremony that perhaps took place
in Paul Chauchard’s “brain of the heart”—the late-arriving prefrontal
cortex—to produce that exhilarating experience we call love.
All these theoretical speculations about the origins of love do not
rule one another out; all of them doubtless had some role to play in the
evolution of love. Our hominid ancestors faced a multitude of chal-
lenges from the moment they branched off from an ancestral primate
about five million years ago, but the various theories tend to focus only
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on one of two of them. Extreme infant dependency set evolution on

a trajectory leading to paternal investment, mate guarding, and pair-
bonding. Moreover, these adaptations probably arose gradually together
as the species was undergoing intense selection for intelligence. Recall
from chapter 5 that this evolutionary trajectory resulted in “swelled
heads” and precipitated the cephalic-pelvic disproportion problem.
Jonathan Haidt believes that the “swelled head” theory ties “together
neatly many of the distinctive features of human life, such as our painful
childbirth, long infancy, large brains, and high intelligence.”26 That love
and intelligence coevolved in humans is indeed a pleasant thought.
Notes
1. Arnold, Xu, Grisham, Chen, and Kim, 2 Minireview.
2. Yang, Baskin, and DiSandro, Gender identity, 154.
3. Ibid.
4. Fausto-Sterling, A., Gender identification and assignment.
5. Jurgensen, Hiort, Holterhus, and Thyen, Gender role behavior.
6. Cohen-Kettenis, P., Psychosocial and psychosexual aspects.
7. Gooren, L., The biology of human psychosexual development.
8. Garrett, B., Brain and behavior.
9. O’Brien, G., Behavioural phenotypes.
10. Briken, Habermann, Berner, and Hill, XYY chromosome abnormality.
11. Byne, W., Developmental endocrine influences.
12. Gooren, L., The biology of human psychosexual development.
13. Byne, W., Developmental endocrine influences.
14. Hare, Bernard, Sanchez, et al., 2009.
15. Byne, W. Developmental endocrine influences.
16. Diamond, M., 2009.
17. Hare, Bernard, Sanchez, et al., Androgen receptor repeat length polymor-
phism.
18. Wilson, E., Human Nature, 141.
19. Ryan and Jetha, Sex at dawn, 85.
20. Morris, R., Evolution and human nature.
21. Shere Hite, The Hite Report, found that 53 percent of 1,664 females in her
study admitted faking orgasm, some infrequently, some always, and some
sometimes; p. 154.
22. Buss, D., Human mate guarding.
23. Chapais, B. Monogamy, strongly bonded groups.
24. Morris, D., The naked ape.
25. Tweedie, J., In the name of love, 89.
26. Haidt, J., The happiness hypothesis, 123.

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 12
The Chemistry of
Romantic Love
I was nauseous and tingly all over.
I was either in love or had smallpox.
—Woody Allen, contemporary American comedian

This Is Your Brain on Love

What happens when we fall in love? The very word fall seems to imply
that the process is quite irrational, something beyond our conscious
control. Freud said that falling in love was the only time it was normal
to be psychotic, which is a pretty scary thought. Some of you may recall
a 1970s song called Jackson sung by Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood
in which they admit “We got married in a fever hotter than a pepper
sprout.” The song goes on to wail about how foolish they felt “when the
fire went out.” How else other than foolish and irrational can we explain
two people marrying one another when everyone except the smitten
twosome knows the marriage will be a disaster? Having spent some
time in the corrections field, I have seen many apparently well-adjusted
women who volunteer to counsel prison inmates fall in love and marry
the most appalling of criminal psychopaths who really know how to
manipulate a vulnerable woman. Occasionally one of these women
may admit that intellectually they know what they are doing is not
wise: “But I love him!” Romantic love, delicious as it is for most of us,
can sometimes turn the wisest of us into irrational gonadal reactors
and send us down the road to misery. This is probably the kind of love
eighteenth-century English poet, writer obvious cynical wit, Samuel
Johnson, must have had in mind when he defined love as “a disease
best cured by marriage.”
Falling in love is something that happens to us, not something we
make happen by an act of will. Sometimes it even happens when we

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least expect and want it, at least on a fully conscious level. It is different
from being in love, which is an ongoing process involving rational as
well as emotional components. Falling in love is a discrete event; loving
is a series of events taking place over time. “Love at first sight” is not a
very common phenomenon, although it does happen. “Falling in love”
is most often preceded by a steady buildup of acts, thoughts, gestures,
imaginations, and delicious fantasies. We meet someone, and some-
how his or her unique characteristics begin to have a powerful effect
on our hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axes. For a woman, it may be
a man’s power, his intellect, and/or maturity (police officer, professor,
politician), the way he smiles, his confidence or athletic prowess, his
gentleness with children, his exotic foreign accent, or simply because
he is nice and courteous. For the male, more prone to visual than
emotional stimuli, it may be the way her ski slope nose turns up, the
delightful way her buttocks undulate as she walks, the creamy silkiness
of her skin, the whiteness of her teeth set between fleshy red lips or,
again, simply because she is nice and courteous.
No matter what the particulars leading up to the event might be,
when it happens it happens with a bang (often literally as well as fig-
uratively these days). The eighteenth-century Russian novelist Ivan
Turgenev likens falling in love to a revolution in its intensity:

First love is exactly like a revolution: the regular and established

order of life is in an instant smashed to fragments; youth stands at
the barricade, its bright banner raised high in the air, and sends its
ecstatic greetings to the future, whatever it may hold—death or a
new life, no matter.1

Like the French Revolution, falling in love will often be followed by guil-
lotines slicing at the heart, but we will discuss this bleak prospect later.
Lust: The Red Flame of Life
Something as profoundly moving as the love experience necessarily
involves multiple processes that recruit all the complexities of our brain
structures and chemistry. Biological anthropologist Helen Fisher and
her colleagues have investigated love anthropologically, chemically,
and neurologically.2 They define love as a three-stage interactive phe-
nomenon involving lust, attraction, and attachment, or what others
have called passion, intimacy, and commitment.3 As Fisher and her
colleagues explain the process: “The sex drive evolved to motivate
individuals to seek a range of mating partners; attraction evolved to
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motivate individuals to prefer and pursue specific partners; and attach-

ment evolved to motivate individuals to remain together long enough to
complete species-specific parenting duties.”4 These three phases travel
along three different but integrated brain tracks powered by different
brain chemistries.
Lust is pretty uncomplicated and easy to explain and understand
because it is primordial and common to all animals. It is the reptil-
ian brain’s sex drive propelled by the sex hormones and motivated
by the passionate urge for sexual gratification, once defined by the
Anglo-American poet W. H. Auden as “an intolerable neural itch.” At
this stage of the mating game the desire is promiscuous and general-
ized to all (well, almost all) members of the preferred sex. Lust is like
a ship caught in a storm; any friendly port will do. It is driven by the
sex hormones testosterone and, to a lesser extent, by estrogen. The
more testosterone you have the more sail you will unfurl in your haste
to scratch the itch; the shoals be damned! Lust is totally self-centered
with its objective being only to satisfy sexual fantasies at any cost.
The target of lust becomes an object and not a subject, not a woman
(or a man), but rather a set of interchangeable genitals used for only
one purpose. Shakespeare had Malcolm, the future king of Scotland,
describe the intensity and self-addicted nature of this deadly sin,
in Macbeth:
But there’s no bottom, none,
In my voluptuousness: your wives, your daughters,
Your matrons and your maids, could not fill up
The cistern of my lust.

The negative connotation of the word “lust” as one of “the seven deadly
sins” makes it difficult to think of it as slipping easily into the attraction
phase. If we substitute less onerous words such as “passion,” “libido,” or
“eroticism” for “lust” it makes it easier for us to see the elision from pas-
sion to attraction (intimacy, or romantic love). Like Fisher, the Mexican
poet and writer Octavio Paz views lust—what he calls eroticism—as a
necessary ingredient for the emergence of romantic love, calling their
intermingling and blending “The double flame of life”:
The flame is the most subtle part of fire, moving upwards and raising
itself above in the shape of a pyramid. The original primordial fire
of eroticism is sexuality; it raises the red flame of eroticism, which
in turn raises and feeds another flame, tremulous and blue. It is the
flame of love and eroticism. The double flame of life.5
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Attraction: The Blue Flame of Life

Attraction or romantic love is a much more complex beast to describe
or understand. Attraction may grow seamlessly from lust as a “double
flame,” but a man may hold his lust/passion/eroticism in abeyance if a
certain woman strikes him as particularly appealing; one with whom
he fantasizes as a mate and not just as a mount. He may sense some-
thing special and unique in her that goes beyond sex, and approach
her in ways more reminiscent of a medieval knight than a Don Juan.
Sex is never far from mind, but the pleasure of anticipation increase
by leaps and bounds as he courts her and learns about her being. The
longer the pursued withholds her favors from her swain, the more the
longing builds into love. His eyes behold her, his mind envelops her,
and she takes residence in his heart. When this happens, testosterone
levels marvelously synchronize, with his declining and a hers increasing.
After being together a while, testosterone levels begin to diverge again
and eventually return to their preromance levels.6
The attraction phase of love is motivated by the desire to possess the
love and sexual fidelity of one special person; desire is now centered
and specific and has detoured from the lusty reptilian system to the
emotional limbic system. Attraction is what we have in mind when we
speak of romantic love; the kind of love that makes men ready to slay
the dragon and women to swoon. Love’s sweet dart can generate the
deepest pain and torment as well as the throes of ecstasy. There is no
free lunch in love, but that’s no reason not to feast upon it. As usual,
the poet says it better than the scientist, as in Henry Purcell’s 1692
opera The Fairy Queen:
If Love’s a Sweet Passion, why does it torment?
If a Bitter, oh tell me whence comes my content?
Since I suffer with pleasure, why should I complain,
Or grieve at my Fate, when I know ‘tis in vain?
Yet so pleasing the Pain is, so soft is the Dart,
That at once it both wounds me, and Tickles my Heart.

The attraction phase is more complicated than the lust phase, and is
driven by a much more complicated mixture of neurochemicals, par-
ticularly dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine, in addition to the
sex hormones. The rewards of dopamine—cupid’s sharpest arrow—
are increased by the anticipation of the sights, sounds, and touch of
the loved one. Norepinephrine provides us with the added energy to

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enjoy them to the fullest and gives us that Elvis “All shook up” feeling.
Serotonin (the “stop it; you’ve had enough” neurotransmitter) is quieted
because Mother Nature doesn’t want us to stop until we’ve pushed
our genes into the future. She wants us to pop the champagne and
imagine the possibilities and to cork the constraints of common sense.
The decrease in serotonin activity (foot off the brakes), an increase in
dopamine activity (foot on the gas), and increase in norepinephrine
(fifth gear) makes being in love literally an intoxicating experience. It
is made so by these and certain other stimulating and slightly halluci-
nogenic substances such as phenylethylamine observed bombarding
the pleasure centers in brain scans of people in love.
The neurons that synthesize and transport these chemicals also get
a turbo-charged tune-up by nerve growth factor (NGF) at the dawn of
love. NGF is a protein critical for the survival and maintenance of sen-
sory neurons and the sympathetic neurons of the autonomic nervous
system. These neurons are responsible for transmitting sensations of all
kinds, which takes us a long way to understanding why our sensations
and feelings of are particularly strong when we are in love. To get a han-
dle on the role of NGF on love, a team of Italian researchers measured
blood levels of NGF in fifty-eight men and women who reported that
were in the early throes of love and compared them with NGF levels
two control groups. Levels of NGF were almost twice as high among
the lovers than among controls, and the greater the intensity of the love
among the lovers the higher their NGF. When the researchers retested
members of the “in love” group who were still in the same relationship
more than a year later, their NGF levels had dropped to the same average
levels of the people who comprised the control group who were not in
a love relationship, so enjoy it while you can.7
But what differences are there in the brains of those experiencing
lust versus love? A team of neuroscientists led by Stephanie Caccioppo
surveyed all available brain scan studies that looked at the brain areas
involved in sexual desire and love. The team found that both sexual
desire (lust, eroticism) and love recruited similar areas of pleasure and
emotion, but that love recruited them more intensely and added fur-
ther brain circuits. They noted that sexual desired was a motivational
state with a specific embodied goal, whereas love is more abstract,
behaviorally more complex, and exists regardless of the immediate
presence of the beloved. Although sexual desire activates the reward-
ing effects of dopamine originating in the ventral tegmental area, love

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activates dopamine in the substantia nigra also, as well as the neural

circuits involved with bonding. In apparent agreement with Octavio
Paz’s “double flame” of eroticism and love, they concluded that sexual
desire and love constitute a spectrum, and that: “Love may build upon
a neural circuit for emotion and pleasure, adding regions associated
with reward expectancy, habit formation, and feature detection.”8
The big differences at the neural level are that love is more other
centered and apparently warrants two sources of dopamine, and
engages the neurochemistry of bonding. Just as the neurobiology of
mother-infant bonding seizes on the pleasure circuits and performs
some extra landscaping, the male-female bond seizes on the prototype
of the mother-infant bond and elaborates on it. Because both the
mother-infant and the male-female bond involves an active concern
for the well-being of another, they share crucial evolutionary goals,
and to great extent, a common neurobiology.9 Functional MRI studies
have shown that attachment-mediating hormones activate regions in
the brain’s reward system specific to maternal and romantic love as
well as overlapping into regions common to both.10 The patterns of
difference involve different motivational systems and goals. Moth-
er-infant bonds had to exist in prehominid times, but prehominid
mating was probably largely bereft of deep emotional involvement.
Unlike male-female love, mother-infant love must be unconditional
because the infant is incapable of meeting any conditions. Male-fe-
male love is typically very much conditional, and (if children are
involved) need not necessarily be maintained after offspring survival
is unproblematic.
What is particularly interesting is that both types of love deactivate
brain regions associated with the assessment of negative emotions and
social judgments. What this means is that deactivation makes mothers
and lovers unconcerned with negatives associated with the loved one
that others may perceive. To any mother her child is always the cutest,
and to any lover the beloved is perfection personified. Both view the
objects of their love through rose-tinted glasses. These imperceptions
are not a willful disregard for the facts, but is rather a function of crafty
Mother Nature turning the common sense dimmer switch way down;
love is indeed “winged Cupid painted blind,” as Shakespeare wrote in
A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Serotonin-based deactivation may be
the reason that serotonin-enhancing antidepressants such as Prozac
interferes with the physical capacity of love by raising serotonin. Folk

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wisdom has always told us that love is blind, and now science has yet
again vindicated the wisdom of ages.
Poets and philosophers may be aghast that neuroscientists have
discovered the biological basis for romantic love is a chemical soup
sparking up the brain’s pleasure centers, and you can bet that you’ll
never see a Hallmark Valentine’s card embossed with detailed diagrams
of the limbic system. Yet I believe that these discoveries in no way
reduce the wonder of love as it is experienced, and they even add new
wonders to it. Only incurable romantics who believe Wordsworth’s
assessment that science “destroys the beauteous form of things” would
see this as reducing the awesome whole of love to the “mere” soup and
sparks of brain activity. Let us acknowledge that brain scans do not
even come close to explaining why Romeo fell for Juliette. The brain
processes revealed by neuroscience, while necessary to experience
the wonders of love, did not cause Romeo to become love struck;
they only describe what happened in his brain when he did. Why he
fell in love is better explained at higher levels. I still maintain there
is more, not less, wonder in these brain scan studies of love because
as Bartels and Zeki opine, they bring us closer: “to understanding the
neural basis of one of the most formidable instruments of evolution,
which makes procreation of the species and its maintenance a deeply
rewarding and pleasurable experience, and therefore ensures its sur-
vival and perpetuation.”11
Attachment: The Sky Blue Flame of Life
With apologies to Octavio Paz for building on his metaphors, I want
to explore what happens the flame of mad passion is turned down to
a low intensity sky blue. Sky blue love has many aliases. Fisher calls it
attachment, but others have felt free to call it companionate love, being-
love, commitment, mature love, true love, or the horribly clinical yet
instructive phrase “communal responsiveness.” This phase of love may
or may not emerge when the elevated dopamine and norepinephrine
and the decreased serotonin neuroscientist observed befuddling our
brains during the attraction phase return to their normal set-points,
which typically occurs in everyone after about a year, give or take a
few months either way.12 Shakespeare realized this long ago when he
had King Claudius say in Hamlet: “There lives within the very flame of
love, A kind of wick or snuff that will abate it.”The brain areas involved
in making rational judgments also get reactivated, and sometimes

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that person you thought was a beautiful butterfly morphs into an ugly
bat as all his or her faults and foibles suddenly become apparent. It’s
easy to fall in romantic love because it’s involuntary limbic magic, but
attachment love is something you grow into rather than fall into as a
couple’s experiences intertwine over the years.
If we believe that this crazy helter-skelter phase of romantic love is
all that there is to love, in our culture of self-absorption we may feel
entitled to abandon the former object of our desire and seek a new
source of natural chemical pleasure. This is perfectly normal; no one
is saying that couples who “do not love one another” once the rational
brain is reactivated and the partner is judged unsuitable. The tragedy
about all this emerges if children are involved. To many young folks
today have the notion that “true love” never fades, and when theirs does,
they leave that person and go searching for their “real” true love. Many
a relationship that may have evolved into a sky blue heaven has been
discarded because the parties have a fairy-tale belief in the eternity of
passion. It would be wonderful (but quite unromantic) if all couples
were instructed before they get married about the neurochemistry
of love. They would learn that what they are feeling in the attraction
phase cannot possibly last (it’s a biological impossibility), and so there
had better be other reasons to commit themselves to one another, such
as liking as well as loving the other person. Liking is a rational and
emotional motive rather than an entirely emotional motive for moving
toward and sharing one’s life with another person.
If one likes as well as loves one’s bonded partner, the attachment
phase will eventually emerge. With maturity and familiarity, the quiet
security of companionate love may be found to be emotionally more
satisfying than the mad, gonadal helter-skelter of the attraction phase,
just as they come to prefer the harmonious beauty of Beethoven over
the crotch raw cacophony of Bon Jovi, although this doesn’t mean
that attached lovers can’t indulge in a little Bon Jovi from time to
time. Attachment is underlain by a different suite of chemicals—the
neuropeptides oxytocin and vasopressin. If the chemical cocktail
associated with attraction is a mixture of natural cocaine-like stimu-
lants, the chemicals associated with the attachment phase are natural
morphine-like substances that soothe and calm rather than excite and
stress. These neuropeptides help to cement the male-female bond
and synchronize their limbic systems so that there will be “communal
responsiveness” in the relationship. This stage transports both partners
back in time to experience the kind of contentment with each other that
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both felt in their respective mother’s arms because their bond shares
the exact same neural substrates of the mother-infant bond. But just
because this phase of love is more rational than the previous two does
not mean that passion is no longer a part of it. Absence is like the wind;
it fans the fire of a great love just as it douses the fire of a small love, so
a few weeks, or even days, apart can make long-term lovers anticipate
their reunion with warm loins.
Long-term marriages are often the butt of sarcastic puns by those
who cannot believe such things can happen: “Sir, a fiftieth wedding
anniversary is like a dog’s walking on his hind legs. It is not done
well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.” Samuel Johnson,
actually made this observation about a women preaching the gospel,
but given his cynical views about marriage noting earlier, he may well
have found this additional use for it. Although it is true that passion
inevitably dims over time, it does not necessarily die in long-term
relationships.
This fact was brought home by a brain scan study of men and women
married for an average of 21.4 years who responded to a newspaper
advertisement asking: “Are you still in madly in love with your long-term
partner?”13 The study showed that these people all showed patterns of
neural activity similar to those in early-stage romantic love when they
were presented with pictures of their partners as opposed to pictures of
a close long-term friend, a highly familiar acquaintance, and a person
of low familiarity. Brain areas related to attachment/bonding were also
activated, so these long-term lovers got the best of both the stimulant
and soothing cocktails. This and many other lines of evidence leads
me to happily agree with psychologist Jonathon Haidt’s assessment
of the relative intensities of attraction (which he calls passionate love)
and attachment (companionate love). He says that companionate love
looks weak when compared with the intensity of passionate love if we
make the comparison on a six-month time frame: “But if we change
the time scale from six months to sixty years. . . .it is passionate love
that seems trivial—a flash in the pan—while companionate love can
last a lifetime.”14
Figure 12.1 is a picture summing up the variety of chemistry involved
in Fisher’s three-stage model of love. The only molecule we have not
discussed are the pheromones, which are olfactory signals sent out
by many species of animal to entice mates. The reason we have not
discussed them is that the existence of these fragrant come-hithers in
humans is contested.
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 Love

Figure 12.1. Chemical basis of love.

Love and Addiction

Romantic love is the strongest of all positive emotions experienced
by human beings. When it strikes us, we become different people.
Our perceptions are drastically altered, the world revolves around
the beloved, and little else besides him or her seems to matter very
much. The classic symptoms of love when gonads are on “Go!” include
a tunneled obsession with the lover, flushed skin, heart palpitations,
sweating, and heavy breathing. If love is returned, the world seems to
be a finer place, we smile at strangers, we search for superlatives to
describe the beloved, and foreign phrases and pet names gush forth:
“Szeretlek teljes szívemből my Nampa Nymph”; “Je t’aime de tout mon
cœur, chère Grace.” In the honeymoon phase we discover reservoirs of
poetic expression. Rivers no longer simply flow, but court and lap the
shores; mountains, once unnoticed, now stretch their peaks to embrace
the heavens, and trees fondle one another with their sinuous boughs.
Sheer euphoria threatens to turn us into giggling schoolchildren at the
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same time that it makes us feel more confident, competent, attractive,

capable, hopeful, and optimistic. We feel boundless energy within, and
we feel less need for food, sleep, and our other ordinary pleasurable
diversions.
If this all sounds like a person in the early stages of drug addiction,
that’s because love can be very similar to a drug addict’s incessant search
for another fix. Stimulant drugs such as cocaine and methamphetamine
are just artificial versions of dopamine and norepinephrine and have
much the same effect as love—love is a natural high. Whether we fall
in love or take a stimulant drug, the upshot is increased limbic activity
in the form of increased neurotransmitter activity. We have seen that
natural selection has built these neurological reward systems into
organisms that are activated whenever they perform actions necessary
for survival and reproductive success. Moving toward that one spe-
cial person is certainly one way of doing this. Unfortunately, we soon
develop tolerance for the effects of these natural brain chemicals the
same way that drug addicts develop a tolerance for man-made drugs.
Each of Fisher’s phases of love can lead to a literal addictive state if
we define addiction as a compulsive need for a substance, a thing, or a
person and which is characterized by tolerance and painful physiological
and emotional symptoms upon withdrawal from that substance, thing,
or person. We don’t like to think of love in terms of addiction, but it has
been characterized as “just about the most common, yet least recognized
form of addiction.”15 Probably all readers have heard of Alcoholics Anon-
ymous, and perhaps other similar groups such as Narcotics Anonymous
and Gamblers Anonymous, but few people are familiar with the more
than one thousand Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous (SLAA) groups
that exist across the United States. As you might have guessed, most men
attend with sex (lust) addiction and most women for love (attraction
and attachment) addiction.16 According to the love addiction website:

Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous, or S.L.A.A., is a Twelve Step,

Twelve Tradition oriented Fellowship based on the model pioneered
by Alcoholics Anonymous. S.L.A.A. is open to anyone who knows
or thinks they have a problem with sex addiction, love addiction,
romantic obsession, co-dependent relationships, fantasy addiction
and/or sexual, social and emotional anorexia.

Sex addiction, or compulsive seeking of sexual partners, is a condition in

which people are unable to control their sexual urges and thoughts. It goes
by many other names such as hypersexuality, erotomania, satyriasis (for
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men), and nymphomania (for women). As with all addictions, sex

addiction can ruin lives. With so many sexually transmitted infec-
tions around, particularly the HIV virus, it can take lives as well. As
with all addictions, sex addiction appears to be an imbalance of the
approach-avoidance (dopamine vs. serotonin) system. Studies looking
at the dopamine system find that people with a version of the dopa-
mine transporter gene (DAT1) called the 10-repeat have more sex
partners (and engage in more risky behavior in general) than people
with shorter repeat versions. This is so because the DAT1 version
clears dopamine from the synapse faster than other versions, leading
them to crave more stimuli to activate their reward systems than other
people.17 Other studies looking at the dopamine receptor gene D4 find
that people with the long 7-repeat version are relatively insensitive to
dopamine than those with shorter repeat versions, and they too have
a tendency to promiscuously seek out more partners in order to gain
the same degree of pleasure from dopamine than those with shorter
versions find with fewer or one partner.18
These genetic variants do not make such people addicts; they are
simply risk factors for addiction to many things. Over time, many
people carrying these genetic variants find a marked decrease in the
rewarding aspects of their drug of choice, resulting in the need to
increase the intensity of their involvement with the substance, behav-
ior, or person to achieve the same effect. This is common among drug
addicts and alcoholics and is called tolerance. Tolerance is caused by
epigenetic remodeling of the brain in drug addicts,19 and may possibly
be what happens to sex addicts as well, leading them to search for ever
more sex partners and/or excessive masturbation and pornography
consumption, all of which fails, as Macbeth’s Malcolm would attest,
to “fill the cistern of my lust.” Many sex addicts also report feelings
of anxiety, depression, and restlessness during periods of abstinence,
which is what we call “withdrawal” when such feelings occur among
substance abusers, although there are no reported serious physiological
symptoms attached to sex withdrawal.20
Sex addicts will rarely find themselves in the attraction phase,
but this phase also has its share of addicts. In the attraction phase,
romance is the kind of elaborate fantasy found in the formula stories
of Harlequin romance novels filled with melodrama in which the hero
is always handsome and dashing, risking life and limb to protect and
serve the poor and abused heroine. Each new encounter is greeted with
the euphoria of impossible expectations, and when they are not met
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the romance addict moves on looking for a new swain to stoke the
furnace of desire. If the addict is not ready to end the relationship, she
(it’s usually a “she” in this case, as per SLAA) may feel sadomasochistic
pangs of persecution and resort to stalking (very much a he thing as
well in this case) the love object. Such a person is often “in love” with
the thought of love (or rather with the brain chemistry underlying the
thoughts) rather than the person, and may fall into the infatuated state
very quickly upon meeting a suitable person.
Attraction junkies are so addicted to the attraction experience that
becoming committed (attached) presents an impediment to their
lifestyle they subconsciously would rather avoid. They would rather
avoid it not only because it militates against further attraction expe-
riences but also because they fear attachment. These are the people
who learned during childhood that they couldn’t rely on anyone to be
there when needed. Just as some men may become addicted to por-
nography to help fill the void in their lives, some women may become
addicted to romance novels. Both porn and romance novels are based
on the illusion of perfection. Pornography provides men with images
of super-beautiful, aroused, and constantly willing partners who will
satisfy their every fantasy without the necessity of commitment.
Romance novels often fulfill the emotional relational needs of women
to the point that no real man could ever live up to the scripted per-
fection displayed by powerful, rich, handsome, and dashing heroes of
the novels. If a person comes to believe that the fictional creatures of
porn or romance novels are reality, they will never be satisfied with
real flesh-and-blood relationships for long.
The final love phase is attachment. When this very desirable and
healthy phase turns dysfunctional we call it codependence. Code-
pendency is a state in which one partner goes beyond the normal
kinds of self-sacrificial behavior in a relationship, and the other takes
advantage of it because of his or her need to control the relationship.
A deep attachment to one’s love mate is a necessary and positive thing;
becoming completely dependent for one’s well-being and feeling of self-
worth on one’s lover is not. Such intensity of attachment is patholog-
ical and can turn the person into a possessive, jealous, and untrusting
bore. Husbands refuse to allow their wives any independent social life
and may physically and emotionally abuse them; wives search their
husbands’ pockets and sniff their shirt collars. Even negative evidence
fails to quiet the fear that the spouse will leave him or her for another.
Being paralyzed by anxiety, there is tremendous reluctance to allow
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the spouse any independent life at all, and “love” turns into a stifling,
growth inhibiting oppression.
Nineteenth-century novelist Marie-Henri Beyle (better known by
his nom de plume, Stendhal) sums up what love and its loss means for
the attachment addict after the loss of the love of his beautiful Metilda:
“Love is always haunted by the despair of being abandoned by the
beloved and of being left nothing but a dead blank for the remainder
of life.”21 Being a “dead blank” is the flip side of sex-love addiction
described by the SLAA as “emotional anorexia,” which they define
as “the compulsive avoidance of giving or receiving social, sexual, or
emotional nourishment.” Emotional anorexics have lost their appetite
for intimacy of any kind, which is truly a tragic state to be in. The
Beatles song, You Really Got a Hold on Me, highlights how unhealthy
and unpleasant addictive relationships are with lines such as “I don’t
want you, but I need you” and “I don’t like you but I love you.” These
lines bear striking resemblance to the relationship between cocaine
and its unfortunate addicts. Most of us are saddened by the breakup
of a romantic relationship if that relationship meant anything to us at
all, but if parting threatens leave us “dead blanks” the rest of our lives,
we had better reassess our relationships and ourselves.
Notes
1. Turgenev, I., Spring Torrents, 100.
2. See Fisher, Aron, and Brown, Romantic love, 2005 and Romantic love, 2006.
3. Sternberg, R., A triangular theory of love.
4. Fisher, Aron, and Brown, Romantic love, 2006, 2173.
5. Quoted in Perel, E., Octavio Paz, The Double Flame.
6. Marazziti and Baroni, Romantic love.
7. Emanuele, et al., Raised plasma nerve growth factor levels.
8. Cacioppo, et al., The common neural bases, 1052.
9. Esch and Stefano, Love promotes health.
10. Bartels and Zeki, The neural correlates of maternal.
11. Ibid., 1164.
12. Fisher, H., Why we love.
13. Acevedo, Aron, Fisher, and Brown, Neural correlates of long-term.
14. Haidt, J., The happiness hypothesis, 127.
15. Peel and Brodsky, Love and addiction, 17
16. Reynaud, Karila, Blecha, and Benyamina, Is love passion.
17. Beaver, Wright, and Walsh, A gene-based Evolutionary explanation, and
Guo, Tong, and Cai, Gene by social context interactions.
18. Garcia, J., et al., Associations between dopamine D4 receptor gene.
19. Walsh, Johnson, and Bolen, Drugs, crime, and the epigenetics of hedonic.
20. Grant, J., et al., Introduction to behavioral addictions.
21. Stendhal, On love, 160.

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 13
Love Styles: How Do You
Love Me?
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning, nineteenth-century English poet

The Colors of Love

Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s famous Sonnet 43 expresses the intense
love she feels for her soon-to-be husband, Robert Browning. In the son-
net she describes loving Robert in so many different ways—erotically,
passionately, possessively, purely, maternally, manically, and with an
intensity that it rises to the spiritual. Elizabeth is rummaging around
in her heart to search for the different ways she loves Robert, and
counting them in a way only a poet can. She claims to love him in all
possible ways at once, but then, she is classified as a romantic poet. Yet
she was quite right; there are different ways of loving that special one.
Just as people differ in their styles of working, playing, and a hundred
other things, they differ in the styles of loving. While love is first and
foremost a deeply felt emotion, there are different ways of experiencing
and expressing it. People may operate from any or all of these styles at
different times of their lives and with different partners.
Based on an extensive review of the fictional and nonfictional liter-
ature containing statements relating to love, and on his own extensive
interviews, Canadian sociologist John Lee arrived at six different ori-
entations to love, or love styles. There are three primary and three sec-
ondary love styles identified in his book, Colours of Love.1 His primary
styles are Eros, Ludus, and Storge. These three styles can be combined
to form secondary styles, just like secondary colors can be obtained by
mixing primary colors. The three secondary styles are Mania (a mix-
ture of Eros and Ludus), Pragma (a mixture of Storge and Ludus), and
Agape (a mixture of Eros and Storge). These styles are “pure types,” with

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most people loving with a palate of different color combinations. Love

is such a weave of paradoxes that any shade of any color we can come
up with to describe this sublime symphony of emotions is possible.
Eros: Electric Love
Eros is the style we typically think of as romantic love, and is named
after Eros, the Greek god of love (Cupid for the Romans). Some sources
refer to him as a primordial God while others refer to him as the son of
Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love and beauty. Erotic lovers “imprint”
very quickly on the physical attributes of others and they are likely to
be “love-at-first-sighters.” They immerse themselves in the life of the
beloved, are ever ready to reveal their souls and expect the same in
return. They are usually self-assured enough to make themselves vul-
nerable by self-disclosure and wish to make themselves and their lovers
transparent. Eros lovers develop a great deal of emotional rapport and
tend not to be overly possessive and jealous (an indication of their self-as-
surance). The erotic lover wants sex very early in the relationship, since
there is a great desire to possess the physically attractive attributes that
caused the emotional Stunn und Drang. As Lee put it himself, the erotic
lover is “eager to know the beloved quickly, intensely—and undressed.”2
Eros is the most commonly endorsed style by both men and women
in the United States and around the world.3 Erotic lovers love passion-
ately, but transiently. Lee found that the purer the person conformed
to the erotic love style the less likely he or she would be involved in
a lasting relationship. Across a wide variety of studies from around
the world based on Lee’s model, it is generally, but not always, found
that males are more likely than females to endorse this love style. It is
also found that the more stereotypically masculine the males are, the
more they endorsed erotic love. Consistent with the estheticism and
romanticism of this type of lover, erotic lovers were much more likely
than any of the other types to hold the attitude that sexual intercourse
is “a form of human communication and the joining of two persons in
close physical and spiritual harmony.”4
Romeo and Juliet are the archetypal erotic lovers. Romeo’s descrip-
tion of love covers many metaphors. It is a wispy thought that can either
be blown away or created by the “fume of sighs”; love can sparkle, but
purged by tears, it is bittersweet and can drive one mad.

Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs,

Being purged, a fire sparkling in lover’s eyes,

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Being vexed, a sea nourished with loving tears.

What is it else? a madness most discreet,
A choking gall, and a preserving sweet.

We see the deep emotional intensity in both Romeo and Juliet’s per-
sonalities, and we also see the fickleness and transiency in Romeo as he
quickly abandons the pursuit of the chaste Rosaline when he sees the
beautiful Juliet. Although supposedly in love with Rosaline (but dis-
couraged by her vow of chastity), Romeo spots Juliet at a party “across
the crowed room” and is instantly besotted, and Rosaline vanishes
from his mind. Romeo declares that he has never been in love until this
moment. He convinces Juliet that he is a sinner and that only her kiss
can absolve him of it (how’s that for a pick-up line?). Juliet lets him kiss
her, but now reasons that if her lips had taken his sin, it now resides on
her lips, so she must kiss him again (a great comeback!), and the pair fall
madly in love. Juliet, who is clearly smitten, tips us off to Romeo’s love
style when she observes his tendency fall in love with love itself rather
than with a real person, and wants to nudge him into loving just her.
An interesting study conducted by Peter Jonason and Phillip Kava-
nagh linking what is termed “the dark triad”—narcissism, Machia-
vellianism, and psychopathy—to Lee’s love styles found that the Eros
style was the only one not linked to any of those nasty traits. Males
scored significantly higher on psychopathy than females, but no sex
differences were found on the other two traits. Once again Eros was
found to be the most endorsed love style for both men and women,
but there was no statistically significant difference between the sexes
on this style in this study.5
Part of the romantic process strongly involves physiological arousal
such as increased heart rate, sweatiness, and buckled knees. Catching
a glimpse of your beloved starts your heart racing due to an adrenaline
rush; this is identical to the stress response. A team of scientists led by
Kenta Matsumura studied the cardiovascular responses of study partic-
ipants whose love styles had been previously assessed using John Lee’s
love scales to see if responses differed by love style. To make the results
of this complicated study short and simple; as was hypothesized, sub-
jects scoring the highest on Eros showed the strongest cardiovascular
responses to experimental stimuli. This is exactly what we should expect
from people like Romeo whose hearts are quickly and strongly smitten
by real-life love stimuli—the sights and sounds of an attractive member
of the desired sex. Erotic lovers also had the quickest cardiovascular

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recovery times. That is, erotic lovers’ physiological arousal systems

returned to their normal set points faster than did the systems of those
endorsing other love styles, which is also not surprisingly for a love
style that is often transient—quick to flare, quick to dous.6
Ludus: Lusty Love
The term Ludus comes from the Latin word for play or sport. Ludic
lovers are stuck in Helen Fisher’s lust phase and never move on, view-
ing love as a game—“anyone for love?” Unlike the erotic lover who is
deeply, if often briefly, committed, the ludic lover may play the game of
love with several partners simultaneously in order to minimize com-
mitment. According to Lee: “The degree of involvement is carefully
controlled, jealousy is eschewed, and relationships are often multiple
and relatively short-lived.”7 The enjoyment for the ludic lover is not so
much the prize as the pursuit. They do not reveal the self as do erotic
lovers; sex is for fun not for emotional fulfillment. Given the nature of
the game as they play it, it’s not surprising that ludic lovers are rarely
possessive or jealous. Extreme 1udics tend to report less happy lives
than average and that their childhood experiences weren’t that great.
A man or woman who falls for a ludic lover, and many do fall prey to
their carefully cultivated charm and sexual expertise, is destined for
heartache. It has been repeatedly found that the more masculine the
man the more likely he is to be a ludic lover, and the more feminine a
woman, the less likely she is to be a ludic lover.
The quintessential ludic lover in fiction is the wealthy libertine Don
Juan, who devoted his life to seducing women. Although his name
has become a byword for a selfish cad, in the hands of the French
existentialist philosopher Albert Camus he is turned into a hero.
Don Juan’s desire is to live life to the fullest, to experience as much as
possible before death takes him. Love for him implies quantity rather
than quality: “what counts is not the best living but the most living.”
Don Juan has no thought for the women he seduces; to him they are
merely vehicles to satisfy his passion for life; another notch on his
scarred bedpost. When a woman hopes that she has given him love at
last, he laughs at her and replies: “At last? No, but once more.” Camus
approves, asking “Why should it be essential to love rarely in order to
love much?” Don Juan claims to get the same joy and pleasure from
each woman to seduces, he seeks present happiness with no thought of
the past or future: “Why should he give himself a problem of morality?”
asks Camus. Is he ruthlessly selfish in all this? Camus says “probably,”
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but he has no illusions about love. He knows that passionate love is

short-lived, so he takes that knowledge at face value and quantifies.
Don Juan has chosen his life without illusions of the eternal and he
accepts chastisement as part of the rules of the game.8
There are deep shades of psychopathy in the ludic lover. In the
Jonason and Kavanagh study mentioned earlier, Ludus was linked to all
three traits comprising the dark triad, with psychopathy being linked
most strongly. This love style was found to be significantly and strongly
more characteristic of males than females, as it is in all such studies.
Like the psychopath, the ludic lover appears to lack the ability to form
intimate relationships. He uses women simply to satisfy his urges and
then discards them to their misery. He is a sensation seeker, although
he doesn’t get the same kind of high from love activities as the erotic
lover. He is also disinhibited and very susceptible to boredom, which
is why he moves faster than the erotic lover from woman to woman.
David Rowe provides us with a thumbnail sketch of the traits useful to
the ludic lover to obtain sexual partners and which are also very useful
for anyone who engages in a criminal lifestyle:
A strong sexual drive and attraction to novelty of new sexual part-
ners is clearly one component of mating effort. An ability to appear
charming and superficially interested in women while courting
them would be useful. The emotional attachment, however, must
be an insincere one, to prevent emotional bonding to a girlfriend
or spouse. The cad may be aggressive, to coerce sex from partly
willing partners and to deter rival men. He feels little remorse
about lying or cheating. Impulsivity could be advantageous in a
cad because mating decisions must be make quickly and without
prolonged deliberation; the unconscious aim is many partners, not
a high-quality partner.9

Given this, it is not surprising that the statistical relationship between

the ludic love style and permissive sexual attitudes is by far the highest
of any other style in every study assessing the issue. Criminological
research supports the notion that an excessive concentration on quan-
tity over quality of sex partners is linked to criminal behavior. A review
of studies relating number of sex partners to criminal behavior found
that 50 of 51 studies showed that the greater the number of sexual part-
ners the greater the level of criminal activity, and all 31 studies relating
criminal behavior to the age of onset of sexual activity found that the
earlier the age of onset, the greater the criminal activity.10 Molecular
genetic studies also find significant relationships between sexual and
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criminal behavior. That is, a number of studies find that certain genes,
particularly those involved with the dopamine and serotonin systems,
predict high levels of both criminal behavior and sexual behavior. Cer-
tain variants of genes that lead to less efficient dopamine activity lead
to the need for higher levels of excitement and stimulation to activate
the reward system to the same degree of people with reward systems
more readily activated.11
In the Matsumura study of cardiovascular response and love styles,
cardiac response was negatively related to ludic types, meaning that
they had low levels of cardiovascular response to experimental stimuli.
Since psychopathy has been consistently linked with low arousal of the
autonomic nervous system which controls cardiovascular responses and
empathetic responses (see the discussion of this system in chapter 7) we
have further evidence of the link between ludic lovers and psychopathy.
Storge: Friendly Love
Storge is a Greek word for natural affection, referring typically to family
love, but also to couple-love, as in Fisher’s attachment phase. The storgic
lover makes a good companion; he or she loves peacefully, securely, and
affectionately, but not with much passion or intensity. According to Lee,
storge is “a style based on slowly developing affection and companion-
ship, a gradual disclosure of self, an avoidance of self-conscious passion,
and an expectation of long-term commitment.”12 Storgic lovers seem to
forego Fisher’s attraction phase and slide quickly into the attachment
phase. Sex is not overly important to storgic lovers and tends to take
place quite late in relationship. Marriage between two storgic lovers
has the best chance of lasting according to Lee.
Unlike the ludic, whose lack of passionate intensity is intentional,
the storgic lover does not seem to have the capacity for much passion.
Love evolves slowly for the storgic lover, who does not seem to com-
prehend the tumult of “falling” in love. This is the kind of love that
some refer to as “mature” love, as differentiated from the infatuation,
and passion of some of the other love styles. Storgic lovers yearn for
marriage and the settled existence; the passion of the erotic or the game
playing of the ludic seems uncivilized and immoral to them. No sex
differences are usually found in storgic love, although when they are it
is found that females are more storgic than males. As we would expect,
storgic love is negatively correlated with sexual permissiveness and
sexual game playing. The storgic love style was found to be weakly but
significantly related to narcissism in the Jonason and Kavanagh study.
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This is surprising considering the “other-serving” companionate nature

of this style, but the weak relationship may simply be a reflection of a
healthy “I’m OK” attitude toward the self. On the other hand, since all
styles except Eros were related to narcissism, we shouldn’t make too
much of it.
There are precious few stories of Storge love in literature that can be
used to illustrate this style. This quiet companionate kind of love does
not easily excite the poet or playwright to put pen to paper. The best
literary example of this style is perhaps that of Tevye and Golde in the
musical hit Fiddler on the Roof. This couple had been in an arranged
marriage for twenty-five years when Tevye asks Golde if she loves him.
She initially dismisses the question as foolish, but then confesses that
she does, and says:

Do I love you? For twenty-five years I’ve washed your clothes, cooked
your meals, cleaned your house, given you children, milked the cow.
After twenty-five years, why talk about love right now? I’m your wife!
For twenty-five years I’ve lived with him, fought with him, starved
with him. Twenty-five years my bed is his. If that’s not love, what is?

Amidst all the “biddi biddi bum bums,” it would seem that in love Tevye
was indeed the “Rich Man” he sings about who found a wealth of love
in his wife and five daughters.
Mania: Crazy Love
The term mania comes from the Greek for “madness” or “frenzy.” Manic
love is full of alternating agony and ecstasy. It is the kind of possessive,
obsessive, jealous love that Freud had in mind when he wrote about
neurotic love. As John Lee describes it: “Mania is an obsessive, jealous,
emotionally intense Love Style characterized by preoccupation with the
beloved and a need for repeated reassurance of being loved.”13 No one
has described manic love with more insight than Shakespeare, in Polo-
nius’s account of Hamlet’s experience of love. Hamlet, says Polonius:

Fell into a sadness, then into a fast,

Thence to a watch, thence into a weakness,
Thence into a lightness, and, by this declension,
Into the madness wherein now he raves.

Lee sees manic love as a combination of erotic and ludic love, walking
a tightrope beneath a cauldron of intimacy and detachment. Next to
the erotic lover, the manic lover shows the strongest correlation with
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the “sex as communion” attitude. This indicates that manic lovers feel
the same intimacy as the erotic lover, but they are more jealous and
more readily crushed by disappointment. The manic lover seeks con-
stant reassurances of love and fidelity: “Tell me that you love me!”
“Where have you been?” “Is there someone else?” They lack confidence
and self-esteem, being the only style with significant negative self-
esteem. Manic lovers are the kind of individuals who will fall in love
with people whom they know will leave them unsatisfied and hurt. The
wife who does not leave an abusive husband and the husband who is
insanely jealous are examples of manic love in action.
Manic love is sometimes found to be significantly related to fem-
ininity in studies based on Lee’s love styles, but never with mascu-
linity. This provides some confirmation for other data indicating that
women are more likely to indulge in the euphoria of love but they
also experience greater degrees of depression when love goes awry.
Psychiatrist Donald Klein coined the phrase hysteroid dysphoria to
describe his patients who are extremely manic in their orientation to
love to emphasize the hysteric and dysphoric ups and downs of the
manic lover’s experience. Klein treats his manic patients with drugs
that inhibit an enzyme called monoamine oxidase (MAO). MAO
degrades serotonin at the synapse, thus MAO inhibitors function to
maintain normal levels of serotonin at the synapse by preventing its
destruction. Just like SSRIs, these drugs have the effect of relieving
depression, reducing the patient’s sensitivity to rejection, and reducing
the craving for romantic entanglements.14
The tragic and unnecessary deaths of Romeo and Juliet illustrate
mania. Our obsessive lovers consummate their secret marriage in
Juliet’s bedchamber. Her father—who disapproves of Romeo and is
ignorant of her daughter’s marriage to him—wants her to marry some-
one “more suitable” and threatens to disown her when she refuses. To
escape from this dilemma, Juliet arranges to take a drug that will put
her to death-like coma for “two and forty hours,” and sends a message
to Romeo informing him of her plan so that they can be together when
she awakens. Her apparently dead body is discovered by her family
and taken to the family crypt. Romeo does not receive the message,
and believing her to be dead he drinks poison after uttering his final
praises to his one true love:
How oft when men are at the point of death
Have they been merry, which their keepers call

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A lightning before death! Oh, how may I

Call this a lightning?—O my love, my wife!
Death, that hath sucked the honey of thy breath,
Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty.

When Juliet awakes she finds him dead and kills herself with his dagger,
indicating her own mania and the terrible power of love to destroy
when it strikes the unstable, and few creatures are more unstable and
likely to commit suicide than love-struck teens.
In the Matsumura study, the mania love style was positively related to
cardiovascular responses at the same level as it was with erotic lovers,
but unlike erotic lovers, manic lovers’ physiological systems were slow
to recover. In fact, manic lovers’ stress-response systems were slower
to return to their normal set points than were individuals endorsing
any other love style. This goes a long way to explaining their lack of
confidence in themselves, their neuroticism, and their high levels of
generalized anxiety.

Pragma: Practical Love

Pragma is the Greek term for pragmatism. As the term implies, prag-
matic lovers are rational lovers who carefully seek compatibility in love.
They are likely to choose only partners with similar backgrounds, and
ones who enjoy the same kind of activities. Lee considers the pragmatic
lover as a mix of storgic (the need for a comforting similarity) and ludic
(a conscious manipulation to find the “right” partner) love styles. Lee
tells us that pragmatic lovers take into account “conscious consideration
of vital statistics about a suitable beloved. Education, vocation, religion,
age, and numerous other demographic characteristics of the potential
beloved are taken into account in the search for a compatible match.”15
Once the right partner has been found, intense love can develop,
especially with another pragmatic type. Marriage between two prag-
matics tends to last, and we can view this as a vindication of sorts of
the old custom of arranging marriages based on rational criteria, such
as that of Tevye and Golde. Femininity, but not masculinity, is often
found to be significantly related to pragmatic love, which conforms to
the notion that female reproductive strategy requires a woman to be
more discriminating in love than males. Pragmatic love was signifi-
cantly negatively correlated with attitudes of sexual permissiveness.
The pragmatic love style was related to narcissism in the Jonason and
Kavanagh study. Unlike narcissism’s relationship to storge, this is not

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surprising since this cerebral love style loves with the head more than
the heart, and may see the attraction for one’s partner as a function of
his or her usefulness.
The character of Charlotte Lucas in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prej-
udice serves as a good example of the pragmatic love. Charlotte is an
intelligent but plain-looking woman of twenty-five years of age (an “old
maid” by the standards of the time) who desperately wants a husband,
but accepts the reality of her situation. Being the daughter of a knight
(albeit, not a very rich or respected one), she will not accept a social
“demotion” by marrying down the social ladder. On the other hand,
being neither beautiful nor rich, she is unable to attract a wealthy
man of higher social status. She thus can marry neither up nor down,
but only sideways to someone who is her social equal. She settles on
Mr. Collins, who is described by another character in the book as
a “conceited, pompous, narrow-minded, silly man.” Collins is also
“wife-shopping” and has previously been turned down by two attractive
women. Charlotte admits she neither loves nor respects Collins, but
because she wants security and reasons he is her best prospect given
what she has to offer in return. She says: “When you have had time to
think it over, I hope you will be satisfied with what I have done. I am
not romantic, you know; I never was. I ask only a comfortable home;
and considering Mr. Collins’s character, connection, and situation in
life, I am convinced that my chance of happiness with him is as fair as
most people can boast on entering the marriage state.”16 Charlotte’s
marriage supplies a great example of the “exchange and barter” nature
of the mating market—buying what your assets will permit—explored
in the next chapter.
Agape: Selfless Love
Agape is translated as “unconditional love,” and is usually seen as the
love God has for all humanity. Agapic love is the traditional Christian
ideal of selfless and spiritual love; the giving of the self to the loved
one without conditions, or as Lee describes it: “Agape is altruistic love,
given because the lover sees it as his duty to love without expectation
of reciprocity. It is gentle, caring, and guided by reason more than
emotion.”17 Predictably, Lee found no pure agapic types in his study;
few of us are saints. Most studies find that females were significantly
more agapic than males, but some find males to be more agapic.
The character of Queen Penelope of Ithaca in Homer’s Odyssey is a
literary example of Agape love. Penelope is married to King Odysseus
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who, after fighting in the Trojan wars, struggles to return to his kingdom
in Ithaca. The god Poseidon frustrates his journey home at every turn,
so Odysseus’s journey and captivity lasted all of twenty years. During
this period, the patient Penelope—a paragon of marital fidelity—sits
awaiting his return while weaving the burial shroud of her father-in-law,
Laertes. She weaves each day, but secretly unravels it at night. She does
this to allay the constant pressure of her many suitors for her to remarry
on the assumption that Odysseus is dead because she has promised
that she would choose a new husband when she finished the shroud.
Despite the uncertainties surrounding Odysseus’s fate, Penelope
never loses faith in him. She often spent nights weeping and longing
for his return, and when she finally slept, the Goddess Athena reassures
and comforts her in her dreams. After Odysseus returns to Ithaca
disguised as a beggar, Penelope announces that she will hold a contest
in which she say she will marry the suitor who can string Odysseus’s
great bow and shoot an arrow through a dozen axes. This is a trick of
her husband’s. Penelope had recognized the beggar to be Odysseus,
so she knows exactly what she is doing, and realizes that only he could
win the contest. Odysseus strings the bow and completes the task set,
and then proceeds to kill Penelope’s suitors and then he speaks:

So he spoke, and her knees and the heart within her went slack
as she recognized the clear proofs that Odysseus had given;
but then she burst into tears and ran straight to him, throwing
her arms around the neck of Odysseus, and kissed his head.

Odysseus tenderly holds his faithful and ever-loving wife, who has
denied herself all sorts of comforts and pleasures awaiting his return,
in his arms as the lovers are reunited at last.
Putting the Styles Together: Queen Victoria
I want to emphasize once again that these styles of loving are “pure”
types, and that few, if any of us, can be characterized as following a
single type with all lovers. If we always operated with the same style we
would not experience that state of affairs known as “mixed emotions.”
Any relationship between human beings is a chemical mix that may
blend or explode. Although we all have a primary style of loving, we can
experience other styles, depending on our partners’ styles and when
during our lives we experience them. We can experience different styles
simultaneously or sequentially. For instance, a naval officer may select
a wife pragmatically according to her “suitability” as a navy wife. He
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may love her storgically and genuinely while simultaneously carrying

on a number of ludic affairs with other women. One of his affairs may
be with a manic female whose passionate attachment to him results
in him becoming a romantic erotic. With “mixed emotions,” he may
pragmatically sever the relationship after a while because a divorce
may affect his promotion opportunities and/or because he decides
to sacrifice his own romantic interests for the sake of his wife’s. That
would involve an element of agape.
From this brief discussion of love styles we see that love means dif-
ferent things to different people, and it means different things to the
same persons at different times of their lives. As a young man I was
extremely into erotic relationships and my secret desire as I sailed the
seven seas was to bed a woman from as many countries as possible.
Today I am the epitome of the storgic lover—100 percent devoted to
my wife. Understanding this should help us to understand and perhaps
modify our expectations of love and of our partners. We have a tendency
to believe that the way we feel and act toward love is the way everyone
feels and acts (or should). We feel hurt when our lovers conform to their
own love styles rather than to ours. It would be a lot more comfortable
psychologically if we all loved alike, but a lot less interesting.
No better real-life example of how many of Lee’s love styles can be
combined over a lifetime could be found in the life of a woman who
defined the age we think of as the epitome of prudishness—that of
Queen Victoria of Great Britain for her consort Price Albert. Romeo’s
description of love we saw earlier illustrates all the meeting points of the
emotions of a lifetime of love—sweetness, calmness, bitterness, mania,
devotion, and melancholy—displayed in Victoria and Albert’s royal
relationship. The great devotion this couple had toward each other has
always been known, but Victoria’s recently released diaries (all 43,000
pages in 141 journals) reveal that theirs was one of the great love sto-
ries in history.18 She was just eighteen years old when she became the
queen of the largest empire in world history, and at the age of twenty
she married Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
The pragmatic style of love was a necessary part of the marriage
arrangement, since any potential paramour had to be suitably blue-
blooded. Albert suited her in every way, and she wrote to thank her
uncle, who introduced the pair, “for the prospect of great happiness
you have contributed to give me, in the person of dear Albert . . . He
possesses every quality that could be desired to render me perfectly

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 Love Styles

happy. He is so sensible, so kind, and so good, and so amiable too. He

has besides the most pleasing and delightful exterior and appearance.”
Eros was very much present in their love. Victoria recounts their
passionate wedding night by writing in her journal: “It was a gratify-
ing and bewildering experience. I never, never spent such an evening.
His excessive love and affection gave me feelings of heavenly love and
happiness. He clasped me in his arms and we kissed each other again
and again.” Nine children issued from their healthy passion, all of whom
married into European royalty. It is for this reason that Victoria became
known as “the grandmother of Europe.”
The storgic aspect of their relationship is evidenced by their mutual
engagement in all monarchial affairs, and they were rarely out of each
other’s company. Although Albert was officially her secretary, their
relationship was one of man and wife rather than superior and subordi-
nate; it is said that Victoria never did anything without his loving advice.
Indeed, she submitted to him on many things, as was the traditional
way of man and wife in those times.
A touch of the manic style was evident in Victoria when Prince
Albert died in 1861. Victoria was utterly devastated and never showed
her face in public for three years thereafter. Victoria loved Albert so
utterly and felt his death so strongly that she refused to wear anything
but mourning black for the remaining forty years of her life. To many
her mourning was a sign of pure love and devotion, but Victoria may
have been the kind of attachment addict that Stendhal described in
chapter 11, for it did seem that Albert’s death left her a “dead blank
for the remainder of life.”
Finally, we see agape in the way they loved; each attempting to make
the other to be the best person they could be. Upon Victoria’s death
in 1901, her coffin was taken to the Mausoleum which she had built
for her beloved Albert upon his death. Above the mausoleum’s doors,
Queen Victoria had inscribed: “Farewell most beloved. Here at length
I shall rest with thee, with thee in Christ I shall rise again.” Thus they
were united once more in eternity.
Notes
1. Lee, J., A typology of styles of loving.
2. Lee, J., Love styles, 50.
3. Sprecher, S. and M. Toro-Morn, A study of men and women.
4. Bailey, Hendrick, and Hendrick, Relation of sex and gender role, 641.
5. Jonason, P. and P. Kavanagh, The dark side of love.
6. Matsumura, Yamakoshi, and Rolfe, Love styles and cardiovascular responder.

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7. Lee, J., 1977, p. 174.

8. Camus, A., 1955, pp. 45–53.
9. Rowe, D., 2002, 62–63.
10. Ellis, L. and A. Walsh, 2000.
11. Beaver, Wright, and Walsh, 2008.
12. Lee, J. A typology of styles of loving, 175.
13. Ibid., 175.
14. In Liebowitz, M., The chemistry of love, 179.
15. Ibid., Lee, 175.
16. Austen, J., 1 Pride and prejudice, 111.
17. Ibid., Lee, 175.
18. Queen Victoria’s diaries; online at www.queenvictoriasjournals.org.

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 14
Monogamy and Promiscuity
Promiscuity is like never reading past the first page.
Monogamy is like reading the same book over and over.
—Mason Cooley, professor of American literature

Men and Women; Honey and Bees

Psychoanalyst Theodor Reik has written that his years of clinical
practice led him to the conclusion that “love does not mean the same
thing to men and women . . . sexuality has a different emotional place
in their lives.”1 On the whole, men tend to seek sex, both intimate and
impersonal, with multiple partners. The female strategy, on the other
hand, is purportedly to seek that one, special, meaningful relationship
with a particular male. King Mongkut of Siam summed it up for us more
poetically when he sang an old Siamese saying to his English governess
in the hit musical The King and I: “A girl is like a blossom, with honey
for just one man. A man is like a honey bee and gathers all he can.”
Like all broad generalities there are many exceptions to the rule, and
King Mongkut exaggerated more than a tad. In this age of thong bikinis,
twerking booty babes, sexual intercourse called “killing the pussy,” tee-
shirts advising young men to “jump ‘em, pump ‘em, and dump ‘em,” and
guiltless trysts at the Come and Go Motel, the concepts of monogamy
and promiscuity are somewhat passé. Monogamy has become a byword
for old-fashioned bourgeois prudery, and promiscuity has become a
code word for the perpetuation of double standards (When men sleep
around, they’re studs, but when women sleep around, they’re sluts).
The terms monogamy and promiscuity were banned from the lib-
eral lexicon with the first salvos of the sexual revolution fired in the
1960s. The revolution was hailed as freeing women from patriarchy
and granting them the same right to libertine impulses as men. But the
sexual revolution has negative consequences, particularly for women
and the family. Sociologists tell us that “the feminization of poverty” is

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one of these consequences.2 They maintain that while the liberalization

of female attitudes has freed women from the power of men, in doing
so they have also freed men from their traditional roles as fathers
and providers. By assuming more “male-like” attitudes and behaviors
women have lost a great deal of respect among men, who have then
granted themselves permission to follow the tee-shirt advice to pump
and dump. Epidemics of out-of-wedlock births, divorces, fatherless
homes, and sexually transmitted diseases are among the less celebrated
legacies of the sexual revolution.
Even if we value the benefits of monogamy, we should not take its
vow of commitment to mean “forever.” Nathaniel Branden points out
the lack of reality for such an expectation when he asks if we would
view marriage as a lifetime commitment if a couple marrying in their
twenties could expect to live and be healthy and sexually active for five
hundred years.3 Life is a journey, and we can promise to share part of
that journey with another individual, but to promise to share its entirety
is unrealistic. The promise “till death do us part” made sense in times
when death came much earlier. Many men and women may have had
two or three “partings” due to the death of women worn out by pro-
ducing numerous offspring in unsanitary conditions and of men dying
from disease, work accidents, or war. The monogamous marriage is not
a contract of eternal love but rather a child-protection contract. To this
end, the legal aspects of the marital arrangement should be viewed as
morally binding responsibilities and duties, but my decision to love
you is a commitment only to myself. I can promise to appreciate you,
value you, respect you, to bring home the bacon, to defend you against
the world and to love you as a companion, but I cannot, even if it is
now my deepest desire, promise you passionate love into perpetuity.
Male Promiscuity
A rule in biology called Bateman’s principle states that the sex with
the least parental investment and the greatest reproductive variance
will be the most promiscuous. We have already noted that parenting
effort is primarily a female strategy and mating effort is primarily a male
strategy among mammals due to the difference in obligatory parental
investment between two sexes. Males can increase their reproductive
success in proportion to the number of females to which they can gain
sexual access and they have an evolved propensity to seek them in
droves. Males also have the greatest variance in reproductive success;
some males may have hundreds of offspring and others will have zero.
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On the other hand, almost all females will reproduce, but their variance
is much more limited by gestation, lactation, and time. Even if a female
mates with many males while in estrus, the result is still one pregnancy.
History tells us that when powerful males have had the opportu-
nity to run from cave to cave or build harems as temples to lust they
have done so. As the seventeenth-century British poet and dramatist
John Dryden put it: “In pious times ‘ere priest craft did begin, Before
polygamy was made a sin: When man, on many, multiply’d his kind Ere
one to one was, cursedly, confined; When Nature prompted, and no
law deny’d Promiscuous use of concubine and bride.” Dryden’s “nature
prompted,” is a simple matter of genetic logic. Over eons of evolution,
testosterone-pumped and easily aroused males with cheap and plentiful
sperm would have produced more offspring than less horny males, and
thus genes conducive to that behavior would have proliferated in the
human gene pool.
Historical examples of this male tendency abound. For instance,
based on a study of the Y-chromosomes of men from across Asia, the
genetic legacy of the great thirteenth-century Mongol emperor Genghis
Khan is such that about 8 percent of modern Asia’s male population
can be traced to him.4 Genghis Khan and his hoards ravaged Asia in
the tenth century, and the most desirable captive women were handed
over to him to vent his lust; apparently his six wives and five hundred
concubines could not slake his sexual appetite. Then there is Moulay
Ismael the Bloodthirsty, emperor of Morocco from 1672 to 1727. He
has the distinction of siring the most verified number of children in
history with his four wives and five hundred concubines. The record
shows that he had 600 sons and about 517 daughters, although the
exact number of daughters is not known because he had them suffo-
cated at birth.5 This number does not include children he sired prior
to becoming emperor at twenty-five, so he doubtless had more.
The Western world, perhaps because of Dryden’s “priest craft,” can-
not boast anywhere near the huge numbers of Genghis and Ismael, but
not for the want of trying. The legendary Italian Giacomo Girolamo
Casanova is the West’s prototypical womanizer. Casanova appropriated
the aristocratic title “de Seingalt” as an aid to seducing women and
impressing men, and it apparently did both. Most of what is known
about him comes from his Memoirs, written in his old age, a time when
memory fades and imagination runs wild. His writings portray him as
possessed of engaging wit, charm, intelligence, and a distinguished, if
not handsome, face. He claims to have earned a law degree and bedded
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his first wench—“a pretty girl of thirteen” by the age of sixteen. Among
his other claims were that he met and enlightened the best minds of
the age, defeated the finest swordsmen, and broke all the casinos and
half the hymens in Italy and France. He made love without prejudice;
females from nine to seventy and of all classes and marital statuses
fell to his allure, and all, he claims, were eternally grateful. His naming
of 116 of his female conquests adds credence to many of his claims.6
We have our own American prophet of promiscuity in the form of
early Mormon leader Brigham Young. Not having the absolute power
of a Genghis or Ismael or the charm of a Casanova, he had to justify
his harem of 55 wives (with whom he had a “paltry” 56 children)as
divinely ordained. In The Deseret News of August 6, 1862, Young called
monogamy “a system established by robbers” (the Catholic Church)
and explained why polygyny is righteous: “Why do we believe in and
practice polygamy? Because the Lord introduced it to his servants in a
revelation given to Joseph Smith, and the Lord’s servants have always
practised it. And is that religion popular in Heaven? It is the only pop-
ular religion there.” Brigham Young’s fondness of the fair sex led to a
witty play on his name: “Bring ‘em young, bring ‘em old; just bring ‘em!”
Evidence of the male propensity to alight on many blossoms is
everywhere, even if they possess none of advantages of church, state,
or talents enjoyed by the Genghises, Ismaels, Casonovas, and Youngs
of the world. In cultures that allow males to take additional wives, those
whose finances permit it do so. Even in cultures where monogamy is the
legal norm, such as the United States, national data reveal that as many
as 40 percent of married males and 25 percent of married females admit
to extramarital copulation sometime in their marriages.7 As we scan
these figures we should not take them as indicating there is little differ-
ence between the sexes in their inclinations to engage in extramarital
sex. Women have a great advantage over men because they can obtain
sex simply by smiling seductively at almost any man. The availability of
willing males makes the acquisition of sex unproblematic for females
who desire it. If they don’t take advantage of easy opportunities then
it is because they don’t want to. On the other hand, males are often
prevented from having affairs because of a relative lack of opportunity,
not a lack of desire, because their desire frequently runs up against the
wall of female reluctance and discriminating tastes.
The erotic media tell us a lot about sex differences of interest in
impersonal sex. The semierotic magazines Viva and Playgirl (both now
defunct) were introduced at the behest of feminists who assumed that
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their sisters had a buried yearning to view naked beefsteak the way men
have a yearning to ogle naked cheesecake. However, most females found
these knockoffs of Playboy and Hustler about as stimulating as queuing
for pig’s liver at a Russian butcher shop. As William Gairdner explains:
“By 1976, after only two years on the market, Viva had eliminated male
nudes, and Playgirl had to backpedal on its content vigorously to stay
alive because it was discovered it was being purchased mostly by gay
men who were abandoning it for more explicitly gay material.”8
The introduction of male strip shows was also hailed as evidence
that women are as interested in viewing males wiggling their butts as
men to see bouncing female flesh. But a number of observers have
noted that these shows are more of a belly laugh and political state-
ment than a groin tickler and need statement. John Townsend writes:
“Strip shows for women attempt to create a fun, political atmosphere
in which women can defy social conventions and feel liberated by the
experience. The female audience is more amused than aroused by the
show, and the camaraderie and interaction with their female compan-
ions is more important than the interaction with the male dancers.”9
Similarly, it is often pointed out that the female ability to work night
after night in massage parlors without experiencing sexual arousal as
evidence of the continued influence of evolutionary selection for the
careful female sexual strategy.10 Needless to say, males would be highly
aroused by this sort of impersonal visual and tactile kneading of female
flesh. None of this, of course, explains why there a numerous females
who do not save their honey for just one man, which leads us to ask why.
Evidence of Promiscuity in Ancestral Hominids
It has long been known that sexual selection shaped animal bodies,
brains, traits, and behaviors, and that these provide vital cues about
the sexual histories of a species. Large differences in size between the
sexes reflect male energy dedicated to muscle-and harem-building,
decorative males reflect female mate choice and male energy devoted
to building these decorations. It is only over the past fifty years or so
that sexual selection theory has been applied to the evolution of male
genitalia and sperm.
Among promiscuous chimpanzees, males have evolved massive
testicles to manufacture greater gobs of sperm than the next guy so
they can have as many runners as possible in the race to fertilize the
female. They also have sperm that solidifies in the vagina that acts like
a plug to thwart late starters in the race. All the female has to do is
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keep bending over and hope that the best chimp wins. Chimp females
do their unconscious part to help the best chimp (or rather his sperm)
win also. In common with other promiscuous species, female chimps
have evolved a lengthy oviduct that carries eggs from the ovaries to
the uterus. Length presents a more challenging race course for sperm
and helps to assure that the fittest of them will make their way first to
the egg.11
We saw in chapter 4 that a mighty gorilla has tinier penis than an
80-pound chimp; he also has much smaller testes. The reason why is
that mating competition among gorillas is precopulatory rather than
postcopulatory. Gorillas follow a polygynous mating strategy in which
alpha males guard their harem of females from other males by their
reputation for strength and ferocity. Other males in the troop have
no access to females unless they can defeat the alpha or sneak the
odd shag while his back is turned. Gorillas therefore have not needed
to evolve large testicles to manufacture large quantities of sperm in
postcopulatory battles.
Besides the chimpanzees “plug it up” strategy, there are other meth-
ods of sperm competition, such as sperm scooping. Sperm scooping is
the postcopulatory competitive process that takes place between the
spermatozoa of two or more males for the prize of fertilization. It has
been suggested that the human penis was designed, in part, to engage
in scooping, which suggests early hominid promiscuity. Scooping is
accomplished by the coronal ridge, that part of the penis that separates
the head from the shaft. In a paper entitled “The human penis as a
semen displacement device,” researchers describe their use of a variety
of dildos, artificial vaginas, and a homemade sperm recipe to test their
sperm competition hypothesis. The two anatomically correct dildos
they used scooped out 90 percent of the semen, while dildos without
the ridge scooped only 35 percent. An intact foreskin is also useful in
this regard because when the penis is withdrawn, the foreskin bunches
up against the coronal ridge and forms a seal to scoop out more sperm.12
Guys may now adopt another pet name for their favorite toy (“super
scooper”?), although given the “sloppy seconds” images it conjures up,
I don’t think they will.
Human testes are larger than those adorning strictly monogamous
species. This, plus the anatomy of the penis, is evidence of both a polyg-
ynous and promiscuous human evolutionary history. But the fact that
human testes are intermediate in size between a chimp and a gorilla
can be viewed as tending toward monogamy in our later evolutionary
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history. Human female genital anatomy also suggests a more monoga-

mous evolutionary strategy. The female oviduct is relatively short, which
is consistent with low evolutionary pressures for sperm competition.13
The shift toward monogamy in humans occurred within the context
of larger social groups than are found in other primates and our spe-
cies’ behavior and physiology became more involved with combating
infidelity and more toward female choice in mating. This suggests that
ancestral females played their part by selected mates dallied with them
longer and provided more vaginal and clitoral stimulation. This may
have resulted in thicker penises that provides more clitoral stimulation,
and hence the likelihood of an orgasm that facilitates sperm retention
and the fast delivery of it to the cervix. The unstimulated human vag-
inal barrel is an average length of between 2.75 and 3.25 inches from
body surface to cervix; it expands to 4.25 to 4.75 inches when aroused.
Regardless of length, it is the outer one-third that is most important
for most women’s sexual satisfaction. This is in sync with the average
penis length of 5.7 inches (see chapter 4), making penis width more
important to sexual satisfaction than length.14 There may be a lot of
truth to Shakespeare’s aphorism that “Short and thick will do the trick
and bring out better babies.”
Gathering Honey in the United States
Digesting piles of statistical data is typically quite boring for most
people, but always instructive. A 2011 national survey conducted by
the US Department of Health and Human Services of 62,199 men and
61,865 women between the horny age of 15 and 44 and looking at
number of sex partners lent some agreement to the Siamese saying.15
Over all ages, only 15 percent of males reported having just one oppo-
site-sex partner versus 22.2 percent of women. The median number of
partners over all ages for men was 5.1 and for women it was 3.2. For
those unfamiliar with the term, the median is the number that splits
the distribution (arranged from lowest to highest) exactly in half such
that half had few partners and half had more. Just over 23 percent of
men reported 15 or more lifetime partners versus just over 9 percent
of women, so there are a few blossoms that give up their honey to more
than one buzzing bee.
It might be more instructive to look only at the forty to forty-four age
groups, since these folks have enjoyed more seasons in which to gather
nectar. Among the men in that age category, 10.3 percent reported only
one opposite-sex partner, so there are some bees that alight on one
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very special blossom and are content to stay there. Among the women,
22.4 percent of blossoms reported reserving their honey for just one
man. The median number of opposite-sex partners in this age category
was 6.4 for men and 3.4 for women. In this age group, 30 percent of the
men and 8 percent of the women reported 15 or more lifetime oppo-
site-sex partners. Thus among men ludics outnumber pragmas by about
three-to-one (30 percent having 15 or more partners vs. 10.3 percent
having just one), and among women pragmas (22.4 percent with just one)
outnumber ludics (8 percent with 15 or more) by almost the same ratio.
This survey did not assess the love styles of respondents; I inferred
them from their number of reported sex partners. How about going
in the opposite direction and inferring number of sex partners from a
respondent’s love style? One study of 480 college students did this and
found exactly what John Lee’s model predicts.16 The most frequently
endorsed love style was again the erotic style (33.5 percent) and the
least endorsed was ludus (8 percent of males and 3 percent females).
Ludic lovers reported the highest average number of sex partners (24
for males; 17.25 for females), with erotic males and females reporting
an average of 15.7 and 6.1 partners, respectively. Storgic love was most
popularly endorsed style (25.4 percent) after erotic love, with males
reporting an average of 7.48 partners and females 6.23. Agape was
endorsed most strongly by 14.4 percent of the sample, with agapic males
reporting an average of 2.8 partners and females 5.8. Manic lovers (12
males and 22 females) reported average number of partners as 11.8 for
males and 4.0 for females. As expected, pragmatic lovers (12 males and
32 females) reported the lowest number of sex partners, with males
having an average of 1.8 and females an average of 1.0. Although the
ludic and pragmatic styles were the least endorsed, they were the most
clearly defined in terms of sex differences with more than twice as many
males endorsing ludus most strongly and almost three times as many
females endorsing pragma most strongly.
Female Promiscuity
Although the evidence is overwhelming that males are much more
interested in “gathering honey” than females, but the exceptions to
the rule are more fascinating than those who abide by it. We find the
lives of famous promiscuous women such as the Empress Catherine
the Great of Russia or Theodora, Empress of Byzantium, more titillat-
ing than those of the chaste and saintly Blessed Mother Teresa or the
monogamous monarch, Queen Victoria Female promiscuity is thus
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 Monogamy and Promiscuity

something that has to be explained because in most human environ-

ments, female promiscuity is maladaptive. A promiscuous reputation
limits the number of men who are willing to provide long-term invest-
ment for offspring that man not be theirs, or who are willing to risk
future cuckoldry. Female reproductive success rests ultimately on her
ability to secure a mate to assist her in raising her offspring in exchange
for exclusive sexual access, although in some environments she can
increase her reproductive success by mating with multiple partners,
each of whom may contribute resources to the offspring she already has.
Sexual behavior, attitudes, and desires are typically measured by the
Sociosexual Orientation Inventory (SOI). The SOI is a well-validated
nine-item questionnaire used in numerous studies from around the
world and is designed to measure individual’s tendencies to engage in
casual, uncommitted sexual relationships by assessing their behavior
(number of sex partners), attitudes about casual sex, sexual fantasies,
and desire for sexual experiences. Men are invariably found to have
higher scores on the SOI, but the relationship between attitudes and
desires and actual behavior is significantly larger for women. This
reflects what I wrote earlier regarding the ease with which women so
inclined can pursue an unrestricted sex life thanks to many willing
and indiscriminate men, while men are constrained by reluctant and
discriminating women.
High female sociosexuality scores are most consistently found to
be related to masculinity measured in a variety of ways. One study
recruited via separate newspaper advertisements a sample of women
who had at least twenty male sex partners and another with five or fewer
partners. The researchers found that the permissive women recalled a
tomboy childhood, were rated by interviewers as both physically and
behaviorally masculine, had a SOI score more than four times higher
than their more chaste sisters, and even described themselves as mas-
culine. The researchers wrote that “both unrestricted sociosexuality
and masculine gender identity and roles [may be] indicators of an
underlying masculinization of the brain.”17
Another study of high SOI females found indicators of brain mascu-
linization such as superior visuospatial skills vis-à-vis low SOI women
and greater alcohol consumption. Another fairly robust indirect mea-
sure of androgen effects on the developing brain is a high ratio between
the index finger (shorter) than the ring finger (longer), known as the
2D:4D ratio. Females tend to have even ratios, and males tend to have
low ratios; that is, second (index) finger shorter than fourth (ring) finger.
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Figure 14.1. Pornography Use and Various Indicators of Female Sociosexuality

Compared with Males.
Males Females Females
Variable Yes Porn No Porn
Number of sex partners 15.1 9.0 4.6
Degree of desire to be 47.4 37.4 15.6
promiscuous*
Number of orgasms 14.8 12.1 5.8
required per month
Degree to which 53.2 45.2 18.7
addicted to sex*
Strength of sex drive* 74.9 72.1 58.8
Age first thought 12.7 13.5 14.6
about sex
Femininity score* 17.6 64.4 72.6
Masculinity score* 76.7 37.8 16.9
Note that the variables marked by an asterisk were measured on scales ranging from
zero to one hundred.

In this study promiscuous women had, on average, a more male-like

ratio.18 Other studies have found testosterone levels to be higher in
sexually permissive women,19 leading Helmuth Nyborg and Charlotte
Boeggild to opine that testosterone switches women from their “safety
first approach and onto a more masculine approach.”20
Consuming pornography is widely seen as a preoccupation of the
visually inclined male while the romance novel is almost entirely lim-
ited to relationship-oriented females. A woman viewing pornographic
material may thus be more “male-like” in her sexual attitudes and behav-
ior. A study of 89 males and 109 females found that the 24 percent of
females who partook of this genre were considerable more like males on
a number of assessed indicators of sexual interest than to their sisters
who did not. They scored themselves significantly more masculine and
less feminine than other females on and instrument called the Bem
Sex-Role Inventory, and their attitudes, desires, and behavior tended
more strongly in the direction of the males in the sample than in the
direction of the other females. Males, users and nonusers of pornog-
raphy, did not differ on any of the indicators. Figure 14.1, above tells it
all.21 Note that the variables marked by an asterisk were measured on
scales ranging from zero to one hundred.
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Figure 14.2. Pornography use and various indicators of female sociosexuality

compared with males.

Other Explanations
Some women find explanations of female sexual promiscuity couched
in terms of masculinization offensive because it emphasizes the atypical
nature of such promiscuity among women and preserves the double
standard feminists so abhor. It seems, however, that the double stan-
dard is still alive and well among both men and women. According
to a 2014 study, women who go bed-hopping severely compromise
their value as a friend, wife, or girlfriend. Of course, many men will be
attracted to loose women as a short-term sex partner for reasons Mae
West put in her ever witty way: “Men like women with a past because
they hope history will repeat itself.” Nevertheless, college-aged women
judge promiscuous female peers more negatively than more chaste
women, and view them as unsuitable for friendship. This has been
defined as “slut-shaming” and often leads to social isolation which,
according to the authors, “may place promiscuous women at greater
risk for poor psychological and physical health outcomes.” They fur-
ther add that “The acquisition of many sexual partners for a woman
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is not a difficult achievement and is therefore interpreted as resulting

from low self-esteem.”22 From a psychiatric view, Seth Meyers sees
female promiscuity as pathological: “In my clinical work, I find that
a promiscuous individual suffers from low self-esteem and feels that
sex is a way to get attention and to feel noticed. Of course, if someone
feels smart, happy, and loved, they typically will not need to seek out
attention in maladaptive ways.”23
We cannot know if low self-esteem (to the extent that it is true that
female promiscuity is related to it) is a cause or an effect of promiscu-
ity. Some evolutionary theories propose that men and women adopt
different sexual strategies based on childhood experiences. If children
learn that interpersonal relationships are ephemeral and unreliable,
they will tend adopt an unrestricted (promiscuous) strategy. If their
childhood experiences are the opposite, they will tend to adopt a more
restricted strategy. Neither strategy is consciously chosen; it flows from
subconscious expectations based on early experiences of the stability or
instability of interpersonal relationships.24 The theory also proposes that
females exposed to early relationship transience will achieve menarche
earlier, have their first sexual intercourse earlier, and be more likely to
view men as cads rather than dads than girls exposed to family stability.
They will also be less attached to their parents. If a woman sees men
as cads, she will not expect long-term investment and will emphasize
her sexuality to procure short-term investment from a variety of males.
If she sees them as dads, she will emphasize chastity and fidelity. Cli-
nicians have long asserted that promiscuity is linked to poor parental
attachment which leads females to seek sex to satisfy their love and
attention needs, as well as leading to drug and alcohol abuse.25
However, because the traits (age at menarche and at first intercourse,
and nonvirgin status) underlying these strategies are highly heritable,
individuals may vary in their susceptibility to adopt a particular sexual
strategy for genetic reasons rather than childhood experiences. That is,
the negative and ephemeral relationships observed among the sexually
unrestricted may be a consequence of their strategy rather than a cause.
Children receive a suite of genes as well as an environment from their
parents, and the similarity of parent-offspring sexual strategies may
have more to do with shared genes than shared environments.26 People
always behave the way they do for complex genetic and environmental
reasons. The cultural environment is an enabler or constrainer of natu-
ral inclinations. If a person has a strong inclination to be promiscuous
because of high testosterone levels or whatever, he or she requires a
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stronger level of cultural restraint to contain the inclination, or phrased

in the positive, he or she will follow the inclination at a lower level of
cultural permissiveness.
The Big O Revisited
We humans have sex for many reasons, but at its most basic level we
do so because it feels so good and culminates in la petite mort, or what
less poetic Anglos simply call an orgasm. We saw in chapter 10 that
we have an area of the brain called the septum dedicated to providing
us with sexual pleasures, and orgasm is the grand finale. Biologists
argue about the function of the female orgasms. Male orgasm is
required for ejaculation and ejaculation is necessary for fertilization,
but for females the answer is not so straightforward. Females do not
have to have orgasms to get their eggs fertilized, and thus has obvious
functional significance, and many sexologists them as byproducts of
the male orgasm. That is to say, the fact that the penis and the clitoris
are formed from the same genital tubercle and are structurally almost
identical, women can have orgasms simply because men can.27 The
same nerve endings found in the clitoris are found in the penis. But
this does not mean that female sexual pleasure begins and ends at the
clitoris. Erectile tissue is spread throughout the woman’s entire vulvar
area, while for males it is concentrated in the penis.
For any physiological or psychological trait to be considered an evo-
lutionary adaptation it must be shown that it contributed to survival
and reproductive success. There are two main theories explaining how
female orgasm may be functional in terms of resulting in pregnancy
and thus passing on the genes underlying the processes involved. The
“poleaxe” theory posits that the oxytocin released by orgasm results
in a relaxed and sleepy state that makes the lucky lady want to remain
horizontal after sex. Lying down aids the blood-congested vagina to
stop the outflow of semen and helps it to reach their destination more
readily. The other theory is the “upsuck” theory that proposes the
orgasmic contractions (also induced by oxytocin) of the uterus suck up
semen deposited near the cervix through the uterus and fallopian tubes
toward the egg. Either or both theories may be necessary to account
for the evolution of female orgasm, and although the theories are not
mutually exclusive, the upsuck theory is favored by most prominent
researchers in this area.28
What gets lost in these academic squabbles is that women are capable
of greater orgasmic capacity than males. Unlike the penis, which has
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both excretory and reproductive functions to perform, the only func-

tion of the clitoris is sexual pleasure.29 From my perspective it makes
sense that nature should reward women for engaging in behavior that
conforms to her plan. Maternal behavior is rewarded by an increased
propensity for orgasm in many women. Pelvic vasocongestion (swelled
tissue due to increased blood flow in the area) increases with each
pregnancy, and because new blood vessels develop, vasocongestion
is related to the intensity of pleasure that women obtain from coitus.
According to Adele Pillitteri, some women obtain their first orgasm
after giving birth.30 Oxytocin is also released in greater quantities after
a woman becomes a mother, resulting in more rewarding sex.
But even though she is fortunately endowed with such a marvelous
love organ and possesses considerably more orgasmic potential than
the male, the female does not realize it as often as the male does.
A kiss-and-tell survey of 100,000 females by Carol Tavris and Susan
Sadd found that in their premarital sexual encounters only 6.7 per cent
of females experienced orgasm “all the time,” and an astonishing 34.2 per
cent never experienced orgasm at all. However, things improve consid-
erably in marital sex, with 15 percent reporting that they do “all of the
time,” and only 7 percent reporting that they never do.31 Similar results
have been reported from other surveys, including a large national
survey conducted by ABC News Primetime. Seventy-four percent of
the males reported that they always have an orgasm when having sex
as opposed to 30 percent of the females, with 23 percent of females
reporting either they had orgasm “some of the time,” “hardly ever,” or
“never.”32 These surveys also find that about 75 percent of both sexes
agree that sex is better in marriage than outside of marriage, indicating
that orgasmic pleasure is best realized for women in the context of a
stable relationship in which she feels loved and wanted. Finding greater
pleasure in marital sex may also be a function of the “go get it” septum
finally winning out over the “hold your horses” amygdala harboring
anxieties about sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancy.
One of the reasons for the female lack of orgasm is that the male
is finished before the female is on the starting block. The male is like
a sprinter: off the mark with lightning speed, frantic pumping until
the finish line is reached, and then semiexhaustion. According to the
research of the famous sexologist Alfred Kinsey’s, about 75 percent of
males reach orgasm within two minutes, although later research shows
the average duration of sexual intercourse in the Western world to have
doubled since Kinsey’s time to four minutes.33 A woman is sexually is
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like the marathon runner: a slow, almost casual start, a slow buildup
to a comfortable stride, and a decently paced canter home. She tends
to focus on the process of the activity. For her, sexual activity is less
a task to be brought to completion by climax than it is a pleasurable
interlude in which she seeks psychic as well as physical pleasure—a
time for closeness and reassurances of love. Happily, with increasing
sexual experience with each other these different speeds calibrate, with
men showing greater consideration for the needs of their partners and
slowing down. As far as the ability to satisfy their mates goes, nice guys
finish last.
Even though we hear much talk about an increasing awareness
among women of their sexual capacities and of their dissatisfaction
with the traditional “two-minute wonder,” orgasm does not seem to
be too terribly important to many women. When women were asked
in the Tavris and Sadd study: “Of all aspects of sexual activity, which
one do you like best?” only 23.1 percent chose “orgasm.” “Feelings of
closeness to my partner” was chosen by 40.3 percent, and 20.8 percent
chose “satisfying my partner.” While we don’t have comparable figures
for males, is there any doubt that the response ratings would be rad-
ically different? It seems clear that men and women attach different
but overlapping meanings to love and sexuality. Nonetheless, female
orgasms are more likely to be achieved with regularity in the context
of love. We might say that physiologically an orgasm is an orgasm but
psychologically its appreciation varies with the context in which it takes
place. Women who engage in casual sex are the least likely to achieve
orgasm according to the Tavris and Sadd survey, and women in long-
term relationships report greater emotional and sexual satisfaction.34
It seems that female orgasm is almost as much a product of the female
mind as it is of the clitoris. The potential is there in all females, but
things have to be “right” to actualize that potential. In highly religious
and sexually repressive cultures where sex is considered sinful, dirty,
and “male lust,” not to be enjoyed by women but rather to be endured,
the anxieties stored in the amygdala will overwhelm the septum, and
learned distaste will prevent autonomic nervous system responses to
sexual stimuli in women. “Lie back and think of England,” advised the
Victorian mother, and many of the daughters appeared to have done just
that. In cultures where women are viewed only as baby makers, cooks,
and as a means to relieve male sexual tension, efforts may be made to
limit female sexual pleasure. In many Islamic countries the practice of
clitorectomy (the surgical removal of the clitoris) is widespread. Such
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a cruel practice indicates a total devaluation of women; hardly a con-

dition in which love can blossom. Only when women are considered
equally worthwhile and valuable is love possible.
If female orgasm is a pleasure best achieved and enjoyed in love,
it follows that it will be more common in cultures where women are
valued for themselves rather than as property or chattel. Where the
potential for female orgasm is recognized and valued, a man in love
with his woman will want to help her to achieve it. In this sense,
female orgasm is a “higher cultural” invention in places where females
are valued for themselves, and in which men are as concerned about
their mates’ pleasure as much as their own. It is a psychophysiological
“reinforcer” that urges women to participate in sexual communion
with as much delight as their lovers. It is a sign for both sex partners
that love exists between them. Men who love their women will enjoy
the pleasure of “giving” their women orgasms as much as they enjoy
giving other tokens of affection. If men are to do this, they must learn
to view sex more as a process than as a product, a slow and beautiful
process centered in the mind and spirit as much as in the genitals.
Faking It
In the 1989 movie When Harry Met Sally there is a scene in a New York
deli that illustrates the very different perceptions of men and women
regarding faked orgasms:

Sally: Most women at one time or another have faked it.

Harry: Well, they haven’t faked it with me.
Sally: How do you know?
Harry: Because I know.
Sally: Oh. Right. That’s right. I forgot. You’re a man.
Harry: What was that supposed to mean?
Sally: Nothing. It’s just that all men are sure it never happened to them
and all women at one time or other have done it, so you do the math.

Sally then went on to give a hilarious performance of a faked orgasm that

probably led many women in the deli to think, “I’ll have what she’s having.”
An article that surveyed all studies of faked orgasm from the 1970s to
2009 found the prevalence of females reporting they had faked it ranged
between 53 and 65 percent.35 These results may come as a surprise to
men who, like Harry, see themselves as King of the Sheets and have
bought their partners’ performance. Men are loath to believe that their
sexual talents are such that their partners feel obliged to massage the
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male ego with fake “ooohhhs.” Yet it seems that men prefer deception
to truth if the Roman poet Ovid is any gauge. As he counseled women
in his books Ars Amatoria (“The Art of Love”):

So, then, my dear ones, feel the pleasure in the very marrow of your
bones; share it fairly with your lover, say pleasant, naughty things the
while. And if Nature has withheld from you the sensation of pleasure,
then teach your lips to lie and say you feel it all. Unhappy is the woman
who feels no answering thrill. But, if you have to pretend, don’t betray
yourself by over-acting. Let your movements and your eyes combine
to deceive us, and, gasping, panting, complete the illusion.36

Research shows in general that more promiscuous women, less com-

mitted women, and women who report unsatisfactory sex lives are the
most likely to fake orgasm.37 According to the ABC News Primetime
survey, the number one reason for faking was “to please partner” (26
percent), “to hurry up/get done” (22 percent), and “to not hurt part-
ner’s feeling” (10 percent), followed by a variety of other reasons. In
this poll, 11 percent of men also admitted to faking it, although their
performances could not have been all that convincing in the absence
of evidence of ejaculation.
Notes
1. Reik, T., Listening with the third ear, 97.
2. Hunnicutt and Broidy, Liberation and economic marginalization.
3. Branden, N. (1980). The psychology of romantic love.
4. Zerjal, Xue, Bertorelle, et al., The genetic legacy of the Mongols.
5. Oberzaucher and Grammer. The case of Moulay Ismael.
6. Walsh, A., Cassanova and Casanovism.
7. Whisman and Snyder, Sexual infidelity in a national survey.
8. Gairdner, W., The book of absolutes, 151.
9. Townsend, J., What women want--what men want, 21.
10. See Durden, Smith, and deSimone, Sex and the brain, 232, and G. Wilson,
Love and Instinct, 105.
11. Gray and Garcia, Evolution and human sexual behavior.
12. Gallup Jr and Burch, et al., The human penis.
13. Pham and Shackelford, Human sperm competition.
14. Barnhart, Izquierdo, et al., Baseline dimensions of the human vagina
15. Chandra, Mosher, and Copen, Sexual behavior, sexual attraction.
16. Walsh, A., Love styles, masculinity/Femininity.
17. Mikach and Baily, 1 What distinguishes women, 149.
18. Clark, A., Self-perceived attractiveness and masculinization.
19. See Pollet, et al., Testosterone levels and their associations and van Anders,
Hamilton, and Watson, Multiple partners are associated with higher.
20. Nyborg and Boeggild, Mating behavior, 29.
21. Walsh, A., Life history theory and female readers.
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22. Vrangalova, Z., R. Bukberg, and G. Rieger, Birds of a feather? 105.

23. Meyers, S., The psychological roots of promiscuity.
24. Cashdan, E., Attracting mates.
25. See Cashdan, Attracting mates ; Hahm, Lahiff, and Barreto, Asian American
adolescents’ and Walsh Parental attachment, drug use
26. Rowe, D., Biology and crime.
27. Puts, Dawood, and Welling, Why women have orgasms.
28. Baker and Bellis, Human sperm competition.
29. Pillitteri, A. Maternal & child health nursing
30. Ibid.
31. Tarvis and Sadd, The Redbook Report.
32. ABC, The American sex survey.
33. Levin, R., The female orgasm.
34. Puts, Dawood and Welling, Why women have orgasms.
35. Muehlenhard and Shippee, Men’s and women’s reports.
36. Ovid, The Love Books of Ovid, 100.
37. Puts, Dawood, and Welling, Why women have orgasms.

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 15
Love as Exchange and Barter
If my love is without sacrifice, it is selfish. Such a love is
barter, for there is exchange of love and devotion in return
for something. It is conditional love.
—Sadhu Vaswani, Indian religious teacher and philosopher

Let’s Make a Deal

We have so far explored the experience of falling in love and being in
love, but what about the time before we are smitten and are just looking
to be warmed by the fires of love? Obtaining a mate with whom you can
enjoy that rapturous experience may “just happen” serendipitously, but
more often than not we have to forage around in love’s landscape to find
our Mr. or Ms. Right. Make no mistake, almost all of us at one time or
another looked, or is looking, for a long-term relationship. A detailed
survey of 11,309 single British men and women called the LoveGeist
Report found that only 45 (a tiny fraction of 1 percent) indicated that
they were not interested in a long-term commitment.1 At least in the
United Kingdom, it appears that while the libertine days symbolized
by the male motto “Why buy the cow when the milk is free?” are still
with us, it may be replaced by the female refrain as sung by Beyoncé in
her 2008 song Single Ladies: “If you liked it, then you should have put a
ring on it.” Beyoncé evidently gave her ex a trial spin but he didn’t find
the ride good enough to buy, so the deal fell through.
Selecting a love partner is in some ways like selecting a new pair of
shoes, but one heck of a lot more complicated. Selecting a new pair of
shoes is a one-way street with no traffic; you are completely in charge
and your prospective new shoes have no say in the matter. Selecting
a love partner, on the other hand, is a two-way street full of potholes
and often gridlocked. On this street you have only part of the say and,
as with shopping for any commodity, where we go shopping for love
depends on our tastes and what we can afford (as the wise Charlotte

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Lucas realized). Some people wouldn’t dream of going anywhere other

than Saks Fifth Avenue or Harrods for their shoes, while others must
comb the aisles at Walmart looking for bargains that fit both their feet
and budget. Whatever the case may be, mate shopping is an anxious
and exciting process of exchange and barter.
With due respect to Swami Vaswani’s epilog, all romantic love is
exchange and barter. We exchange our love and devotion for the love
and devotion of someone else. Vaswani views this as conditional and
bemoans the fact, and in doing so he echoes Immanuel Kant’s(see
chapter 10) belief that only those acts shorn of any kind of internal
or external rewards is worthy of praise. Perhaps the only kind of love
unencumbered by conditions is a mother’s love for her child. Almost
all other relationships are forms of subconscious mutual “exploitation”
(if the cynic insists that we use that word) for mutual gain, even if it’s
only an hour of pleasant conversation. Barter is inescapable in almost
any relationship, and this mutual exploitation suits both parties; I get
something I want, you get something you want, and we’re both happy
with the deal, at least for now. As crass as it may seem to some, romantic
love boils down to two willing parties making a deal to their mutual
satisfaction and will be terminated when one or both parties runs out
of resources to exchange.
Which Sex Is Most Romantic?
Popular stereotypes of women portray them as being romantically
impulsive in matters of the heart and easy prey for the manipulative
cad. A study by Marissa Harrison and Jennifer Shortall found that nine
out of ten people believe that women fall in love first in a relationship,
and seven out of ten believe that a woman will be the first to say “I love
you.”2 After all, it is the fair sex that keeps Harlequin romance novels
churning and who dream of being carried off by a knight on a white
horse. Moreover, because of the neurological advantage conferred by
their more finely tuned reticular activating systems and better inte-
grated brain hemispheres noted in chapter 4, women are better at pro-
cessing emotional experiences, and thus should have more confidence
in expressing their love. Indeed, cross-cultural research shows that
women are more emotionally expressive and tend to say “I love you”
more frequently (about twice as often) than males in a relationship.3
On the other hand, the male is seen as a sober lover in easy control of
his romantic, if not his sexual, urges. Men rarely fantasize about being
that knight on the white horse until he is fixated romantically on one
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special maiden. Stereotypes aside which of the sexes is really the most
romantic? The answer to this question depends on whether we are
talking about the rapidity or the robustness of romantic love. A large
research literature indicates that men tend to fall in love more quickly
than women, but love is more intense for women. The LoveGeist study
found that men were more romantic than women, and the Harrison
and Shortall study found that it was the almost always men who first
said “I love you.” Many other studies have confirmed that males tend to
experience feelings they interpret as love earlier in the relationship than
do females, but once females define what they are feeling as love, they
tend to indulge themselves more in its euphoria. At the more intense
levels of involvement, females are also more prone to idealization of
their lovers.
What could possibly account for this romantic asymmetry between
the sexes? We don’t need any surveys to tell us that males have an
abiding propensity to seek multiple sex partners, and that they are
much more ready and willing to abandon themselves to urgent sexual
needs than are women. The male sexual urgency may be the reason
for their greater haste to utter “I love you.” Men know full well that
this expression of love is music to a maiden’s ear and many a man has
voiced it falsely to advance the relationship toward the bedroom. “Oh,
wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied,” cried the anguished Romeo to his
Juliet in the balcony scene in Shakespeare’s famous love story. Can it
be any more transparent that Romeo was offering his verbal claim of
love in exchange for love of a more palpable sort?
Given a seductive situation, a male’s biological desire for sexual
intercourse is easily aroused, and it is not difficult to imagine many
males immersed in such a situation interpreting sexual urgency as
love. This is not necessarily a misinterpretation. Males generally place
a higher value on the physical aspect of love than females do. After all,
physical attributes are immediately perceived and evaluated in a way
that character and maturity are not. A man can also afford to “love
at first sight”; he doesn’t have to bear and care for any children that
might spring from what he may later interpret to be mere infatuation.
Physical intimacy usually precedes the emotional feelings of love for
males, while for the female the opposite sequence is usually the case.
That is, men tend to see sex as a means to develop a relationship while
women tend to view it as a way to express a relationship. “What sat-
isfaction canst thou have tonight?” replied Juliet to Romeo’s balcony
plea. The operative word is “tonight.” Juliet knows that, and proceeds
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to bring Romeo’s craving to the boiling point before stipulating that his
satisfaction can only come after “puts a ring on it.” As in all economic
exchanges, restricting access to a valued commodity means that those
who own the commodity can demand a high price for it.
Let’s be clear here; women like sex too, and marriage eventually
appeals to men. There are two markets in the mating game—one for sex
and the other for marriage. Both sexes shop at both markets at different
times in their lives and may drift back and forth between them, but
men shop more in the sex market and women in the marriage market.
The more pragmatic selection process of females makes them wary of
dating the “wrong” male, although this may also be determined by how
many opportunities a particular women has to get into the store. Her
concern in choosing a mate may not be so much the intensity of the
feelings she has for him but rather the intensity of the male’s feelings
for her. It requires time for her to gauge the sincerity of a prospective
mate’s feelings for her, as well as to evaluate his fitness to provide for
her and her child. She is more concerned with being loved than lov-
ing at this point. Once the choice is made, the female can indulge her
emotions more fully.
The more pragmatic and careful mate selection strategy of women
is evident in a marketing concept known as the “framing effect.” This
principle looks at the different effects of identical information framed
in positive or negative terms. In a series of experiments with hun-
dreds of young men and women, Gad Saad and Tripat Gill provided
them with positively and negatively framed descriptions of potential
romantic partners.4 An example of a positively framed statement is:
“Seven out of 10 people who know him/her think that he/she is kind.”
A negatively statement is: “Three out of 10 people who know his/
her think that he/she is not kind.” Note that both statements convey
the exact same message and should therefore not affect how people
respond to them. But they do. Women were strongly susceptible to
negative framing effects in a potential partner’s ambition and earning
potential, while men were more susceptible to negative framing effects
describing physical attractiveness. Both sexes were more or less equally
susceptible to framing with statement about kindness and intelligence.
Overall, negative framing had more impact on female dating decisions
than on male decisions. Women are more attuned to negatively framed
information than men because making a bad choice has potentially
greater adverse consequences for them and for any offspring that may
result from a poor decision.
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What’s on the Shopping List?

Being more visual than verbal animals, men are much more likely
than women to choose a partner on the basis of physical attributes.
Men seek women with clear skin, weapons-grade boobs and buttocks,
lustrous hair, and who are properly powdered, painted, depilated,
and deodorized. Since sex is the primary animating factor in seeking
out female companionship, it’s easy to see why males should be more
immediately attracted to comely facial features and well-formed figures
than to personality or intellectual attributes. (In one of his TV shows,
comedian Benny Hill said he’d trade “25 IQ points for a good pair of
knockers any day.”) The unfortunate upshot of this is that men are for-
ever searching for those anatomical features most likely to be found
adorning younger females. This search is as old as history itself. Will
Durant writes that because there were many ways to amuse oneself
sexually in ancient Greece, men avoided wedlock as long as possible,
precipitating laws forbidding bachelorhood: “Those men who yield [to
those laws] marry late, usually near thirty, and then insist upon brides
not much older than fifteen. ‘To mate a youth with a young wife is ill,’
says a character in Euripides, ‘for a man’s strength endures, while the
bloom of beauty quickly leaves the woman’s form.’”5
Not much has changed in the ensuing three thousand years or so, and
both sexes are aware of it. A study conducted by psychologists Albert
Harrison and Laila Saeed examined eight hundred advertisements in
“lonely hearts” columns to see what men and women typically want from
a prospective mate and what it is that they emphasize about themselves
as selling points. They found that women were much more likely to
emphasize their physical attractiveness while men tended to emphasize
their financial security.6 These attributes—female attractiveness and male
solvency—are the sex-differentiated coin of the marriage mart. Some
buyers enter the market with little more than pocket change, while others
enter flush with assets. The lonely heart advertisers realistically demand
from a prospective mate what they consider affordable after reviewing
their own assets. The more attractive female advertisers considered
themselves to be, the more likely they were to be explicit about their
desire for a man who was financially secure. Similarly, the more finan-
cially secure men said they were, the more likely they were to demand
youthful physical attractiveness from any prospective respondent.
Another finding of this study was that not only were men looking
for women younger than themselves and women were looking for

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men older than themselves. A British review of marriage bureaus in a

number of different countries replicated this: “Men tend to want young
and physically attractive women while women prefer men several years
older than themselves.”7 It was further substantiated by the Interna-
tional Mate Selection Project, a study of ten thousand people of both
sexes from thirty-seven different countries ranging from modem urban
societies to rural third world societies.8 No matter what the nationality,
men want mates who are young and pretty, and women want mates who
are somewhat older than they and who are financially secure, or have
prospects of becoming so. Western European and North American men
were least likely to be concerned with large age differences between
themselves and their mates, and British, Dutch, and Zulu women were
least concerned with their mate’s prospects; not unconcerned, just less
concerned than the international average.
A more recent study of 22,400 participants on an online dating
service from Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and Central America
found that as men got older (and had presumably accumulated more
resources) they demanded ever younger females than themselves.
Males in their twenties stipulated small age differences (one or two
years) whereas males in their fifties were requesting as much as ten
years difference.9 Another study examined spousal age differences
among the four hundred richest men in the United States (the Forbes
four hundred) and found them to have on average a spouse seven years
younger, but if these men divorced and remarried, their new spouses
were an average of twenty-two years younger. Super wealthy women
did not differ from the general population in terms of age difference
between them and their spouses.10 Apparently, when women see older
men they see experience, sophistication, intellectual maturity, and
security. When men see older women they don’t allow themselves
to see much more than the wrinkles. Fortunately, there are men who
find a special kind of beauty in a mature woman that greatly surpasses
that of the teenybopper. Older women (“cougars”) are typically more
sexually experienced and interesting and far more intellectually and
emotionally satisfying. Nonetheless, there can be little doubt that both
sexes are aware of what the other sex is looking for in a relationship
and of the “shopping list” element in romantic love.
Another significant insight from the International Mate Selection
Project is that the male preference for chastity (virginity) in a prospec-
tive mate is alive and well in many cultures, particularly more traditional
cultures. One study of Georgian (the European county, not the Peach
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State) young people found that 89 percent of females and 87 percent

of males agreed that a woman should be a virgin before marriage.11
Males in more developed countries are apparently less concerned, or
even unconcerned, if a prospective mate has lost her virginity as long
as she still has the box that it came in.
While these sex-differentiated preferences appear to be universal,
those who are somewhat less than perfectly endowed physically or
those who are on the wrong end of the income distribution may also
take some heart from this study. Mate selection is more than, to put it
crudely, her ass and his assets. The study found that men and women
of all cultures value kindness and intelligence in their partners more
than physical attractiveness or financial prospects. The only fly in this
soup is that those lacking in the latter attributes may never get the
opportunity to display the former to the most desirable members of
the opposite sex. Attractiveness and financial solvency are attributes
that gain one a head start in the marriage race, while intelligence and
kindness assert their influence only after the race is under way.
Is all this still true in an age when women are increasingly becoming
financially independent and graduating college in numbers greater than
men? A lot of women sporting tee-shirts announcing that “A Women
Needs a Man Like a Fish Needs a Bicycle” will say that if they decide
to hook up permanently with a guy it will be on their terms, and they
don’t give a hoot about his prospects. But psychologist Peter Todd and
his research team found that saying and doing are two different things;
in the twenty-first-century beauty is still the key for men, and women
still leverage their looks for security and commitment:
We found that what men and women say they want is not the same
as what they actually choose and that the actual choices made by
men and women accord with a rough evolutionary-predicted trade-
off, in this case between men’s overall mate value [combining their
wealth and status, family commitment and health] and women’s
self-perceived attractiveness. Ancestral individuals who made their
mate choices in this way—women trading off their attractiveness for
higher quality men and men looking for any attractive women who
would accept them—would have had an evolutionary advantage in
greater numbers of successful offspring.12

All this adds to the female complaint that men see them as sex symbols.
It can also be equally said, however, that women view men as success
symbols. This should not be taken negatively. Each sex viewing the
other the way it does is simply the result of sex-differentiated selection
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pressures on male and female reproductive strategies. Males compete

with each other for mates by displaying the resources that females
need for reproductive success, and females compete with each other
by displaying cues linked to male reproductive success. The male
striving for success and status has driven many of the entrepreneurial
endeavors that have made the civilized world (on the whole) a better
place in which to live, and the female striving for beauty has driven
much of the health and fitness boom.
Social Construction or Evolutionary Legacy?
The preference of older men for younger women and of younger women
for older men generates a lot of frustration and loneliness for older,
less physically attractive women and for younger men competing for
attractive females. Glen Wilson points out that marriage bureaus and
dating services typically have surpluses of older women and younger
men among their clientele and have great difficulty finding suitable
partners for them.13 This might paint Mother Nature as lacking in
compassion, but she is only concerned with the proliferation of life,
and any means justifies this end. While it is undeniable that love is an
enormously complex affair and that the motives of lovers are sometimes
unfathomable, biologists view human beings the same as they view
other animals:humans exist to make other humans. But not even the
most mechanistically minded biologist views mating and reproduction
as obeying nature’s purpose in ways independent of individual purpose.
The reproductive purpose lies deep inside us, but nature has provided
human beings with a brain capable of molding and even subverting
our biological impulses. Nevertheless, while culture and individual
experience shape our love lives to an enormous extent, we each feel to
various degrees the tug exerted by our evolutionary legacy.
Social constructionists claim that American males prefer younger
women because our culture glorifies youth. If this glorification of youth
were a cultural invention, we would also see older women in hot pursuit
of younger men. While some may do so, the toy-boy phenomenon,
if it exists at all, it is a far cry from the norm. America didn’t invent
the lust for nubile young women; history, anthropology, literature,
and mountains of studies tell us that the male preference for youthful
women is an abiding one across time and place. Standards of beauty
vary from culture to culture and from time to time, but regardless of
any cultural standard by which it is measured, men prefer younger
women. The very power of culture to direct perceptions of female
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beauty in many ways while in no instance has a culture generated a

preference for older women is a powerful argument for the biological
basis of the male preference.
Social scientists enamored of social constructionism would heap
scorn on the notion that the reproductive fitness of younger women
is the ultimate reason why men prefer younger women. Their alterna-
tive explanation is that the acquisition of a beautiful wife or girlfriend
confers social status, prestige, and admiration on the man. This sym-
bolic affirmation of his social standing is a psychic reward that sub-
consciously helps to propel most males to seek youth. A fifty-year-old
male with a woman half his age on his arm undeniably evokes envy and
grudging admiration from other males. Such an explanation begs the
question of why the “possession” of a young and beautiful woman is
unquestionably accepted by other males as symbolic of male success.
The underlying mechanism for the age preference is simply a matter of
evolutionary logic: Young women produce the fittest and largest num-
ber of offspring, so ancestral men most strongly attracted to younger
women had more of their genetic material pushed into the future. The
silent urging remains a biological motivator even when having a child
by with the beauty on his arm the last thing in the world a male may
have on his mind.
The aging a male has similar genetic disadvantages, but not to the
same degree. Sperm count and quality begins to deteriorate around
the age of 35 according to a study of 5,081 men between the ages of
16 and 72.14 It seems that men also have a biological clock they need
to think about, but the ticking is more a gradual than a woman’s. Like
every other cell in the body, each division of the sex cells carries a risk
of genetic mutation, and men experience a decrease in the ratio of
Y- to X-bearing sperm such that the older a man becomes the more
likely he is to father girls rather than boys. Since male youthfulness
carries only a small reproductive advantage relative to the advantage
conferred by female youthfulness, the female preference for men older
than themselves is not a function of reproductive fitness in quality and
quantity of offspring. The advantage offered is that an older man is a
better provider for her and her children, thus increasing her chances
of pushing her genes into the future.
From studies of the romantic personals, and from many other
sources, it is apparent that women are more interested in security than
in the esthetic appeal of the youthful form. It’s not that women are
unresponsive to the vigor and beauty of younger males. The heroes of
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the romantic novels so beloved by many women are always handsome

and dashing, but just about always older than the heroine. A muscular
body and a handsome face certainly turn women on (a sign of “good
genes,” just like the peacock’s lustrous tail) but when these qualities are
stacked against social position, financial security, wisdom, experience,
and maturity, they just don’t stack up. These are the qualities that are
most likely to result in a secure nest for the woman and her offspring,
and these are the qualities most often found among older men. They
are the qualities that provide women with evidence of a male’s fitness
for the role of father, protector, and provider, and that motivate her
selection whether she realizes it or not.
Supply and Demand
The marriage market is pretty class-bound because most marriages
occur within the same socioeconomic class, even if not to the extent
that they did in Charlotte Lucas’s time. When mobility does occur
across class lines, women are more likely to marry into a higher social
class than their own, and men are more likely to marry down the
social ladder. Women are especially more likely to marry into a higher
social class if they have youthful beauty. The reason that we observe
opposite directions in male and female class mobility is the way male
and female marriage assets are distributed. Female attractiveness is
more or less evenly distributed across class lines; the young women on
the assembly line at the local factory may be as beautiful as the young
ladies at Radcliffe College. Successful high-class males can “raid” the
factories and other such places for beautiful marriage mates, where
they will find many interested young women. On the other hand, the
qualities desired by a woman in a prospective partner are, by definition,
concentrated in the higher classes. Lower-class males will have little
success if they attempt to seduce the young ladies of Radcliffe, although
the more ludic ladies may entertain them on a short-term basis.
One of the consequences of all this is that women who are left out of
the marriage game are the most successful career women, and men who
are left out are the least successful. Consider a woman who spends ten
years getting a PhD or MD, and a man on the same career track. By the
time they are settled into their careers they may both be about thirty
years old. If not married by this time, they are on what sociologists call
an “opposite marriage gradient.” His marriage prospects are terrific;
bags of money and prestige to spare. He will be able to pick and choose
among women who will be, on average, about five years younger. She
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will find things a lot more difficult for a variety of reasons. First, there
are very few eligible males around who are older than she is, and if
there are, they probably want someone younger. Second, some men do
not like the idea of a wife whose attainments surpass their own, nor do
women particularly want a mate less accomplished than themselves.
A male Ph.D. can marry a high-school teacher, or a male physician a
nurse, but we don’t see females “marrying down” like this very often.
The opposite marriage gradient is plainly visible in the Carnegie
Commission Faculty Survey of 326, 303 faculty members in US colleges
and universities. The survey found that only 8.5 percent of male PhDs
never married, but 46.4 percent of female PhDs never earned their
MRS (could be that some didn’t want it). Male marriage prospects
decline with a decline in the prestige of the degree earned, while female
prospects increase with a decline in the prestige of the degree. Among
the males with MA/MS and BA/BS degrees, 12.6 and 15.9 percent,
respectively, were never married. The corresponding figures for female
faculty were 41.6 and 32.6 percent.15 What are advantages for males
seem to be disadvantages for females in the mating market. A study of
personal advertisements in a Polish newspaper helps to clarify these
findings. The number of responses to an ad (the “hit rate”) tells us
unambiguously what people are looking for. Greater education, age, and
height (in that order) produced a higher hit rate for male advertisers,
while those same traits produced a lower hit rate for females. In other
words, women preferred older, more educated, and taller men while
men preferred less educated, younger, and shorter women, at least less
educated, younger, and shorter than themselves.16
Love to Order
If the current pool of women does not suit some eager men with cash to
burn, they can go shopping overseas without leaving home. The ultimate
form of market dynamics in the mating game is a man flipping through
a catalog to order a bride like he was ordering a new TV from Sears.
A quick Internet search of “mail-order brides” will yield endless picture
of young, sexy, smiling, and submissive Asian or Eastern European
women promising to be a goodwife to American men in exchange for
a way out of poverty and a much valued green card. Some men who
avail themselves of this quick but expensive way of securing a mate
may have succumbed to Gary Clark’s unflattering pun on American
women: “Heaven is having a Japanese wife, a Chinese cook, a British
country home and an American salary. Hell, on the other hand, is having
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a Chinese salary, a British cook, a Japanese house and an American

wife.”17 Apparently, men who “buy online” find American women too
independent since many of these mail-order sites strongly emphasize
that their “wares” are “untainted by feminism.” Nevertheless, as one who
likes his honey made in the United States, I find using a mouse click
to secure a spouse to be sterile, impersonal, and definitely unromantic
(“Dear Sir, Your bride is in the mail”).
A US Immigration and Nationalization Service report appears to
bear out the notion that many men availing themselves of such ser-
vices have an aversion to feminism: “Most of the personal reports from
American men who have married women through these agencies talk
about ‘traditional values.’” Oddly for those of us with a “yuck” response
to the mail-order practice, the report indicates that “marriages arranged
through the mail-order services would appear to have a lower divorce
rate than the nation as a whole, fully 80 percent of these marriages
having lasted over the years for which reports are available.”18
Citing US immigration statistics, Ann VanderMey reports that
in 2010, there were four hundred mail-order bride agencies, which
results in between ten thousand and fifteen thousand weddings each
year. While this is a small fraction of the total number of marriages
in the US each year, it siphons of a disproportionate number of high-
earner males. VanderMey tells us that the most active users of the site
she reported on for Fortune Magazine were men between the age of
35 and 60 making more than $100,000 a year.19
Mate Selection as Alter-Ego Selection
Just as romantic love is not always just a hormonal shot in the dark,
neither is it always simply a rational decision based purely on instru-
mental considerations. A handsome and successful businessman may
forsake a dozen gorgeous young women and fall in love and marry a
“plain Jane” because he appreciates her inner beauty. A beautiful, witty,
and clever young woman may marry a gypsy truck driver with bulging
muscles forsaking the nerdy orthodontist with a bulging wallet who was
courting her because the truck driver better conforms to her ideal of
what a “real man” is. The genes governing our reproductive strategies
have us on a chain, but it is a long chain. Evolutionary biologists expect
a fit between the reproductive imperatives that evolved eons ago and
the human psyche operating in its modern cultural context, but this
is not necessarily a particularly tight fit. For instance, 83 percent of
the women and 77 percent of the men participating in a Roper poll
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insisted that they got married simply because they were “in love.”20
Notwithstanding the social pressures to answer in this way, and the
unspoken and perhaps unrecognized instrumental reasons underlying
those decisions, these are large percentages.
Let’s take the Roper respondents at their word and explore romantic
love from a psychological point of view unsullied by market consider-
ations. What is it apart from the natural imperative to love and mate
that draws particular individuals to other particular individuals? The
closest thing psychology has to a law is the proposition that people
strongly tend to repeat behavior that has rewarding consequences and
not to repeat behavior that has negative consequences. So what is it that
lovers specifically find so rewarding in each other besides the evolu-
tionary biologist’s fixation on her beauty and his resources? Similarity
of interests, attitudes, and outlooks is a good candidate for the glue
that bonds. This certainly holds true in friendship relationships. It is
thus obvious in common sense terms that having things in common is
a hallmark of a fruitful relationship: “birds of a feather flock together.”
If similarity is useful in determining liking and friendship patterns, it
should also be useful in determining love patterns.
Hundreds of studies have documented the fact that husbands and
wives are more similar to one another in more ways than we would
expect by random chance. Scientists call this like-seeking-like process
“assortative mating.” The American literature shows that the strongest
assortment (in descending order) is for race, religion, education level,
IQ, social class, height, and personality traits.21 Note that personality
similarity is last on the list. A sophisticated study of happiness in
marriage conducted by Raymond Cattell and John Nesselrode found
that the happiest couples had opposite rather than similar personality
traits: “opposites attract.”22 A spouse who is nurturing will be happy
with someone who enjoys being nurtured; one who is dominating will
get along well with one who is submissive, and so on. Personal growth
is made more possible when two people in an intimate relationship
have different interests, and pleasurable pursuits. He can introduce her
to jogging, Beethoven, and Oriental religion; she can introduce him
to Agatha Christie, the piano, and Mexican food. If both parties are
open to new experiences, they have both contributed to the creative
growth of the other.
If we are lucky enough to have such a partner, psychologists refer to
this process of mutual self-affirmation as the “Michelangelo phenome-
non,” named after the Renaissance sculptor Michelangelo who chiseled
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out David, and other masterpieces. Ever since Abraham Maslow’s

theory of self-actualization psychologists have taught that we all have
an unconscious ideal self we strive to become. We may strive on our
own to become that person, but it would be nice if your spouse was
helpful in the pursuit of self-affirmation. Just as Michelangelo viewed
sculpting as a way to release a waiting ideal form from a block of stone,
the idea behind the Michelangelo phenomenon is that long-term lov-
ers can lovingly chip away at each other to release the beauty that lies
latent within each of us.23
An unconscious desire for self-affirmation may be the hidden rea-
son why opposites attract. Psychologist David Lewis He invites his
subjects to make a list of their attributes and aptitudes, both favorable
and unfavorable. This list constitutes the “real self.” He then asks them
to make another list of the attributes and aptitudes they don’t possess
but would like to. This is a list describing the “ideal self.”24 He suggests
that many of us seek marriage mates who possess the qualities we list
under the “ideal self ” heading. For instance, if the ideal self is creative,
intelligent, and assertive, we are likely to feel drawn to people whom
we see possessing these qualities. By attaching ourselves to such a
person and loving him or her we can be viewed as essentially loving
our ideal selves. We can bask in the reflected attributes of the lover
and vicariously live up to the goals of the ideal self. In pursuing such a
strategy we have complemented ourselves, and perhaps an extended
relationship with the “ideal other” may result in our acquiring some of
the qualities we admire so much in him or her. As Mark Olivieir and
Martin Fiebert view this process: “at the deeper level, people seek out
the personality traits that they see as lacking (and desired) in them-
selves (their actual-self ) and would otherwise make them complete
(their “ideal-self ”).”25
It seems obvious, however, that differences in interests cannot be
too extreme. A party-going extrovert is not likely to be very compatible
with a bookish homebody. The distance between two such personal-
ities would seem so great as to preclude any rewards accruing from
attempts to partake in each other’s favored pastimes. It would seem
that opposites have a better shot at an enduring love relationship if
their differences are first filtered through a “consensus sieve.” That is,
at least a minimal degree of similarity in the relationship seems to be
necessary, especially as it pertains to important demographic factors.
Similarity is comforting; we understand those who are quite like our-
selves. We know what to expect, and that makes life easier. Only after
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we perceive a foundation of similarity do we let ourselves partake in

the excitement of the different and unknown. Romantic love would
seem to thrive best on a foundation of basic similarities around which
is built an edifice of interesting and even exciting differences. And who
knows; we might actually find ourselves approaching that ideal self with
the right Michelangelo or Michelangelina.
Notes
1. Whitty, Buchanan, and Watson, The LoveGeist report 2009.
2. Harrison and Shortall, Women and men in love.
3. Wilkins and Gareis, Emotional expression.
4. Saad and Gill, The framing effect.
5. Durant, W. The life of Greece, 304.
6. Harrison and Saeed, Let’s make a deal.
7. Clare, A., LoveLaw: love, sex & Marriage, 38.
8. Buss, D., Sex differences in human mate preferences.
9. Dunn, Brinton, and Clark, Universal sex differences.
10. Pollet, Pratt, Edwards, and Stulp, The golden years.
11. Javakhishvili, N., Mating preferences.
12. Quoted in Highfield, R., Men seek beauty, women want wealth.
13. Wilson, G., Love and Instinct.
14. Stone, Alex, Werlin, and Marrs, Age thresholds.
15. Faia, M., Discrimination and exchange.
16. Pawlowski and Koziel, The impact of traits.
17. Clark, G., An Introduction to the “Penpal Bride”.
18. Scholes, R., How man mail-order brides?, 8.
19. VanderMey, The mail-order bride boom.
20. Pietropinto, A., Current thinking on selecting a marriage partner.
21. Hur, Y., Assortative mating for personality traits.
22. Cattell and Nesselrode, cited in Lewis, D., In and out of love, 19.
23. Rusbult, Finkel, and Kumashiro, The Michelangelo phenomenon.
24. Lewis, D., In and out of love.
25. Olivieri and Fiebert, Integrating couple polarities, 167.

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Ecstasy and Agony: Love
and Betrayal
For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you.
Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
—Kahlil Gibran, Lebanese American artist, poet, and writer

Cupid’s Poisoned Arrow

”What a kid I got. I told him about the birds and the bees and he told
me about the butcher and my wife.” Comedian Rodney Dangerfield
used to use this self-mocking joke in many of his performances. Dan-
gerfield’s gag may have cracked a few smiles, but betrayal of a bonded
relationship is really no laughing matter. Being blindsided by a cheating
spouse or lover is one of the leading causes of assaults, homicides,
and suicides worldwide because adulterous love is the bitterest arrow
in Cupid’s quiver.1 Love of the romantic sort is suffused with creative
ecstasy, but it carries within it the seeds of destructive agony as well.
Being the victim of betrayal can be so emotionally damaging that
mental health professionals have hatched a syndrome to describe the
stress and turmoil of its aftermath called postinfidelity stress disorder
(PISD).2 I’m not making this up—PISD is really something people may
be afflicted with when they are more than a little pissed by the betrayal
of someone in which they have invested so much of themselves.
Wars have even been set in motion by love, betrayal, and jealousy.
The Trojan War portrayed in Homer’s Iliad is the prime example. As
Homer tells it, the adulterous love of Paris and Helen led Helen to
desert King Menelaus and trot off to Troy with Paris with “no thought
for her child or husband.” The Trojan War was once thought to be only
a legend because of Homer’s invoking of jealous gods and goddesses
in the plot (in the Iliad, Paris was led to Helen by the Goddess Aphro-
dite) but now, thanks to numerous archeological digs, it is believed to

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have actually occurred about eleven hundred years or so before Christ.

Whether out of pride or jealousy, the well and truly PISD off Menelaus
pursued Paris and Helen to Troy with his thousand ships, and the rest,
as they say, is history.
Extramarital love (or simply extramarital sex)—adultery if we are to
call a spade a spade—is as old as marriage itself and has been engaged
in by most men (and an increasing number of women) who have had
the opportunity. Sexual exclusivity is a pious fiction for most people,
as revealed by the impious behavior of a number of “You-can’t-take-
it-with-you-but-you-can-send-it-ahead-through-me” preachers from
Billy Sunday to Jimmy Swaggart. Presidents from George Washington
to Bill Clinton have similarly fallen to the allure of an adulterous affair.
Adultery is not confined to one class, but as is the case with all life’s
perks, opportunities rise with rank and income.
Who, Why, and When?
All three religions of the Book have historically taken quite seriously
the seventh of the Ten Commandments, and in Leviticus 20:10 the
punishment is prescribed: “And the man that committeth adultery with
another man’s wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neigh-
bour’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.”
Almost all countries have horribly punished adultery, particularly
adulterous women (another double standard). Stoning of adulterers
is still practiced in some Muslim countries, and according to a 2013
Pew Report in which thirty-eight thousand Muslims were interviewed
in thirty-nine countries, the majority of respondents in seven of those
countries supporting the practice (84 percent in Afghanistan).3
Although modern Western countries may do little more than frown
on adultery, this was not always the case. A few women were actu-
ally executed for it in the American colonies, and as every reader of
Hawthorn’s Scarlet Letter knows, adulterous women were branded on
the forehead or breast with the letter “A,” and/or required to wear the
letter on their sleeve or bosom. Adultery was not simply considered the
betrayal of a spouse, but also an offense against God and against the
community. In the early part of the twentieth century, several major
US cities instituted special “morals courts” to deal with adultery and
fornication. No less than five hundred such cases were prosecuted in
Chicago’s Morals Court in 1914, but such courts disappeared after
too many prominent citizens became candidates for prosecution.4
As of 2014, adultery is still a crime in 21 US states, punishable by
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a fine (a paltry $10 fine in Maryland) or even jail time (up to three
years in Massachusetts), although in reality it poses very little threat
of prosecution.5
The Durex Global Sex Survey of 317,000 people from 41 countries
found that 22 percent of people globally admitted to straying from
the marital bed. The United States was below the worldwide average,
with 17 percent admitting an extramarital affair.6 A Pew Research
Center report based on over forty thousand respondents from forty
countries shows what hypocrites many of us are. Only 7 percent of the
respondents in this survey agreed that extramarital affair were morally
acceptable. Ninety-four percent of respondents from Turkey said that
such affairs were morally wrong, yet Turkey topped the charts for having
the most respondents (54 percent) admitting to an extramarital affair.
It seems worldwide that it’s a case of “Do what I say; not what I do.”7
There are certain ages when the risk of having an extramarital fling is
greatest. Psychologists David Atkins, Donald Baucom, and Neil Jacob-
son used structured interviews of 4,118 married men and women of
all ages to assess this.8 As expected, men of all ages were more likely to
engage in extramarital sex that women. With married men, the curve
rose steadily from the twenties until about the age of forty, and then
increased precipitously until reaching a peak in the mid-fifties before
dropping off to around the same level as in their twenties. Married
women’s peak age for flings was during their forties before dropping
off to levels lower than in their twenties. The good news is that only
544 (13.3 percent) reported ever being unfaithful. This is on the low
side according to other surveys conducted more anonymously, such
as the Durex study and the ABC News anonymous survey discussed
in chapter 14, in which 21 percent of men and 11 percent of women
admitted to extramarital sex.
Satisfaction with their marriages was a strong predictor of engaging
in extramarital sex in the Atkins, Baucom, and Jacobson study. Men
and women responding that they were “not too happy” were four times
more likely to stray from the marital bed than those who described
their marriages as “very happy.” Higher income and education were
also predictors of extramarital sex, although they were less strong than
marital satisfaction as predictors. Those who attended church regularly
were the least likely to betray their marriage vows.
Despite the Western condemnation of adultery, there have been
some cultural traditions in history that have viewed extramarital love
as more desirable, more spiritual, and more “real” than marital love.
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Ancient Hindu religious lore viewed different kinds of love as forming

a hierarchy “through which a worshiper increased in the service and
knowledge of his God.” The first degree of love is that servant’s love for
their masters which implies obedience to God. The second order is love
of friend for friend, which implies a deeper and rational development
of the first. The third order is the love of parents for their children,
implying love and service for God through service for a child. Then
comes the fourth order; love of one’s spouse in which two become one
flesh, implying self-transcendence. The final and highest form of love is
the passionate illicit love in which all the duties of life are annihilated
in the fires of love. The illicit affair signifies the illicit lover risking all
for the passionate vision of God’s face.9
In this tradition the illicit love affair is seen as unencumbered by any
practical tit-for-tat considerations or social or material gains. No reward
is offered or expected other than the pure emotional enjoyment of the
body, presence, and love of the beloved. The lower orders of love were
deemed to be less worthy because they are instrumental, governed by
reason, social propriety, a sense of duty, and norms of reciprocity, and
are love between unequals. Extramarital love, by its very nature, takes
no note of status differentials. Whatever the respective status of the
lovers may be outside of the affair, within it they are equals.
Before you become too enamored (or disgusted) by this ancient
mythology, realize that it was born in a culture in which marriage was
a family arranged affair that had nothing at all to do with love as we see
it in modern society. In this tradition the wife was expected to worship
her “lord and master” as a measure of worship for God, but it provided
no such instructions for husbands as to how their love for God could
be gauged by his devotion to his wife.
Why Do Men Cheat?
To most people, asking why men cheat (we’ll ask about women later)
is pretty much as dumb as asking why the sky is blue or why dogs
bark. Most people will tell you that it just the way it is. After all, if
fidelity guaranteed biological fitness the urge to merge with another
would not be within us, and we wouldn’t need legal and moral codes
to try to prevent us from responding to it. Shakespeare was evidently
among those people who believed that male philandering is natural:
In Much Ado About Nothing, he has Don Pedro’s attendant, Balthasar,
sings a little ditty to express the point that men are inveterate cheaters
incapable of changing their ways, and that women should just accept
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 Ecstasy and Agony

the fact and learn to live with it: “Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more/
Men were deceivers ever/One foot in sea, and one on shore/To one
thing constant never.”
Let’s see how this works among animals unrestrained by moral codes.
Ask any farmer and he’ll tell you that rams and bulls are resistant to
copulating more than once with the same sheep or cow, and will only
do so if no alternative is available. This makes it profitable for breeders
because they only need a single ram or bull to service all the sheep
and cows on the farm. This is true of roosters too, as something called
the “Coolidge Effect” illustrates. The story is probably apocryphal,
but it is illuminating. Former US President Calvin Coolidge and his
wife were visiting a farm and were escorted around on separate tours.
Upon passing the chicken pens, Mrs. Coolidge asked her guide how
often the rooster was expected to perform his duty; “dozens of times
a day, ma’am,” the guide replied. Suitably impressed, Mrs. Coolidge
said, “Please tell that to the President.” When the President was duly
informed, he asked, “Was this with the same hen each time?” The guide
laughed and responded that it was with a different hen each time.
Nodding and smiling, the President said, “Tell that to Mrs. Coolidge!”
There is a lot of experimental evidence for the Coolidge effect. In
a study of rhesus monkeys, a number of female monkeys were made
constantly sexually receptive by daily injections of estradiol, and paired
with a male for a period of 3.5 years. This novel constant receptiveness
(recall that all female primates except bonobos and humans are only
sexually receptive when in estrus) was very well received by males at
first, but the period between copulations increased drastically over the
study period. When the researchers introduced new females into the
cages, male potency deterioration abruptly reversed and the lust for
love returned with renewed vigor.10 It was as though these simians had
been on a steady diet of meatloaf and sprouts for three-and-a-half years
and were now presented with filet mignon, truffles, and cheesecake.
The human appetite for sex follows the same trajectory. The appre-
ciation of sex is strongly influenced by the number of dopamine recep-
tors in the brain’s reward circuitry. If we overindulge in one thing that
provides us with pleasure, the brain soon habituates to the frequent
bombarding of its dopamine receptors. This includes having sex over
and over again with the same partner. The brain reacts to overstimu-
lation by producing fewer and less efficient receptors, with the upshot
being that we don’t get the same pleasure as when the delight was novel.
This is normal, and the respite from sex will gradually restore its former
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sensitivity to its pleasures. This is why the ennui of marital sex receives
a welcome boost when a spouse returns from an extended absence. For
other people, the downgrading of their pleasure centers drives them
to search harder for satisfaction by seeking out more extreme sexual
experiences, including extramarital affairs. A new partner is a natural
aphrodisiac that will restart the dopamine machine. Unfortunately, once
a person travels down this road the more likely they are to compulsively
seek out new affairs.
What kind of man is most likely to have affairs and to have more of
them? We saw in the chapter on father love that human male biology
reflects a trade-off between investment in mating versus parenting
effort, and that males with large testes, high sperm counts, and high lev-
els of testosterone were least likely to make good nonstraying dads and
to be much more inclined toward mating effort. A team of physicians
specializing in men’s health studied 1,098 males to assess cardiovascular
health among men in stable relationships. These men, all in their fifties,
were followed over a period of eight years. They found that ninety of
these men were in a stable extramarital relationship. The researchers
described the typical marital cheater biologically one who “seems to be
an alpha male, a sort of super hero with a better hormonal milieu and
better vascular function.”11 They conferred these accolades on them
because they had higher testosterone levels, greater testis volume,
greater sexual desire, a greater craving for novelty, low frequency of
erectile dysfunction, and lower systolic and diastolic blood pressure.
In other words, these men were great physical specimens designed to
please any willing lady.
It has long been known that frequent sexual activity contributes
to psychological and physical health and aids in longevity. Since
extramarital affairs presumably involve having more sex, these alpha
“heroes” should be at less risk for cardiovascular problems. On the
other hand, numerous studies have shown that death due to heart
attack during coitus is far more frequent in the context of illicit sex
than in marital sex. Over the eight-year period, 12.2 percent of the
“super heroes” had a major adverse cardiovascular event versus 8.3
percent of faithful (or near faithful) men. Despite their superior car-
diovascular profiles, and despite the well-established relationship
between frequent sexual activity and health, jumping into the sack
with someone other than one’s betrothed represents a serious risk
for heart attacks.

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Why do Women Cheat?

The answer to why women jump ship is more complicated than
answering why men do, although the footprints of evolution are still in
evidence. To paraphrase President Clinton’s election-clinching slogan,
for men “It’s the sex, stupid!,” but for experts on this subject, women’s
motivations to have affairs are usually more varied, with sexual pleasure
being secondary to other considerations. A 2012 UK adultery Survey of
two thousand men (average age, forty-two) and two thousand women
(average age, thirty-seven) engaged in adulterous affairs found that
the top six reasons for men having extramarital affairs were in order:
sexual excitement, bored with my marriage, an ego boost, felt taken
for granted (not just women feel this way), had the opportunity, and
arguments at home. For women, the top six reasons were emotional
fulfillment, improve my self-esteem, seeking romance, felt taken for
granted, sexual excitement, and loneliness. Furthermore, 57 percent
of the women having an affair said that they felt love for the men with
whom they were having an affair; only 27 percent of the adulterous
men felt likewise for their mistresses.12
These figures mesh well with about 50 years of studies showing that
among males and females aged 22 to 35, 44 percent of the males and
22 percent of the females report that physical pleasure is their primary
motivator for seeking sex. On the other hand, 31 percent of males and
66 percent of females in this age category report love as their primary
motivator. As men and women age the figures tend converge, with love
becoming more important for men and physical pleasure becoming
more important for women. About 50 percent of males over age 36
report that love and intimacy is their primary motivator, with about
the same percentage claiming that physical pleasure was primary. For
women in the same age category, 43 percent claimed that physical
pleasure was their main motivation for sex, and 38 percent claimed
that it was love.13 These are the findings we would expect if we take
seriously the different reproductive strategies of the sexes during the
reproductive years when male reproductive success means trying to
gain access to multiple partners and females, and female reproductive
success means gaining access to resources. In later years, each sex can
discover what the other sex previously found to be most satisfying
about mating relationships.
This would support the notion that some women have affairs just
for sex, or if they have them for some other reason, that they certainly

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appreciate the sex. Unlike men, many women who have affairs left their
marriage emotionally some time before they take the plunge into the
sack with a new partner. Many may feel like the poor female monkeys
artificially rendered continuously sexually receptive in a cage with a
husband with dimmed dopamine receptors. They may be suffering
from disillusionment of their unrealistic hopes and dreams provoked
by fairy tale accounts of marital bliss, and are yearning for more than
grunts as their husbands flip through endless TV channels. Women
want to feel important and cherished by their husbands; they need to
feel that they are appreciated, and if they are not they just might look
for fulfillment somewhere else. But women in good marriages also
cheat on perfectly good men: women are sexual creatures too. The UK
Adultery Survey found 34 percent of the adulterous women said they
were “happily married,” as opposed to 56 percent of the males. Men
are apparently more willing to wander despite being happily married.
Affairs: The Long and the Short of Them
Evolutionary biologist propose that men and women adjust their mat-
ing strategies from short term to long term, and vice versa, at different
times in their lives and in response to different opportunities and
conditions when benefits outweigh costs. Because of the fundamental
differences in obligatory parental investment between the sexes, men
are more prone to pursue short-term mating strategies with multiple
partners, with their primary difficulty being gaining access to them.
The evolutionary benefits of such a strategy are obvious. The primary
problem face by ancestral women was not gaining access to quantity,
but to quality; that is, to a mate willing and able to provide them and
their children with the resources necessary for survival. Less clear are
the evolutionary benefits that might accrue to women pursuing short-
term mating strategies, especially women who have already secured a
long-term partner. For unmated women, short-term mating in ancestral
environments might yield them immediate resources and the opportu-
nity to evaluate a number of men as potential long-term mates, but for
mated women to adopt short-term tactics is fraught with risks (losing
what they have) as well as potential benefits (gaining something better).
Some evolutionary theorists claim, morality aside, that by selectively
engaging in short-term mating female infidelity can be advantageous
in the sense that it potentially enables them to secure the best of both
worlds; good genes from highly masculine cads and good caregiving
from less masculine dads.
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Of course, human females can no more examine men’s genes for

quality anymore than peahens can, nor are they anymore aware that
this is what they are doing. Rather, their inner whispers allow them
to infer genetic quality from certain observable characteristic of men,
and these indicator traits are as compelling to them as the quality of a
peacock’s tail is to peahens. There are certain kinds of men that women
looking for a short-term affair find more alluring than others.
Have you ever wondered why bad boys seem to get the girls while
the nice guys get the brush off? Men can’t wrap their minds around
this phenomenon; after all, men adore nice women, and they can never
be too nice for us. But that’s just another of the many ways that the
sexes differ. We’ve previously noted the cascade of research showing
that criminals have more sex partners than the average Joe, and the
psychopaths get even more. Bad boys are brash, cocky, rude, indifferent,
aggressive, and self-absorbed, but they also march to their own drum
beats, and are confident, exciting, adventurous, challenging, masculine,
and even a little mysterious. Oh, with all that experience these chick
magnets might just be good lovers as well.
Alpha males with traits that signaled “good genes” would have been
leaders in ancient times on the African savanna because, as Judith Har-
ris points out: “His lack of fear, desire for excitement, and impulsiveness
made him a formidable weapon against rival groups. His aggressive-
ness, strength, and lack of compassion enable him to dominate his
groupmates and give him first shot at hunter-gatherer perks.”14 The
most desired of these perks were women, and women are attracted to
such men, not because they are “nice,” but because they have status and
resources within the group and made good protectors. Women with
a preference for this kind of man may have enjoyed as much repro-
ductive success as women who preferred more gentle souls in some
environment, thus passing on that preference across the generations.
Of course, most women realize that bad boys make sad girls and avoid
such a man like the plague. But men of this type don’t give a damn;
there are enough women who will line up to meet them. Such cads
couldn’t care less if they are your Mr. Right; they just want your body,
no strings attached. Their very indifference is seen as a challenge by
some women because being with one gives women a feeling of power
and confidence as his rubs off on her. The modern “feminist male”
doesn’t cut it for such women.
Don’t get me wrong, in no way am I saying that falling for a man
who will leave them feeling like emotional road kill is a good thing. I’m
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simply attempting to explain why (some) women find them attractive.

Many of the traits useful in evolutionary times can overshoot their
optimum and become liabilities rather than assets when exercised
freely in evolutionarily novel urban societies. There are many kind and
considerate men who are far from criminals or psychopaths who are just
as confident, exciting, adventurous, and masculine, such as firefighters,
police officers, or marines whose masculine powers are channeled for
good. All women would probably prefer a James Bond type who is a
combination of mystery, masculinity, looks, and money, but they settle
for reasonable facsimiles who will bring home the bacon and love them
and their kids, even if they are beta males with tiny testicles.
When are Women Most Likely to Cheat?
If a woman is going to be unfaithful, she is at greater risk for doing so
at the most fertile part of her menstrual cycle. Of course, she makes
no conscious connection between the two events and does not want to
become pregnant by her paramour unless she can pass off the child as
being sired by her long-term mate. This is termed the “ovulatory shift
hypothesis,” which states that women are more sexually attracted to
males possessing characteristics that reflected high genetic quality to
ancestral females when ovulating. While this is another thing that seems
far-fetched to those unfamiliar with evolutionary logic, a review of fifty
studies testing this hypothesis among many thousands of women found
strong support for it and concluded: “Women exhibited a stronger
preference for characteristics widely thought to have reflected genetic
quality in ancestral males on high-fertility days of the cycle as compared
to low fertility days of the cycle.”15 What we are probably witnessing here
are the deeply buried remnants of human estrus when female sexual
appetites were pumped up in the service of reproduction.
But even among these fifty studies we find no clue about why women
become more sexually turbo-charged in their peak fertility years. Judith
Easton and her colleagues propose that ancestral women saw as many
as half of their band’s children die of disease, starvation, and violence,
which left a genetic imprint urging them to replenish the stock by
bearing as many children as possible. Becoming pregnant is easy for
young females, and a constant cycle of gestation and lactation limited
their sexual appetites. In later life women found it more difficult to get
pregnant and responded by seeking more sex. This notion was sup-
ported in a sample of 827 women. It was found that women who had
passed their peak fertility years but had not yet reached menopause
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were more sexually active than both women in their most fertile years
and women who were postmenopausal. The findings were true for
both married and single women and regardless of whether they had
given birth or not.16 An alternative explanation that complements this
one is that women in the premenopausal stage experience decreasing
estrogen levels, and thus decreasing oxytocin levels. This may bring
them hormonally more in sync with males and make them more “me”
centered that “we” centered. The finding that “older women” (premeno-
pausal) have a stronger libido gives some credence to the cads dictum
about cougars: “They don’t yell, don’t tell, won’t swell, and they’re as
grateful as hell.”
Jealousy: Love’s Green Ey’d Monster
This is a good point at which to discuss jealousy, the emotion that Shake-
speare called a “green-ey’d monster which doth mock the meat it feeds
on.” These lines were spoken by Iago, one of the nastiest characters in all
of Shakespeare’s plays. Iago is an ensign to General Othello, but wants
to bring him down because not only has he been passed over for pro-
motion but also suspects that his wife has slept with Othello. He does
this artfully by convincing Othello that his beloved wife, Desdemona,
is being unfaithful to him, which is not true. Iago warns Othello not
to be jealous because it turns people into monsters, while knowing (or
at least hoping) that it will do just that. It succeeded because Othello
allows himself to be so tormented (PISD) by the imagined infidelity of
the innocent Desdemona, that he kills her and then commits suicide.
Almost everyone has experienced that deeply negative emotion
when we perceive a valued relationship is in jeopardy. Jealousy is a
highly combustible mixture of many feelings and emotions such as
sadness, hurt, fear, depression, anger, and vengefulness, and can have
deadly consequences, as poor Desdemona found out. Both sexes may
feel intense jealousy, but literature, history, and tons of academic stud-
ies leave no doubt that the green-ey’d monster bites men the hardest.
Self-report studies in which subjects are told to imagine their romantic
partners having sex or falling in love with someone else found that
men reported feeling more upset with the former and women with the
latter, although, of course, they are highly correlated in real life, and
both signal the danger of losing one’s mate. These studies have also
been conducted using measures of autonomic nervous system arousal
(heart rate, sweating, and rising blood pressure) which find the same
sex differences.17
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Why might these differences be observed? Samuel Johnson answered

this best about three hundred years ago. After telling us that: “Between
a man and his wife, a husband’s infidelity is nothing. Wise married
women don’t trouble themselves about the infidelity in their husbands,”
he goes on to tell us why the infidelity of a woman is considered to be
so much more serious than that of a man: “The difference is boundless.
The man imposes no bastards upon his wife.”18 Of course, “the man”
may impose bastards on some other poor chap, but Johnson seemed
unconcerned with that. Yet his words provides the big clue why men
are more jealous—women always know their babies are theirs, but
throughout history men have had endure nagging doubts about their
paternity. A man’s great fear, then, is having “bastards” imposed on
him; that is, being cuckolded.
The term cuckold comes from the crafty habit of the cuckoo bird of
laying her eggs in the nests of other birds and fooling them into feed-
ing the hatchlings. In humans it refers to a man unwittingly providing
paternal investment in the child of another man. Given the dire evolu-
tionary consequences of being cuckolded, male would certainly have
evolved mechanisms designed to minimize the occurrence. Jealousy is
an emotion that motivates many different kinds of behavior depending
on the personality and circumstances of those experiencing it. It may
motivate some to do positive things to try to preserve the relationship,
resulting perhaps in a better and more rewarding one, but others
like Othello may stew over incessantly it until anger and resentment
coalesce into a toxic vortex destined to end tragically.
When the monster bites and men strike back by engaging in what
sociologists call “intimate partner violence,” it is most likely occur in
environments where the threat of cuckoldry is most real. Such envi-
ronments are those in which marriages are precarious, where moral
restrictions on pre- and extramarital sexual relationships are weakest,
where out-of-wedlock birth rates are highest, and in which other kinds
of violence are common; that is, in low-income environments. Cuckol-
dry is found to increase dramatically as income level decreases. Based
on blood group evidence from a variety of studies, cuckoldry happens
rarely to higher-income men; with only about 1 percent fooled in raising
the seed of another man. Five to 6 percent of middle-income men are
duped into doing so, while 10 to 30 percent of lower-income men are
hoodwinked by their unfaithful partners.19
Although by no means limited to the lower classes, domestic violence
is most often committed by males criminologists call “competitively
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disadvantaged” (CD).Such males have low mate value because they have
less to offer in terms of resources or prospects of acquiring them, which,
all other things being equal, should make their mates less desirous of
maintaining the relationship with them, and more likely to seek other
partners. Lacking alternative means for controlling their partner’s
behavior (i.e., of assuring sexual fidelity), CD males may turn to violent
tactics to intimidate them and to warn off male poachers.20 Females
may also resort to violence when confronted by their mate’s infidelity;
think of the fact-based American blues ballad Frankie and Johnny in
which Johnny “was her man but he done her wrong.” This story is an
amalgam of the stories of two women named Francis and Frankie who
both killed unfaithful lovers.
Jealousy is not necessarily pathological; even the Almighty admitted
to being a “jealous God.” If we are in love with someone, it is perfectly
normal to feel jealous pain when that person displays an amorous
interest in someone else. While the total absence of jealousy in a rela-
tionship probably indicates a lack of value for it, the depth of jealousy is
not a measure of the depth of love. It is more a measure of one’s sense
of insecurity and inferiority. An insanely jealous person is allowing the
real or imagined behavior of another to jeopardize his or her mental
and physical well-being. The madly jealous person does not love the
self, and therefore is incapable of loving anyone else. An ocean of
studies has documented a strong correlation between jealousy and low
self-esteem, and has also shown that excessively jealous persons have a
malevolent attitude toward the world in general.21 An individual with
feelings of negative self-worth finds it difficult to believe that anyone
else could find value in him or her, and may continually imagine that
no one could be faithful to such an undeserving soul. If a person feels
this way, the atmosphere of insecurity and possessiveness they create
in their relationships make it more probable that his or her mate will
eventually come to share the evaluation and go forth to seek someone
more deserving of his or her love. If such an event does occur, it merely
seems to vindicate what we’ve known all along—we’re no good. Jeal-
ousy is indeed the monster that destroys love relationships under the
illusion of preserving them.
Notes
1. Shackelford, LeBlanc, and Drass, Emotional reactions to infidelity.
2. Ortman, D., Post-infidelity stress disorder.
3. Pew Research Center, The World’s Muslims.
4. Walsh and Hemmens, Law, Justice, and Society.
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5. Lee, J., In which states is cheating on your spouse illegal?

6. Durex Center, 2005 global sex survey.
7. Pew Research Center, What’s morally acceptable?
8. Atkins, Baucom, and Jacobson, Understanding infidelity.
9. Campbell, J., Myths to live by.
10. Michael and Zumpe, Potency in male rhesus monkeys.
11. Fisher, Bandini, Corona, et al., Stable extramarital affairs, 12.
12. The UK Adultery Survey.
13. Walsh, A. and G. Walsh, Viva la difference!.
14. Harris, J., The Nurture Assumption. 299–300.
15. Gildwersleeve, Haselton, and Fales, Do women’s mate preferences, 1251.
16. Easton, Confer, Goetz, and Buss, Reproduction expediting.
17. Buss, D., Strategies of human mating.
18. Boswell, J., Life of Johnson, 1236.
19. Baker, R., Sperm wars.
20. Figueredo, Vasquez, Broumbach, et al., Consilience and life history theory.
21. Bringle and Williams, Parental—Offspring similarity.

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 17
Loving by the Numbers
The trouble with life is that there are so many
beautiful women and so little time.
—John Barrymore, early American movie actor

The Operational Sex Ratio

We have thus far taken a peek at the huge variety of ways in which
human beings think and believe about sex and romance and how they
seek and react to it. We have looked at sex differences, hormones,
neurotransmitters, sociosexuality, love styles, wealth and power differ-
entials, attractiveness, religion, and a few other things, but now I want
to look at the broader environment in which these things play out. Your
successes or failures in the love game are not entirely attributable to
the traits and characteristics you brought with you to it; they are also
partly the result of the social context in which the game takes place.
The love game is one with subconscious rules that often shift about
without warning. Sometimes the rules favor males, and sometimes
they favor females, and sometimes the playing field is level, the game
is tied, and both sexes win.
All animals, especially the human animal, have been exquisitely
designed to respond to the changing demands of their environments.
Every member of all species has a species-specific nature forged by eons
of natural selection, but these natures must be sufficiently plastic to be
able to bend with changing circumstances or the species risks extinction.
We humans possess remarkable adaptive flexibility in our love lives in
response to environmental cues. The most important feature of the
human environment is other humans, and for sex and romance, at least
for heterosexuals, it means the availability of members of the opposite
sex in their social worlds. The fluctuating availability of opposite sex
partners has a remarkable effect on attitudes and behaviors related to
dating and mating that are quite independent of personal characteristics.

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The relative availability of mating partners is called the operational

sex ratio. The operational sex ratio is different from the sex ratio, which
is simply the ratio of males to females of all ages in a population. For
instance, according to the 2014 census, there were 96.7 males for every
100 females in the United States—that is the sex ratio.1 If the operational
sex ratio was at this level its effects would not be noticeable, but it is
not. The operational sex ratio is the ratio of available sexually active
males to available sexually receptive females in a mating population.
Because this slice of the population is what we are interested in, when
I use the phrase “sex ratio” throughout this chapter I am referring only
to the operational sex ratio.
A 2014 US Census Bureau document reported that in 2013 for every
one hundred single women there were only eighty-seven available single
men.2 This is what is known as a low sex ratio; a shortage of men. A high
sex ratio is a situation in which there are more single males than single
females; a shortage of women. When the operational sex ratio becomes
too skewed in one direction or the other it has profound effects on the
dating and mating environment; some negative and some positive.
Fluctuating sex ratios across time and cultures reveal truths about the
nature of male and female mating strategies when neither sex has to
compromise with the strategy of the other. The effects of changing sex
ratios on the dating and mating attitudes and customs of society are so
lawlike that demographers can predict marriage and divorce rates from
them, public health officials can predict illegitimacy and venereal disease
rates, criminologists can predict crime rates, economists can predict the
health of the floral, jewelry, restaurant, and travel markets, and political
scientists can predict levels of social unrest. No other single number in
the human sciences captures so many correlates as the sex ratio.
Too Many Women
Nowhere are the respective reproductive strategies of the sexes laid so
bare as in environmental situations in which one or the other sex has a
distinct advantage and is able to call the dating and mating shots. I am
not referring to individuals who are blessed in abundance with what
the opposite sex finds irresistible, but rather to all members of a sex in
general. Across a huge variety of animal species from lobsters to human
beings, the sex ratio in a breeding population is the most important
environmental factor affecting mating patterns in nominally monog-
amous species such as ours. Mother Nature tends to keep sex ratios
balanced most of the time, but events occur outside of her control, such
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as wars, migration, and sex-selective abortions, that significantly skews

them in one direction or the other. Field experiments with species in
which pairbonding occurs (at least for the mating season) show that
when researchers manipulate the sex ratio by removing a proportion of
the males from the breeding population, male desertion rates rise pre-
cipitously among the remaining males as opportunities to remate occur.3
In the previous chapter I asked the question “Why do males cheat?”
and answered it in terms of the evolved propensity of males to seek
multiple sex partners. Males find it easier to feed this propensity in
certain contexts than in others, and the simple contextual answer to
the question is that they cheat because they can. They can cheat when
there is an excess of available women, a situation which results in more
women being willing to aid and abet men in their sexual dalliances. In
almost all sexually reproducing species males will spread themselves
around sexually when they are able, and an abundance of females in
a breeding population grants them that opportunity.4 In such low
sex-ratio conditions, males so inclined are able to limit their parent-
ing effort and increase their mating effort because the fitness value of
monogamous loyalty declines with a decline in the sex ratio.
The effect of fluctuating sex ratios on the behavior of nonhuman
animals is well researched in biology, but the first major work to apply
the concept to human beings was Marcia Guttentag and Paul Secord’s
ground-breaking book, Too Many Women? The Sex Ratio Question.
Guttentag and Secord examined the effects of fluctuating sex ratios
by scouring the historical literature on cultures ranging from ancient
Greece to the modern United States. Their investigations led to the
following predictions regarding societies in which there was an excess
of females (low sex ratio):
Women in such societies would have a subjective sense of power-
lessness and

would feel disvalued by the society. They would be more likely to

be valued as mere sex objects. Unlike the high sex ratio situation,
women would find it difficult to achieve economic mobility through
marriage. More men and women would remain single, or if they
married, would be more apt to get divorced. Illegitimate births would
rise sharply. The divorce rate would be high, but the remarriage rate
would be high for men only.5

Guttentag and Secord show that low sex-ratio societies tend to be unsta-
ble, misogynistic, and licentious. On the other hand, in high sex-ratio
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societies: “women would be valued as romantic love objects;” both sexes

“would stress sexual morality,” women would have a “subjective sense
of power and control over their lives,” male commitment to marriage
would be strong, and society would be stable.6 Their argument is that
when males or females are free to choose their mating behavior because
the sex ratio favors their sex, they are able to behave in ways compatible
with their innate inclinations.
The sex ratio operates according to laws of supply and demand,
the less numerous sex is a scarce resource and is therefore a valued
commodity. Members of the more numerous sex must compromise
their natural mating strategies and conform to the strategy of the less
numerous sex if they are to participate at all in the mating game. In
high sex-ratio environments, males must apply the brakes in their
search for multiple partners and display their resources and paternal
qualities, and in low sex-ratio environments females must ramp up their
sexuality and display a willingness to dispense it. As Anne Campbell
remarked: “When males are rare and valuable, women have little option
but to engage in short-term relationships despite their preference for
a committed partner. This creates a men’s ‘buyer’s market,’ which in
turn makes them less likely to commit themselves to long-term invest-
ment.”7 A 1980s bumper-sticker displayed by would-be Casanovas
paraphrasing John Barrymore’s epigraphic complaint says it all—SO
MANY WOMEN . . . SO LITTLE TIME.
The marriage and commitment issue is not just one of simply calcu-
lating the ratios of single men to single women; the quality of available
unmarried males is also a major consideration. Pew Research survey
findings show that 78 percent of single women place a high premium
on finding a mate with a steady job and a decent income. Thanks to
the loss of millions of high paying blue collar jobs due to the globalized
economy and robotization, the Pew survey calculated that for every
one hundred single women in 2013 there were just sixty-five employed
single men.8 Marriage to a man with poor employment prospects who
may also have a criminal record and who may abuse drugs and alco-
hol is hardly a bright prospect. This leaves those males who do have
good jobs and none of the negative baggage in a hugely advantageous
position. Because women must compete for mates on men’s terms
under such conditions, many find themselves among a rotating roster
of quasi-concubines waiting to be summoned by a desirable man, who
is not too inclined to rush into marriage under such circumstances. In
an article about the dating tribulations faced by professional women in
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New York, writer Kate Bolic reveals the attitudes of some of the men
she has dated:

Take the high-powered magazine editor who declared on our first

date that he was going to spend his 30s playing the field. Or the
prominent academic who announced on our fifth date that he couldn’t
maintain a committed emotional relationship but was very interested
in a physical one. Or the novelist who, after a month of hanging out,
said he had to get back out there and tomcat around, but asked if we
could keep having sex anyhow, or at least just one last time. Or the
writer who announced after six months together that he had to end
things because he “couldn’t continue fending off all the sexual offers.”9

The Effect of a Low Sex Ratio on Cultural Values

A sex ratio that is significantly lower than produced by natural random
fluctuations has negative consequences that infiltrate all aspects of a
society and changes its culture. Commenting on a particularly low sex
ratio in Medieval Germany and France due to interminable warfare
and the loss of many males, Guttentag and Secord write: “As expected
from the low sex ratios, the prevailing ethos was sexual libertarianism,
a cultural attitude shared by both men and women. Sexual cynicism,
rather than the ideal of committed love, predominated. All aspects
of society were touched by what has been referred to as ‘the decline
in morals.’”10 This sounds all too familiar eight centuries later in the
United States where many pundits have attributed the explosion of
out-of-wedlock births, sexually transmitted diseases, and divorce
and abandonment to moral decline and feminism. However, history
tells us moral decline and the rise of feminist movements have almost
always occurred in response to mating environments forged by a low
sex ratio, and evolutionary logic tells us why. In other words, low sex
ratios come before feminist movements and moral decline, so feminist
movements and loose morality are effects rather than causes. However,
once these things arrive, they can combine with the low sex ratio to
make matters worse.
In open societies such as ours, when sexual behavior is at issue it is
largely impervious to moral dictates, even as it responds predictably
to demographics—morality progressively disappears as the sex ratio
drops. Culture does slowly responds to low sex ratios, however, but
does so by reinforcing and modeling behavior that it formerly sought
to suppress. Changes in attitudes, values, and behaviors wrought by
feminism and corrupt morals add gas to the fire started by a low sex
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ratio. Rather than lauding love, family, and commitment, the popular
media regale us with highly sexualized content that glamorizes loveless
sex. Impressionable teenage boys and girls with eyes glued to the mass
of TV shows with high sexual content (the sexual content of TV was
virtually nil up until the 1970s) such as Sex and the City, come to think
of uncommitted sex as the “cool” and the “grown-up” thing to do. A 2008
nationwide study spearheaded by Anita Chandra found that girls aged
between twelve and seventeen who watched such shows regularly where
over twice as likely to become pregnant over the four-year duration of
the study compared with girls with less exposure.11
Culture and demographics thus conspire to produce a situation that
nobody wants and nobody knows how to prevent. In more traditional
societies with a strong cultural overlay of respect for secular and
religious authority, morality can hold down the fort a bit longer as it
is assaulted by a low sex ratio, but as tradition and religion wanes, so
will morality. When the overlay frays, committed love takes a back seat
to raw sex, as history has taught us over and over. Of course, there is
never an abrupt switch from morality to promiscuity (or vice versa) as
implied by the phrase “the sexual revolution.” Rather than a revolution,
we see a seamless transition as subsequent cohorts of young men and
women come to perceive the relative availability of prospective roman-
tic partners and respond to it.
Low Sex Ratios, Illegitimacy, Crime, and
Sexually Transmitted Diseases
While it is obvious that low sex ratios have significant negative impact
on committed love, the notion that too few males pose a threat to the
social order sounds counterintuitive since the greatest single risk factor
for crime and any number of other social maladies is maleness. Fewer
males relative to females should translate into fewer social problems,
but because of the unbridled sexuality let loose by a low sex ratio, there
is more illegitimacy, more family abandonment, and more divorce
than is found in balanced of high sex-ratio environments. This leads
to young males being raised in fatherless homes with less monitoring
and supervision of their behavior. We have seen that being raised in a
fatherless home poses significant risks for many negative outcomes for
children, but in the present context it means that the attitudes, values,
and behavior of fatherless young males will likely default to those found
among street gangs composed of others just like them. These young
men will grow up and recycle the same social situation that forged
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them; that is, they will “play the field” and avoid marriage, which is
may just be what they need to soothe their savage breasts and turn
down their testosterone faucets. Voltaire noted the civilizing effect of
marriage on men over two hundred years ago: “The more married men
you have, the less crime there will be. Look at the frightful records of
your criminal registers; you will find there a hundred bachelors hanged
or broken on the wheel for one father of a family.”12
Psychologist Daniel Kruger found a reluctance of men to marry and
become a “father of a family” in low sex-ratio cities across the United
States.13 Studying marriage patterns and sex ratios in the fifty largest
metropolitan areas in the United States, he found that younger men in
low sex-ratio cities (e.g., Philadelphia) had significantly lower marriage
rates than similar men in high sex-ratio cities (e.g., Phoenix), but higher
marriage rates when they were older. Men in high sex-ratio cities snap
up single women before anyone else does, but in areas where there
are an excess of women, men can, as Kate Bolic bewailed, bide their
time and sow their seed in many wombs. In other words, because the
low sex ratio favored their mating strategies when young, men in low
sex-ratio cites are reluctant to commit to one woman, but when they
are ready to commit in later years, the surfeit of women makes it easier
for them to obtain a long-term “quality” partner, thus they enjoy the
best of both male-mating worlds.
High rates of illegitimacy in a mating population is the most palpable
indicator of a focus on mating as opposed to parenting effort, and a low
sex ratio has been found to be the best predictor of illegitimacy rates
controlling for a number of other relevant variables in 117 countries
by Scott South and Katherine Trent14 and in 185 countries by Nigel
Barber.15 One of the reasons for the feminization of poverty noted
earlier is the epidemic of out-of-wedlock births we have experienced
since the beginning of the sexual revolution, and the major reason for
both the revolution and illegitimate births is the low sex ratio. Using
data from 153 large cities in the United States, criminologists Rob-
ert Messner and Steven Sampson found the sex ratio to be the most
powerful predictor of the rate of single-parent households of the eight
predictors in their statistic model for blacks, and in the white model (a
population with a less-skewed sex ratio) it was the third most powerful
predictor, behind per capita income and welfare availability.16
Messner and Sampson also found that the proportion of single
parent households in cities was also the best predictor of their crime
rates, especially violent crime rates. Another study of 240 rural US
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counties identified high rates of female-headed households as the most

important factor in explaining crime rates: “a 10 percent increase in
female-headed households was associated with a 73- to 100-percent
higher rates of arrest for all offenses except homicide [a 10% increase
was associated with a 33% increase in homicide].”17 A low sex ratio thus
leads to a chain of events—promiscuity, illegitimacy, fatherless house-
holds, poor monitoring of children’s behavior, the formation of street
gangs, violence, and crime. Similar findings have been reported across
seventy different countries around the world.18 Plato was certainly
right when he said that “He [she too, of course] whom love touches
not walks in darkness.”19
The sex ratio is particularly low in the African American community.
Guttentag and Secord note that: “American blacks present us with the
most persistent and severest shortage of men in a coherent subcultural
group that we have been able to discover during the era of modern
censuses.”20 Persistent low sex ratios provide males the opportunity to
have a number of sexual partners simultaneously. A study examining
low and balanced sex-ratio counties across the United States found
that concurrent sex partnerships (being in a sexual relationship with
two or more women simultaneously) were 2.2 times more prevalent
in counties with fewer than 90 males for every female compared with
counties with approximately equal populations of males and females.21
Having multiple partners leads to an elevated risk of contracting
sexually transmitted infections. According to the Center for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDCP), the rate of HIV infection of African
American males is eight times that of white males, and the rate of new
HIV infection is also eight times greater.22 Although many of HIV cases
were associated with gay and bisexual males, the estimated rate of new
HIV infections for African American women was twenty times that of
white women and almost five times that of Hispanic women. The CDCP
also states that at some point in their lifetimes, an estimated one in sixteen
African American men and one in thirty-two African American women
will be diagnosed with HIV infection. Similar racial disparities are noted
for all other sexually transmitted diseases such as syphilis (male rate 5.7
times greater than for white male rate overall, and 14 times the rate in the
youngest age category) and the rate for black women is 23 times higher
than the white female rate. So again contrary to what Mae West told us,
too much of a good thing can be deadly as well as wonderful.
Of course, this is not just a “black thing,” or the result of a “matri-
archal culture,” as some sociologists have suggested. Whites would be
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just as inclined to behave as promiscuously if their sex ratio was as

imbalanced as the black ratio. A case in point is the low sex ratio during
World War II in the more sexually restrictive 1940s. According to an
analysis by a team of economists, the low sex ratio during World War
II, when a large number of males were serving overseas, “decreased
the ‘price’—in terms of marriage—that remaining men had to pay for
sex . . . [a reduction of ]” 10 males per 100 females in the US population
during World War II increased the out-of-wedlock birth rate by 6 to
10 percent.”23 The 1940s sex ratio in the United States reversed itself
abruptly, and the culture was still sexually restrictive and respectful
of women. Had it not been, the out-of-wedlock birth rate would have
doubtless been much higher.
A Silver Lining, Perhaps?
Not everything about the low sex ratio is negative, though. Three
generations of American women have surveyed the love terrain and
have decided to do something about it. The feminism that low ratios
have always engendered has motivated women to take charge of their
own lives with a vengeance. In many respects women are vindicating
Gloria Steinem’s famous quip: “We’re becoming the men we wanted
to marry.” If many women have abandoned hope of “marrying up”
with men who’ll bring home the bacon, they have decided to bring it
home themselves, as well as “fry it up in the pan.” There are now more
women in colleges across the country than men, and according to the
Bureau of Labor Statistics: “By 27 years of age, 32 percent of women
had received a bachelor’s degree, compared with 24 percent of men.”24
Making matter even worse (or better, depending on your point of view),
by 2009 there were slightly more women (64.2 million) on America’s
payroll than men (63.4 million), and women’s pay is catching up as
they enter more formerly male-dominated professions that pay more.25
Where does all this lead to in terms of love and marriage? Let’s return
to Kate Bolic’s melancholic assessment: “As women have climbed ever
higher, men have been falling behind. We’ve arrived at the top of the
staircase, finally ready to start our lives, only to discover a cavernous
room at the tail end of a party, most of the men gone already, some
having never shown up—and those who remain are leering by the
cheese table, or are, you know, the ones you don’t want to go out with.”26
She seems to be suggesting that if a successful woman wants to warm
fuzziness of a settled marriage with children she will either have accept
the prospect of “marrying down,” get lucky with a successful man who
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wants what she wants, take her spot in some playboy’s harem, or rec-
oncile herself to spinsterhood.
The sad fact is that evolution has instilled in women an attraction
for men of high status, and in men a great thirst for such status, which
includes being the master of their own domains. Women’s slice of the
social status pie has grown, but their innate whisper for a higher status
mate has not diminished. As women gather ever larger slices of the
pie, finding a man with a larger slice becomes ever harder. Make no
mistake; the evolutionary push is still present in both sexes. As Mau-
reen Dowd explains: “Women moving up still strive to marry up. Men
moving up still tend to marry down. The two sexes going in opposite
directions has led to an epidemic of professional women missing out
on husbands and kids.”27 If a woman “marries down,” there is a danger
that her mate will eventually become intimidated by her success and
feel his manhood threatened, especially if she reminds him who the
house alpha is. Of course, some men who are confident in their mas-
culinity may accept the situation, but women should be aware of an
omega leech with little sense of self-identity looking for a woman to
will support him while he plays out an extended adolescence guzzling
beer and surfing the net all day.
Tables Turned: Too Many Men
What is the nature of the mating game when there is a high sex ratio and
females hold the upper hand? Given that women in such environments
hold the bargaining chips, if there were no profound sex differences in
reproductive strategies, we might see women doing exactly as men do.
They might engage in casual sex with as many men as possible because
they want to, not because they feel they have to. They might set up
male massage parlors, porn shops, and male “Hooters” bars (use your
imagination as to what they might call them) catering only to women,
engage male prostitutes, and get hot and bothered gawking at male
pole dancers, but they don’t. All other things being equal, when the
female mating strategy reigns society is a kinder and gentler place. Just
as a low sex ratio turns both sexes into libertines, a high sex ratio turns
them into romantics. As the sex ratio becomes more females favoring,
we may see bumper stickers on women’s cars proclaiming SO MANY
MEN . . . WHICH ONE WILL I LOVE?
In high sex-ratio conditions, males who have gained access to mates
jealously guard them and provide them with valuable resources and
parenting effort. A young wife who moved with her husband to San
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Francisco in 1875 shows how perceptive humans are to the mating

environment. San Francisco and its environs had a huge excess of
men (about twelve men for every woman) at that time due to male
migrants and sailors jumping ship to make their fortunes from free
land and gold mining. Upon surveying the mating landscape, this
cagey young woman remarked: “Guess my husband’s got to look after
me and make himself agreeable to me if he can; if he don’t, there’s
plenty that will.”28
Guttentag and Secord show in their book that from colonial times
onward, the American frontier moved ever farther westward, creating
extraordinarily high sex ratios as it moved. From Lake Michigan to the
Pacific Ocean from 1850 to 1900, the sex ratios in the states ranged
from 125 to 162 men for every 100 women. These high sex ratios lasted
into the twentieth century, mainly due to male immigration to the
United States. This helped to shape the traditional American respect
for women, and to forge male attitudes, values, and customs relating
to marriage. High sex ratios meant that men had to compromise with
the female strategy; if they did not, as the young California wife pointed
out, there were many others who would. In those female-favoring
days, women were prized and respected, marriage was considered an
attractive and permanent prospect, sexual intimacy was an expression
of love, and adultery was morally unacceptable and legally punishable.
America even had a muted form of early medieval Europe’s courtly love
in the form of the idealized Southern Belle.
Because of the movement of young men westward, the New England
states had low sex ratios, but the libertine tendencies of low sex-ratio
environments were blunted by the stern puritanism of their founding
fathers. Single women were still in demand for marriage and courted
with intensity. Yet it would be too much to claim that New England
was impervious to the effects of a low sex ratio entirely. Guttentag
and Secord tell us that the notions of idealized pure “Fair Maidens”
and demonized promiscuous “Dark Ladies” emerged. Men “picked a
Fair Maiden for a fiancee or wife” but they also readily exploited Dark
Ladies “who might be available for sexual satisfaction.”29
The Southern states had a high sex ratio until after the civil war,
after which the sex ratio became moderately low. However, the South
had a more traditional romantic culture forged by powerful planta-
tion owners who had much structural power, and religious values
exerted a strong hold. Thus the values of a high sex-ratio romantic
culture were maintained longer there. Guttentag and Secord inform us
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that: “Although the evidence is very scanty, it appears that women in

these very high sex ratio societies were also well treated.”30
The same sort of female-favoring situation that existed in the early
United States, albeit, not quite so severe, exists in modern China.
Because of China’s one-child policy and the subsequent abortion or
infanticide of girl babies, the sex ratio is around 118 and climbing to
levels considered threatening to social stability. In such high sex-ratio
circumstances, Chinese women are ardently courted and spoiled, and
according to Tracey Wilen-Daugenti, by the age of 30, only one per-
cent of Chinese women remain unmarried compared to an average of
15 percent among women in Western countries.31 A study of wom-
en’s partnering behavior in China based on the Chinese Health and
Family Life Survey found only 12 percent of the women anonymously
reported having premarital sex and between six and seven percent
reported having more than one sex partner or having extramarital
sex.32 Although these numbers seem suspiciously small, even if they
were double, compared with contemporary American statistics they
starkly illustrate the effects of a very high sex ratio compared to a low
sex ratio and the different attitudes of men and women on love and sex.
It pays to have a fat wallet when there is a lot of competition for
available women. Using historical and experimental data, a team of
researchers led by marketing professor Vladas Griskevicius looked at
how the sex ratio influences economic decisions such as saving, bor-
rowing, and spending in the United States over time.33 They found that
where high sex ratios exist the intensity of same-sex competition for
mates ramp up their testosterone levels to compete with other males,
just like every other animal. However, rather than fighting tooth and
claw, they compete the American way—by spending more money on
such things as personal hygiene products, gym memberships, travel,
flowers, fancy restaurants, and jewelry, especially high-carat engage-
ment rings. The researchers noted that in Columbus, Georgia, where
there were 118 desperate single males chasing 100 available females,
the average consumer debt was $3,479 higher than it was in Macon, just
100 miles away up highway US 80, where there were 78 single males for
every 100 single females. Using statistical techniques, they were able
to rule out alternative explanation for this discrepancy. The research
team also found that high sex ratios affect women’s expectations of
how much men should spend on them when courting.
Although high sex ratios result in a higher proportion of males being
married, less promiscuity, greater conjugal and social stability, and lower
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levels of crime, this is true only up to a point. When the sex ratio gets
excessively high, the effects begin to tilt in a negative direction. Where that
tipping point is depends on a variety of cultural factors such as a respected
system of law and its enforcement, degree of religious commitment, and
degree of pre-existing stability. If we have to put a number on the issue,
Valerie Hudson and Andrea den Boer find that “societies with young adult
male sex ratios of approximately 120 males to 100 females and above are
inherently unstable.”34 It was not for nothing that the old West, lacking
the civilized effect of womenfolk, was called the “Wild West.”
Sex and Shaheedism
A shaheed is an Islamic martyr, or suicide bomber. What could possibly
motivate a man to strap on a suicide vest and blow himself and dozens
of innocent men, women, and children to smithereens? We might
begin by noting that 97 percent of shaheed are young men from lower
socioeconomic families who cannot afford to marry. In most Muslim
societies there is a mandatory payment called mahr paid by the groom
or his family to the bride at marriage. This can be a considerable sum,
depending on the desirability of the bride, and is often beyond the
ability of poor families to obtain. Because being married and the head
of a family confers special masculine status in Muslim societies, those
left out are often ridiculed as unoussa (“old maids”), which is a mark of
deep shame and emasculation. As one Egyptian commentator noted:
“The youth are seeking death. They’re already dead at home.”35
Part of the problem is the practice of polygamy in many Muslim
societies, especially those where suicide bombers are likely to come
from. Islamic scholar Bilal Philips tells us that while most marriages in
Muslin countries are monogamous, 10 to 15 percent are polygamous.36
This does not seem a lot, but consider a population in with approxi-
mately one million unmarried members of each sex. If 10 percent of the
males (100,000) marry only two wives each, this leaves the remaining
90 percent (900,000 men) chasing 800,000 women, leaving in their
wake 100,000 desperate males confronted not only with a shortage of
women but also a shortage of cash for bride price should he be lucky
enough to find one. It would be worse if we took the larger figure (15
percent of marriages) and if some of these men garnered more than
two wives (the Koran sets a limit of four).
Having such a huge surplus of sexually frustrated men is a recipe
for disaster in any society, Muslim or otherwise. While there is a lot of
violence and unrest in other polygamous societies, suicide bombers is
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overwhelmingly a Muslim phenomenon, so polygamy is not the sole

cause. Enter religion—and why we’re discussing the horror of suicide
bombing in a book on love. It turns out that suicide bombing has a lot
to do with sex, or in this case, the absence of it. While men in many
cultures have been known to commit suicide over a lost love, I doubt if
anyone has heard of a man committing suicide over a lost sexual oppor-
tunity. However, sex and love are intertwined for men, and the shaheed
have little earthly hope of obtaining either. As Satoshi Kanazawa bluntly
explains their actions: “Men do everything they do in order to get laid.
Maybe young Muslim men are no exception.”37
When the prophet Muhammad recruited men for his caravan raids
and warfare he motivated them with erotic promises they would enjoy
in the afterlife if they were to die in battle. Martyrdom brings with it
the promise of immediate ascension into heaven, where he will find
“rivers of milk and wine . . . lakes of honey, and the services of 72 vir-
gins.”38 Young suicide bombers take the prophet’s promise of sexual
paradise seriously. They often take elaborate steps to protect their
genitals from damage, and as one failed suicide bomber is supposed
to have said: “most boys can’t stop thinking about the virgins.”39 One of
Islam’s hadiths (the written teachings and sayings of Muhammad) has
the following erotic description of sex in paradise for the martyr that
may help to explain why poor Muslim males are persuaded to carry
out such despicable acts of hatred and violence:

Each time we sleep with a Houri we find her virgin. Besides, the penis
of the Elected never softens. The erection is eternal; the sensation that
you feel each time you make love is utterly delicious and out of this
world and were you to experience it in this world you would faint.
Each chosen one [i.e. a martyr] will marry seventy houris, besides
the women he married on earth, and all will have appetizing vaginas.

Statements such as this make it crystal clear that observers in all

cultures and at all times know that sex is the most powerful of male
motivators. While dallying with all these perpetual virgins seems to be
a little too much for even the most virile of young men, Muhammad
really knew how to motivate men. He took care of the fatigue factor
too by promising martyrs the strength of one hundred men when they
enter paradise, as well as a perpetual erection. It goes without saying
that these promises would have extraordinary appeal to virile young
men burning with sexual desire with very slim chances of ever gaining
access to even one woman, virgin or otherwise.
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Notes
1. United States Census Bureau, America’s families and living arrangements.
2. Ibid.
3. Gross, M., The evolution of parental care.
4. Alcock, J., Animal behavior.
5. Guttentag and Secord, Too many women, 20.
6. Ibid., 19–20.
7. Campbell, Muncer, and Bibel, Women and crime, 487–488.
8. Pew Research Center, 2014. Record share of Americans have never married.
9. Bolic, K., All the single ladies, 9.
10. Guttentag and Secord, Too many women, 69.
11. Chandra, Martino, Collins, et al., Does watching sex on television.
12. Voltaire, F., The Portable Voltaire, 160.
13. Kruger, D., When men are scarce.
14. South, S. and K. Trent, Sex ratios and women’s roles.
15. Barber, N., On the relationship between country sex ratios.
16. Messner, and Sampson, The sex ratio, family disruption.
17. Osgood and Chambers, Community correlates of rural youth violence, 6.
18. Barber, N., The sex ratio as a predictor.
19. Plato, The Symposium, 92.
20. Guttentag and Secord, Too many women, 199.
21. Adimora, A., et al., Sex ratio, poverty, and concurrent partnerships.
22. Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Estimated HIV incidence.
23. McCormick, Yeoh, and Gerety, The sex ratio and the out-of-wedlock birth,
242.
24. Bureau of Labor Statistics, America’s young adults at 27.
25. Mulligan, C., In a first, women surpass men on U.S. payrolls.
26. Bolic, K., All the single ladies, 3.
27. Dowd, M., What’s a modern girl to do?
28. Guttentag and Secord, Too many women 1983, 114.
29. Ibid., 146.
30. Ibid., 149.
31. Wilen-Daugenti, T., China for businesswomen.
32. Trent and South, Too many men?
33. Griskevicius, Tybur, et al., The financial consequences of too many men.
34. Hudson and den Boer, Bare branches, 262.
35. Thayer and Hudson, Sex and the Shaheed, 55.
36. Philips, B., Islam’s position on Polygamy.
37. Kanazawa, S., 2007, The evolutionary psychological imagination 15.
38. Hoffman, C., Rethinking terrorism and counterterrorism, 305.
39. Victoroff and Kruglanski, Psychology of terrorism, 127.

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 18
Expanding the Circle: The
Ethics of Universal Love
A new command I give you: Love one another.
As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
—Jesus Christ

The Quest for a Loving Society: The Theory

Over a period of 15 years, anthropologist Ronald Rohner examined
the effects of love and of its deprivation in 101 different cultures to
explore whether the need for love is universal or merely an assumption
of Western romantics. His work led him to conclude that the need for
love exists in all cultures and is rooted in our evolutionary history. If
we don’t receive it, says Rohner, “pernicious things happen to us,” and
these malignant effects “have implications permeating throughout
both personality and the entire social system.”1 If love or its absence
permeates the entire social system as Rohner contends there should be
some societies that are more “love-oriented” or “healthy” than others.
The desire for Utopia—a perfect society populated by perfect
citizens—has excited intellectuals at least since Plato’s Republic, and it
has always been couched in some version of the language of universal
love. For instance, Grace Cairns concludes her study of the cyclical
theories of history by stating: “All the philosophies of history we have
examined emphasize Love as the constructive and cohesive bond
through which human societies grow and flourish; a world Global
Society can grow and flourish on the basis of the same bond of love.”2
A beautiful thought, but do humans have the capacity to obey Jesus’s
command on a global scale?
By what route do utopians come to think that imperfect human
creatures can achieve a perfect Global Society? They must first find it
necessary to deny the reality of an evolved human nature and substitute

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the notion that we are blank slate creatures. Blank slates can have
anything written upon them, and the script is anything the anointed
ones who dream up utopias believe to be for the greater good. The
radicalness and the appeal to universal goodwill of utopian ideas easily
capture the imagination of the young and of the impressionable of all
ages, and few cannot help admiring such notions in the abstract. The
armchair engineers that dream up these utopias are abstract thinkers
in a concrete world who probably can’t fix the kitchen faucet yet believe
they can wangle a perfect society and mold human nature in accordance
with their dreams.
Erich Fromm lays out what he feels are the requisites for a healthy
and loving society:
Whether or not an individual is healthy is primarily not an individual
matter, but depends on the structure of his society. A healthy society
furthers man’s capacity to love his fellow men, to work creatively, to
develop his reason and objectivity, to have a sense of self which is
based on the experience of his own productive powers. An unhealthy
society is one which creates mutual hostility, distrust, which trans-
forms man into an instrument of use and exploitation of others,
which deprives him of a sense of self, except inasmuch as he submits
to others he becomes an automaton.3

He does not tell us how a society can create a capacity for love in its
members, and how it can assure them all creative work. The distasteful
truth is that it cannot. Only old-school Marxists such as Fromm who
deny that human beings have a nature believe in such a possibility. To
deny human nature, as utopians must, disconnects us from the sweep
of history and cultures other than our own. If human nature is simply
the content of culture it would mean that people from different cul-
tures and centuries would have nothing in common with people from
other times and places. If humans everywhere did not have similar
hopes, aspirations, traits, emotions, feelings, goals, needs, and moral
strengths and weakness, the stories from ancient and distant cultures
would mystify us, but they do not. Plato’s allegories and Shakespeare’s
plays resonate around the world, and the ancient precepts of Buddha,
Abraham, Jesus, and Mohamed tug at hearts and minds in all corners
of the globe. Our shared human nature make the ideas bequeathed
to us from the past just as potent and relevant today as they were in
their own time.4
A view of human nature that sees each person as a unique individual
born with a suite of biological traits with which to interact with the
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world is more respectful of human dignity than one that views us as

empty vessels into which anything can be poured.
The Quest for a Loving Society: The Practice
The heart-warming platitudes that accompany call for utopian change
have great emotional appeal in the abstract—it’s the application that
hurts. The blank slate image necessary to utopian endeavors is a total-
itarian’s dream because if we are blank slates we can be hammered
into any shape without damage to the human body, mind, and spirit.
Megalomaniacs who seize on the emotional appeal of “one for all, and
all for one” such Mao, Stalin, and Pol Pot, murdered over one hundred
million people in their belief that they could take empty vessels and
turn them into the “new Soviet, Chinese, or Cambodian man.”5
All this slaughter is always for the greater good, of course, but as C.S.
Lewis once wrote: “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its
victims may be the most oppressive.”6 This notion is illustrated on a per-
sonal level in Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew, in which Kate complains
bitterly that her husband, Petruchio, inflicts all manner of suffering and
indignities upon her “i’ th’ name of perfect love.” Petruchio’s brainwashing
of Kate reminds us of the Ministry of Love, in George Orwell’s dystopian
novel 1984 and of all the real dystopian societies that crush the human
spirit “i th’ name of perfect love.” Such societies identify, monitor, and
brainwash real and imagined dissidents until love for Big Brother and
the Party replaces free thought and dissension. Clarion calls for universal
love and brotherhood are inevitably turned into petrified dogma.
To grasp the danger of utopian thinking, we could do no better
than to turn to Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s allegoric premonition of what
his beloved Russia was to become in his final novel, TheBrothers
Karamazov. A chapter in this book entitled “The Grand Inquisitor” is
set at the height of the Spanish Inquisition. In this chapter, the Grand
Inquisitor chanced across the resurrected Jesus Christ walking the
streets of Seville and had him arrested. Visiting Jesus in his cell, he
lectured him on the church’s conception of human nature, and scolded
him for returning and jeopardizing it. The Inquisitor boasted that the
collusion of church and state had at last “vanquished freedom and [had]
done so to make men happy.” In place of freedom of choice the church
provided people with security and “miracle, mystery, and authority.”
The Inquisitor further berated Jesus for his lack of compassion for
humanity, evidenced by his refusal to accept the Devil’s offer of the
purple of Rome and his refusal to demonstrate his divinity by casting
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himself from the pinnacle of the temple. Had Jesus done so, reasoned
the Inquisitor, humans would have had unequivocal proof that he was
the savior. This would have assured Jesus of humanity’s devotion.
Dostoyevsky is telling us that Jesus respected humanity’s freedom
by refusing to capture its love by accepting the Devil’s offer. Had Jesus
accepted, he would have become an object in which “love” was com-
pelled, for who could not help “loving” one so demonstrably powerful?
But would the emotion be love? Dostoyevsky thought not: Fear, awe,
reverence, commitment, but not love, since the impetus would have
been forced upon us. Jesus refused to take advantage of our suscepti-
bility to myth, mystery, and authority because, unlike the old cardinal,
he respected human freedom and dignity. In a perfect paraphrasing of
Marx’s Utopian vision, he tells Jesus that freedom and dignity are myths,
and that: “We shall triumph and shall be Caesars, and then we shall
plan the universal happiness of man.” It is instructive that at the end of
the monolog, the Grand Inquisitor admits that although outwardly he
is on the side of the angels, he is really on the side of the Devil.
Two Contemporary Calls for Universal Love
There are two recent attempts to show that humans can rise above
nepotistic tribalism and become one global clan. One invokes ratio-
nality and the other emotion. In philosopher Peter Singer’s book The
Expanding Circle: Ethics and Sociobiology, he tells us that historians,
political scientists, and sociologists have long noted that altruism
becomes more expansive as societies become more democratic, with
less rigid distinctions being drawn between categories of people. It does
so because as others come to be considered more like ourselves, the
more readily we are able to understand and empathize with their con-
cerns and suffering. The scope of human altruism has been expanded
to the modern nation state, but Singer wants to further expand the
circle to include all humankind, which is admittedly a nice thought.
Singer’s philosophical basis is utilitarianism, the central dogma of
which is “the greatest good for the greatest number.” Utilitarianism
maintains that we have a moral duty to decrease the level of suffering
and increase the level of pleasure for the greatest number of people
possible. This sounds all very nice, but in Singer’s mind nothing, not
even killing, should be allowed to stand in the way of this goal—the
ends always justify the means. In many of his writings he expresses
“love for mankind merely as such,” but it is flesh-and-blood people
he doesn’t seem to be too fond of. He has advocated for infanticide
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(if parents cannot afford to keep the child), involuntary euthanasia of

“non-persons” (people incapable of the conscious activities of rational
beings, which includes healthy infants), bestiality, and incest because
there’s no rational basis for forbidding such practices. Cold, heartless
rationality is Singer’s Alpha and Omega; he knows no other God. He
does not want us to follow David Hume’s “common and natural course
of our passions”; rather he thinks that once we have discovered rational
reason we will no longer believe that our particular circle of beings has
any special claim to our sympathies and love, and thus can expand the
circle beyond our immediate affections and become a global community.
Singer realizes that we owe our moral standards to biological and
cultural evolution and that they are emotionally ingrained, but like
the great moral philosopher Immanuel Kant, he believes that unless
morality is based on pure reason it is an illusion. Singer insists that we
must overcome the false morality of intuitive emotion and rely only on
rational judgments when deciding what our ethics should be:
We might attempt the ambitious task of separating those moral
judgments that we owe to our evolutionary and cultural history, from
those that have a rational basis. This is a large and difficult task. Even
to specify in what sense a moral judgment can have a rational basis
is not easy. Nevertheless, it seems to me worth attempting, for it is
the only way to avoid moral scepticism.7

Economist Jeremy Rifkin’s book The Empathic Civilization: The Race to

Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis is a similar call for universal
love. His work is more scholarly than Singer’s, but it too reveals an
unrealistic view of human nature. Both Singer and Rifkin repudiate the
blank slate view of human nature, but then proceed to write about it as
if the blank slate view is correct. Rifkin’s appeal for universal inclusive-
ness is based on emotion rather than rationality, and he maintains that
history has long been a struggle between the polar forces of empathy
and entropy; a saga he characterizes as a catch-22. Humans are empa-
thetic creatures, he says, but from the dawn of time we have regarded
the interests of others in direct proportion to the closeness of ties we
share with others in a sort of law of diminishing returns of the Golden
Rule. This empathy circle was aptly described by the fourth-century
Chinese philosopher Mo-tzu:
A thief loves his own family and does not love other families, hence
he steals from other families to benefit his own family. Each grandee
loves his own clan and does not love other clans, hence he causes
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disturbances to other clans to benefit his own clan. Each feudal lord
loves his own state and does not love other states, so he attacks
other states in order to benefit his own state. The causes of all
disturbances . . . lie herein . . . . it is always from want of equal love
to all.8

The good news, according to Rifkin, is that as technology has enabled

us to communicate with more and more people in distant lands, the
possible reach of empathy has extended beyond the family, tribe, and
nation to cover all humankind. Despite the daily headlines featuring
mindless brutality, he tells us that with globalization humans are
becoming more compassionate. The bad news is that the same tech-
nology that enables people around the world to know one another
requires ever larger inputs of energy, and that is wrecking the planet by
increasing entropy (human-caused climate change). Taking a leaf from
Teilhard de Chardin, whom we met in chapter 2, Rifkin believes that
disaster can be averted by ramping up our limbic empathy to develop
a “biosphere consciousness,” rather than cranking up our rationality,
as Singer wants. In effect, Riffkin seems to believe that a massive surge
in human empathy can repeal of the second law of thermodynamics. It
is unfortunately just as plausible to believe that the planet’s problems,
if they are as dire as Rifkin says they are, will constrict the circle of
empathy rather than enlarge it and intensify human conflict in struggles
over scarce resources.
But this is a book about love, and not about environmentalism or
global catastrophe. As much as I would like to see Rifkin’s ideal become
a reality, love is a very limited resource. It is not a concept that can be
manipulated; it is a real evolved process underlain by a finite chemis-
try of empathy. When a large stone is thrown into a pond, its force is
concentrated where it first plops in; it then ripples out in increasingly
larger concentric circles until it peters out as it encounters increasing
resistance from the water. The laws of physics ensure that the initial
force gets ever weaker as its energy gets distributed over a greater and
greater perimeter, causing the energy density to eventually drop to zero.
There’s no way around that fact. Love’s force is also concentrated most
strongly at the center; that is, on she who gave us life and who suckled
us at her breast. It then ripples out to encompass family, lovers, friends,
acquaintances, groups to which we belong, and finally to the society
we call “ours.” Love is a centripetal force that pulls us to the center with
strength far greater than the outward pull toward the circumference.
The laws of biology ensure this as the potency of our love gets weaker if
258
 Expanding the Circle

we attempt to distribute it over a greater and greater circle of humanity.

There’s no getting around that fact either.
This truism introduces something of a glum note into what I hope is
an otherwise happy and optimistic book, but let’s face it; who among
us would mourn the death of ten thousand poor souls lost in a natu-
ral disaster in some far off land more strongly than the death of their
mother? Who would pull a president, prime minister, or pope from
a blazing inferno and leave behind their own child? Singer’s utilitar-
ian morality would scold you if you mourned your mother more and
chose to save your child because, in terms of cold, hard rationality, ten
thousand lives lost is more tragic than the loss of any one person, and
world leaders are more valuable “to the greatest number” than is your
child. But as David Hume pointed out long ago, rationality is the slave
of emotion, and Singer’s utilitarian morality runs into the solid wall of
human nature. I agree with the ancient Roman philosopher Cicero who
said that, “Society and human fellowship will be best served if we confer
the most kindness on those with whom we are most closely associated.”9
And as the great French enlightenment philosopher Voltaire advised, to
live a good and peaceful life “We must cultivate our own garden” and
trade its fruits with our neighbors in the spirit of friendship.
Capitalism and Practical Love
The societies that best enable their citizens to “cultivate their own
gardens” and trade its produce in peace friendship are energized by an
economic system that emerged spontaneously from doing what comes
naturally. That system is, of course, democratic capitalism. Few paeans
to capitalism have bested that written by its arch enemy, Karl Marx.
With his collaborator, Friedrich Engels, Marx wrote the following in
The Communist Manifesto, published in 1848:
The bourgeoisie during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has
created more massive and more colossal productive forces than
have all preceding generations together. Subjection of Nature’s
forces to man, machinery, application of chemistry to industry and
agriculture, steam-navigation, railways, electric telegraphs, clearing
of whole continents for cultivation, canalization of rivers, whole
populations conjured out of the ground—what earlier century had
even a presentiment that such productive forces slumbered in the
lap of social labor?10

As few pages later they added moral dimensions to the material achieve-
ments of capitalism: “National differences and antagonisms between
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 Love

people are daily more and more vanishing owing to the development
of the bourgeoisie, to the freedom of commerce, to the world market,
to uniformity of the mode of production and in the conditions of life
corresponding thereto.”11 This sounds very much like a strong dose of
Kant’s practical love.
None of the wonders Marx and Engels describe were the intentions
of any person or group of persons, nor were they envisioned in some
philosopher’s mind. It was the work of Adam Smith’s “invisible hand”
operating the free market in which people, each working for their own
interests, created a better world for all. Acting in our own best interests
while respecting the rights of others, and expecting them to do the
same, is the moral basis of any successful society.
Yet, because it was “not intended” that individual enterprises would
ultimately benefit all, as well as the entrepreneur, capitalism is con-
sidered evil by hard leftists for whom good intentions trump good
consequences. Systems that fail but have good intentions are valued
more by lovers of the abstract than systems based on self-interest that
succeed spectacularly. The rescue of multiple millions from the depths
and degradations of poverty by capitalism is what I mean (borrowing
from Kant) by “practical love.” We should value this unintended “love” of
which we are actual recipients than the “intended” love of dreams that
led to brutality, gulags, and death wherever it has been implemented.
Erich Fromm’s vision of a “good” society, however, is the antithesis
of capitalism because: “The principle underlying capitalist society and
the principle of love are incompatible.” Fromm buys into a central idea
of Marxism that capitalism is the father of alienation, a condition in
which love cannot exist. The claim in a nutshell is that wage labor and
the competitive nature of capitalism drive wedges between people,
and between people and their “species being” (human nature). Fromm
explains the principle better than I could: “Modern man is alienated
from himself, from his fellow men, and from nature. He has been trans-
formed into a commodity, experiences his life forces as an investment
which must bring him the maximum profit attainable under existing
market condition.”12
Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall, Who Is the Most Alienated of Us All?
If capitalism breeds alienation, we should expect to see its conservative
supporters being miserable creatures filled with self-loathing, a low
sense of personal agency, and estranged from family ties and from any
system of transcendental meaning. As alienated beings, they should
260
 Expanding the Circle

be less happy and generous with their time and resources than their
liberal counterparts who see through capitalism’s malevolence. This is
not the picture that the empirical literature presents, however. A Pew
Center survey reported that 47 percent of conservative Republicans
described themselves as “very happy,” compared with 28 percent of
liberal Democrats. This was true at all income levels, and according to
the report has been demonstrated consistently since such polls were
initiated in 1972.13 Similarly, we are told by other researchers that “In
surveys across the globe, conservatives report being more satisfied
with their lives than liberals.”14
Jaime Napier and John Jost also found that conservatives had greater
subjective well-being than liberals in three studies using nationally
representative data from the United States and nine other countries.
They also report that the relationship between political orientation
and happiness was mediated by what they termed “the rationaliza-
tion of inequality.” By that they mean that when they included a scale
measuring “rationalization of inequality” in their statistical models the
relationship no longer held. However, this scale measures the degree
to which one supports equity (the allocation of resources according
to one’s contribution), which is a belief that is a large part of what
defines conservatism. It is thus not at all surprising that it mediates
the relationship because political ideology and happiness because in
effect conservatism was being used as a statistical control for itself.15
Napier and Jost never say why belief in equity is a “rationalization,”
a term that denotes a distortion of reality, since almost all moral phi-
losophers since Aristotle endorse meritocratic equity as the epitome
of fairness. Why can we not say that liberals rationalize their unhappi-
ness by their distortion of reality that emerges when they perpetually
compare the accentuated inequities of an actual capitalist society with
a hypothetical perfect socialist society? To view the inequalities of
capitalism in terms of people getting their just deserts by dint of their
talents and effort is neither a justification nor a rationalization; it is
an explanation that coheres with the facts and with our deep instinct
for fairness.
Another team of researchers addressed the ideology-happiness issue
with four different samples totaling 78,854 subjects and concluded:
Conservatives score higher than liberals on personality and attitude
measures that are traditionally associated with positive adjustment
and mental health, including personal agency, positive outlook, tran-
scendental moral beliefs, and generalized beliefs in fairness [viewed as
261
 Love

equity]. These constructs, in turn, can account for why conservatives

are happier than liberals.16

Thus it appears that folks on the left have all the hallmarks of alien-
ation. Their lower scores on personal agency may be accounted for
by their belief that all negative behavior is the result of an unfair and
malevolent society rather than by poor individual choices. This may
well account for their negative outlook and lower self-esteem because
if society controls our behavior and destiny, there’s nothing we can do
about it save yearn for the revolution. Perhaps their alienation can be
accounted for by the fact that they are also less likely to be married, tied
to family, and much less likely to attend a place of worship.17 The Pew
Center survey found that 43 percent of married people reported being
“very happy” versus 24 percent of the unmarried, and that 43 percent
of churchgoers versus 26 percent on nonattenders were “very happy.”
Whatever the case may be, if we agree with Napier and Jost’s assess-
ment that liberals are less happy than conservatives because they lack
rationalizations that help them view society’s doubtless inequalities in
terms of meritocratic just deserts, we should expect liberals to try to
alleviate their state of relative unhappiness by providing a little Kan-
tian “practical love” by donating what that could of themselves to help
people in need. If you paint yourself as a person who cares for others
and not at all like those greedy conservatives who “oppose government
programs for the needy,” this is a reasonable expectation.
Again, the expectation does not pan out. Research on ideology
and charitable giving find that conservatives are more generous with
volunteering their time and providing resources such as monetary
and blood donations than liberals.18 This body of research prompted
Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof to
write: “Liberals show tremendous compassion in pushing for generous
government spending to help the neediest people at home and abroad.
Yet when it comes to individual contributions to charitable causes,
liberals are cheapskates.”19 Kristof is a self-described liberal, and the
New York Times is at the top of everyone’s list as a liberal paper, so
Kristof is no conservative apologist. Another research team agreed
that “Households headed by a conservative individual donate more
money than households headed by a liberal,” but added an excusatory
“however” when they remark “when measuring a respondent’s support
of government spending on social programs, those with a relative liberal
political identity are more generous.”20 Liberals do indeed tend to feel
262
 Expanding the Circle

that we owe a debt to our fellow man, but the rub is that they propose to
pay it with other people’s money. Being generous in with other people’s
money replaces altruistic actions with altruistic attitudes. Claims of
love for abstract humanity must be backed by love for concrete human
beings by something more than pious attitudes.
The 2011 World Giving Index survey of 150,000 people from 153
countries showed that concern for our fellow humans (“practical love”)
is also related to capitalism. This index asks people three questions
about their giving behavior the previous year. They are: (1) the amount
of money donated to a charity, (2) the amount of time volunteered
to an organization, and (3) whether they had helped a stranger, or
someone they didn’t know who needed help.21 The top five nations on
the index—the United States, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and
the United Kingdom—are arguably the most capitalist of the nations
surveyed. One can put a damper on the results by pointing out that the
people of these nations are not necessarily the most loving people on
earth; they are just lucky enough to have the most money, time, and
energy to give away. But that’s just the point; capitalism gives them the
resources to expand the circle and to try to live up to the injunction to
“love one another” in a practical way to the extent that they can.
Utopian dreamers thus tend to be more alienated and less generous
than those who cultivate their own gardens. Why might this be so? It has
been suggested that left-oriented intellectuals are resentful because they
feel unappreciated, not rewarded in proportionate to their educational
level, and suffer from status incongruence.22 Plato told them that philos-
ophers should be kings, but it is to practical beings in business, science,
medicine, and the law that society turns to for guidance, and to whom
go the accolades and most generous salaries go. Sociologist Lewis Coser
offers his opinion of why leftist academics suffer from alienation: “Intel-
lectuals are men who never seem satisfied with things as they are, with
appeals to customs and usage. They question the truth of the moment
in terms of higher and wider truth; they counter appeals to factuality by
invoking the ‘impractical ought.’”23 As partisans of the perfect lost in a
vortex of abstractions and ideals, they are plagued by disenchantment
because the world as it exists is never good enough and ought to be better.
Democratic Capitalism, Freedom, and Romantic Love
Capitalism, democracy, and the harnessing of love to marriage emerged
together with the historically crazy idea that people should be free to
forge their own destinies, pursue their own happiness, and treat their
263
 Love

fellow citizens as equals. We in the Western world are a blessed few

who are free of political Petruchio’s who treat their subjects like so
many Kates to be tamed, brainwashed, and cowed. Historians tell us
that fewer than 5 percent of humans who ever drew breath since his-
tory has been written have ever lived under the rights and privileges
we take for granted.24 Where there is coercion there is no love; where
there is love there is freedom whether we are talking about married
couples or whole societies.
Our ancestors recognized the awesome power of love, but it was its
power that made it so dangerous. It was dangerous because important
decisions of individuals were subordinate to group interests, whether
family, village, town, or nation state. The needs and feelings of the
individuals concerned were of no importance. If young people were
allowed to make their own decisions about whom they would marry,
emotion, not reason, would motivate their decision. Love is exciting
but unreliable, and a love marriage might eventually prove to be trou-
blesome to the individuals concerned and to their social grouping.
Practical concerns eclipsed romance as the basis for union across the
globe except in isolated little pockets here and there. Many old love
stories contain a common theme of love’s passion in conflict with family
or politics, and tell of tragedies that inevitably befell young men and
women irrational enough to fall in love with “unsuitable” partners.
The love stories of Tristan and Iseult, Lancelot and Guinevere, Heloise
and Abelard, and Romeo and Juliet are taken as tales of great love and
courage by modern readers, but to the readers in the past, the moral of
such stories was “beware of foolish, antisocial love entanglements.” It
was taken for granted by early readers of these tales that if love was to
arise in a relationship, it was meant to grow after a man and a woman
were firmly bound in their matrimonial vows.
If arranged marriages were to be functional and unproblematic,
methods of controlling the powerful emotion of romantic love had to be
invented. The sociologist William Goode lists a number of institutions
by which this control was achieved.25 The most prevalent was, and is,
child marriage, which was meant to cement the marriage commitment
before any potential love attachment could develop between any other
potential partners. This was a pattern common in India, in preliterate
societies, and among the nobility of Europe.
Another common pattern was strict segregation of the sexes, which
also made love attachments improbable (except perhaps between mem-
bers of the same sex). This pattern was common in China, Japan, and
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 Expanding the Circle

Muslim countries. Yet another, and admittedly more enjoyable pattern,

was that of “free love.” In cultures where this is practiced, youngsters are
encouraged at an early age to engage freely in sex play with the opposite
sex. Pairbonds were expected to be brief and nonexclusive, the variety
and brevity of relationships being designed to minimize feelings of
intimacy and attachment. The system was designed to prevent jealousy
and to impress upon youngsters that any marriage partner chosen for
them was as good as any other.
The rich and well born, however, have always been able to indulge
their romantic urges with relative freedom. The consummate historical
example of such indulgence is surely Henry VIII of England. When
one has the power Henry enjoyed, one can bend and breaks social and
religious norms to suit oneself, which is exactly what he did. Without
the unpleasantries of manual labor to occupy their time, the high
born of any country were able to dabble in romance with paramours,
chambermaids, and even with their wives. The peasantry lived an
entirely different life in which all their mental and physical powers were
mobilized to the task of avoiding starvation. Writing of the peasantry
of preindustrial Britain, historian Lawrence Stone tells us that there
“are levels of human misery at which the intensity of the struggle to
satisfy the basic need for food and shelter leaves little room for humane
emotions and affective relationships.”26 For ordinary people, the joys of
romantic love were luxuries beyond their imagination: “Poverty lacks
the means to feed up love,” wrote the Roman poet Ovid. For the vast
majority of our ancestors, romance, like so many other life’s enjoyments,
had to await a general rise in the economic standard of living brought
about by that greedy, uncaring form of exploitation we call capitalism.
Promoting romantic love was not, of course, on the conscious agenda
of capitalists, any more than improving the general economic well-being
all members of society was, but “Cupids fiery shaft,” as Shakespeare put
it, pierced the Western heart deeply nonetheless. Clever entrepreneurs
cultivating their own gardens as Voltaire advised, and conferring the
most kindness on those most closely associated with them, as Cicero
counseled, quite inadvertently created a world for us that would be
considered Elysium by our not-too distant ancestors. The social, polit-
ical, and economic systems that evolved in the western world provided
a context that made romantic love possible, perhaps inevitable. Most
sociologists, even if they disdain it, take it as a given that capitalism
and the general wealth and leisure it engenders is a necessary, if not
sufficient, condition for the emergence of romantic love as a pursuit
265
 Love

open to all. As two early sociologists, William Sumner and Albert Keller,
noted: “Capital . . . as a store of supplies relieving men from anxiety
about maintenance, sets free the imaginations to find attraction in the
human form and so awakens sex emotion of a more refined order.”27
In a free-market the state has no need or desire to control the mar-
riage market. Just as a capitalist democracy (for the most part) leaves
individuals alone to develop and pursue their economic inclinations,
it leaves them alone to follow their emotional inclinations. We should
not forget that capitalism created the cornucopia at whose mouth we all
now sit, and without which love as the basis for marriage would prob-
ably not exist. It is true that marriage decisions are still determined to
some extent by many practical, nonemotional considerations as well as
by love. But the important thing is that whatever these considerations
may be, they are the private considerations of the individuals involved.
Free individuals may make unwise decisions in love and marriage just
as they do in their careers and financial matters. Modern marriages
are notoriously frail and brittle, indicating that many poor choices are
being made. But who among would give up the freedom to make their
own choices, for better or for worse?
Notes
1. Rohner, R. They love me, they love me not, 166–173.
2. Cairns, G., Philosophies of history, 472.
3. Fromm, E., Love and economic competition, 275.
4. Scottish Philosopher David Hume said it best when he wrote: “It is universally
acknowledged that there is a great uniformity among the actions of men, in
all nations and ages, and human nature remains still the same in its principles
and operations . . . would you know the sentiments, inclinations and course
of life of the Greeks and Romans? Study well the temper and actions of the
French and English.” Quoted in Trigg, R., Ideas of human nature, 83.
5. van den Berghe, P., Why most sociologists don’t (and won’t) think evolu-
tionarily, 179.
6. Lewis, C. S., God in the Dock, 292.
7. Singer, P., Ethics and Intuitions, 351.
8. Quoted in Sorokin, P., The ways and power of love, 459.
9. Quoted in Appiah, Cosmopolitanism, xviii.
10. Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto, 694.
11. Ibid., 701.
12. Fromm, E., Love and economic competition, 275.
13. Taylor, Funk, and Craighill, Are we happy yet?
14. Schlenker, Chambers, and Le, Conservatives are happier than liberals, 1.
15. Napier and Jost, Why are conservatives happier than liberals?
16. Schlenker, Chambers, and Le, Conservatives are happier than liberals, 14.
17. Ibid.

266
 Expanding the Circle

18. Brook, A., Who Really Cares.

19. Kristof, N., Bleeding heart tightwads.
20. Winterich, Zhang, and Mittal, How political identity and charity 5.
21. Charities Aid Foundation, World Giving Index 2011.
22. Cushman, T., Intellectuals and resentment toward capitalism; Van den
Haag, E., The hostili Men of ideas: A sociologist’s view ty of intellectuals to
capitalism.
23. Coser, L., Men of ideas: A sociologist’s view, xiii.
24. Stewart, Stewart, Van Wagoner, and Allen, The Miracle of Freedom.
25. Goode, W., The theoretical importance of love.
26. Stone, L., The Family, Sex and Marriage in England, 476.
27. Quoted in Grant, V. Falling in love, 157.

267
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291
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17beta-hydrxysteroid dehydrogenase Aristotle

deficiency (17-BHSD) 151 on fairness 261
1984 255 on falling 21
21- hydroxlase 150 on love 7
5-alpha-reductase deficiency (5-ARD) 151 on self-esteem 144
A Criminal History of Mankind 101 Arnold, Sir Edwin 27
A General Theory of Love 32 Ars Amatoria 205
A Midsummer Night’s Dream 166 asexual reproduction 153–154
Adam & Eve 18 assortative mating 219
adaptations 48, 61, 159 Atkins, David 225
adrenal glands 96, 110 atonement 19
adultery 224–225, 229, 247 attachment
agape 184 and tactile stimulation 70
as secondary style 175 Fisher on 162–163, 180
definition of 4 Hirschi on 93–95
unconditional 81–82, 184 Paz on 167–174
aggression 25 attention deficit with hyperactivity
alcohol abuse 128–129, 200 disorder (ADHD) 55, 149
Alcoholics Anonymous 130, 171 attraction
alcoholism 107, 128–129 addiction 173
alienation 260, 262–263 Fisher on 162–167, 180
Allen, Allen 22 Haidt on 169
allostasis 97 Paz on 163
allostatic load 97 phase 162–173
altruism 135–138 Auden, W.H. 163
American Sociological Association 45 Austen, Jane 184
amoeba 27, 154 Australopithecines 50, 60
amour de soi 133, 140 autonomic nervous system (ANS) 96–97
amour-propre 133 autosomes 147–148
amygdala 64, 202–203 axons 35–36
androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS)
150 Balazs, Grace 144
anisogamy 49 Barber, Nigel 243
antioxidants 113–114 Baron-Cohen, Simon 100
aphrodite 176, 223 Barrymore, John 240
Arabian Nights 8 Bateman’s principle 190
arch-back nursing (ABN) 69 Baucom, Donald 225
Arisophanes 148 behaviorism 106

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belief 93–94 Center for Disease Control and Prevention

Bem Sex-Role Inventory 198 (CDCP) 244
Bergson, Henri 22 cerebral cortex 32–33
Beyle, Marie-Henri 174 Chandra, Anita 242
Bible 8 Chauchard, Paul 34, 158
biosphere consciousness 258 Cheyenne 10
biparental care 51, 77, 90, 157 Chinese Health and Family Life Survey
bipedalism 61, 157 248
blank slate 9, 254–255, 257 chromosome 111–112
Blanton, Smiley 25 X 147, 149–150
Boeggild, Charlotte 198 Y 24, 147–148, 150, 191
Bolic, Kate 241, 243, 245 Cicero 259, 265
boredom 54, 179 Cleveland Jewish Orphans Home 107
Bourgeois 90, 189 clitorectomy 203
Bourgeoisie 260 codependency 173
Brahman 19 Coleridge, Samual Taylor 123
brain 27–28 Collins, Randall 44
and love 161–167 colostrum 65
development via experience-expected Colours of Love 175
and experience-dependent 38–40, 71, Columbus, Christopher 9, 23
120, 141 Come on, People: On the Path from
female 53–54 Victims to Victors 84
masculinization 148–153, 197 Coming of Age in Samoa 9
mommy 46–47 commitment
neomammalian 32–33 and attachment 167
of the heart 158 as element of social bond 93–4
paleomammalian 31 as phenomenon for love 162
plasticity 27–28, 34–38, 41, 95 male 240
reptilian 29–30 via monogamy 190
triune 29–34, 122–123 communal responsiveness 167–168
competitively disadvantaged (CD) 234–235
Branden, Nathaniel 190 completely inoperative androgens (CAIS)
breastfeeding 38, 47 150
Browning, Robert 75, 81, 175 concealed ovulation 156–157
Buikhuisen, Wouter 97 congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) 150
Bureau of Labor Statistics 245 control theory 94
Buss, David 157 Coolidge Effect 227
Byron, Lord 26, 143 Corinthians 13:13 19
corpus callosum 53
Caccioppo, Stephanie 165 cortisol 62, 96–97, 150
Caesar, Julius 21 Cosby, Bill 84
Cairns, Grace 253 Coser, Lewis 263
Calvin, John 133–134, 138, 140 couvade 80
Campbell, Anne 51, 240 criminality 5, 89, 149
Camus, Albert 178 Crosby, Virginia 72
canalization 46 cuckold 234
capitalism 259–261, 263, 265–266 cuckoldry 197, 234
Carnegie Commission Faculty Survey 217 cytoplasm 68
Casanova, Giacomo Girlamo 191–192
Catherine the Great 196 dark triad 177, 179
Cattell, Raymond 219 Darwin, Charles 48

294
 Index

David 220 Eratosthenes 9

Dayton, Tian 119 Erikson, Erik 81
De Rougemont, Denis 7 Eros: 4, 16
den Boer, Andrea 249 eros 25, 81–82, 175–177, 181, 187
dendrites 36, 41 eroticism 163, 166
depression erotike 4
major (clinical) 120–126 erotomania 171
reactive (sub-clinical) 121 estrangement 18–19, 84
dihydrotestosteone (DHT) 151 estrus 155–157, 191, 232
Dionisio, Maribel 126 Euripides 4, 211
disorder of sex development (DSD) 149 Eurydice 8
DNA 111–113 evolution 47–55
methylation 68, 123, 128 exterogestation 61
mitochondrial 23–24
Don Juan 26 family 89–95
dopamine 37, 68, 80, 106, 124–125, 129, nuclear 86
164–167, 180, 227–228, 230 Farb, Peter 10
receptor gene (D4): 7-repeat 172 fatherlessness 83, 85
transporter gene (DAT1): 10-repeat Fiddler on the Roof 181
172 171–172 Fiebert, Martin 220
Dostoyevsky, Fryodor 255–256 Fine, Reuben 119
Dowd, Maureen 246 Fisher, Helen 51, 162–163, 169, 171,
Drescher, Vincent 111 178, 180
Dryden, John 191 fitness 48, 215–216, 226
Duns Scotus, John 136 inclusive 137
Durant, Will 211 Foster, Caroline 46
Durex Global Sex Survey 225 four Fs 60
Durkheim, Emile 125 framing effect 210
Frankie and Johnny 235
Easton, Judith 232 Franklin, Benjamin 129
egg cells 49 free oxygen species (ROS) 113
ego 33, 37, 135 free radicals 113
alter 218 Freud, Anna 67
Einstein, Albert 21 Freud, Sigmund 45, 67
elan vitale 22 Fromm, Eric 1, 82, 254, 260
emotional anorexia 174 frozen watchfulness 99
empathy 62–63 functional magnetic resonance image
and deprivation of love 89 (fMRI) 54, 80
and entropy 257–258
as basis for love 100 Gairdner, William 193
Empedocles 24–25 gametes 49
Empty Oneness 21 gamma-amino butyric acid (GABA) 65,
endocrine system 38 129
endorphins 38, 115 Gandhi, Mahatma 19
energy 21–22, 121 Gaylin, Willard 134, 140
love 25 gender
Engels, Friedrich 259–260 as social construct 55
entropy 257–258 differences 45, 27
epigenetics 68 dysphoria 150
epinephrine (adrenaline) 96, 110 sex identity 149–150, 152
equity 261 toy preferences 55–56

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gene-environment interaction 113 hypertension 5, 109–110

genes 67–70 hypocortisolism 96–97
genomes 28, 70–71, 105 hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal (HPA)
Gibran, Khalil 142 axis 70, 96–97, 113, 122–123, 127
Gill, Tripat 210 hypothalamus 38, 70, 78, 96, 108
Glasser, William 140 hysteroid dysphoria 182
glial cells 36, 68
Global Society 253 “I” 135
Goode, William 264 id 29, 33, 37, 135
Gottfredson, Michael 94–95 ideal other 220
Green, Wayne 108 ideal self 220–221
Griskevicius, Vladas 248 Iliad 223
Guttentag, Marcia 239, 241, 244, 247 immigration 109–110, 218, 247
immune system 64–65, 105, 114–116
hadiths 250 infanticide 248, 256
Haidt, Jonathan 159 instinct 43–47, 91
Haidt, Jonathon 106, 169 intellectual imbalance 98
Haldane, J.B.S. 22 intelligence 60
Harris, Judith 231 International Mate Selection Project
Harrison, Albert 211 212
Harrison, George 21 intimate partner violence 234
Harrison, Marissa 208 invisible hand 260
Hawthorne, Nathaniel 140 involvement 93–94
He, David Lewis 220 IQ 67, 98–99, 151, 219
Headstart 126 Ismael, Moulay 191–192
heart disease 108–109
Hegel, Georg 142 Jackson 161
Henry VIII 265 Jacobson, Neil 225
Herbert, George 82, 135 Janov, Arthur 122–125, 130
Hippocrates 109, 117 Janowiak, William 7
Hirschi, Travis 92–95 jealousy 153, 223–225, 265
histone acetylation 68 Jeans, Sir James 22
histones 68 Jetha, Cacilda 155
HIV 71, 172, 244 Johnson, Samuel 161, 169, 234
Holm Rahe Life Change Scale 109 Jonason, Peter 177, 179–180, 183
homeostasis 96–97, 136 Jost, John 261–262
Homo neanderthalensis 32 Justice Potter Stewart 3
Homo sapiens 25, 32, 50, 60, 62, 137
Htiler, Adolf 100–1 Kanazawa, Stoshi 250
Hudson, Valerie 249 Kant, Immanuel 138–140, 208, 257, 260
human nature 254–255 Kavanagh, Phillip 177
and capitalism 260 Keller, Albert 266
and family 89–90 Kernberg, Otto 141–143
and love 17 Khan, Genghis 191
and sex differences 47–48 Khayyam, Omar 21
Aristotle on 7 kin selection theory 137
Hume, David 257, 259 King Mongkut 189
hummingbird 11 King Shu-Sin 8
Hussein, Saddam 100–1 Kinsey, Alfred 202
hyperpersonal consciousness 19 Klein, Donald 182
hypersexuality 95, 171 Knaus, William 111

296
 Index

Kristof, Nicholas 262 romantic 4, 6–13, 140, 142, 161–164,

Kruger, Daniel 243 166–167, 170, 176, 208, 221, 265
Kruk, Edward 84 self 133–134, 136, 138–139
storge 180–181
language 40, 45 styles 175–183, 186, 196
Lee, John 126, 175, 177, 181, 196 universal 253–257
Lewis, C.S. 255 LoveGeist Report 207, 209
Lewis, David 220 Lovejoy, C. Owen 51
Lewis, Thomas 32 Ludus 175, 178–179, 196
licking and grooming (LG) 69–70 lust 162–165, 178
Liebowitz, Michael 120 lymphocytes 115–116
limbic resonance 32, 38–39, 93, 98 Lynch, James 109–110
limbic system resonance 67
Lindenfors, Patrik 52 Macbeth 108, 163
Lorenz, Konrad 25 machiavellianism 177
love MacLean, Paul 29, 31–33, 123
absence of 98–101, 105–108 macrophages 115
agapic 184 magnocellular (M-cells) 55
and addiction 171, 174 Mahr 249
and alcohol abuse 128–130 mail order brides 217
and criminality 89–93 Malinowski, Bronislaw 10
and culture 9–13 Mania 175, 181–183, 186
and jealousy 233–235 Marx, Karl 259
and mental health 119–120, 123–124 masculinization 148–153, 197, 199
and religious myths 18–21 Maslow, Abraham 126, 142, 220
and self-esteem 143–144 maternal instinct 43–47, 91
and sex 154–157, 250 maternal personality 44
and strife 24–26 maternal programming 47
and suicide 126–128 maternalism 45–46
and the heart 108–110 mating effort 76, 79–80, 190, 228, 239
and the human brain 27, 30 Matsumura, Kenta 177, 180, 183
and immunology 116 matter 22
and the infant brain 38–42 “Me” 135
as a social construct 6–7 Mead, George Herbert 135
attachment 167–168, 173 Mead, Margaret 9, 48
companionate 167–169, 181 medial preoptic area (MPOA) 78
compassionate 4, 10, 13, 89 Memoirs 191
definition of 1–3 messenger RNA (mRNA) 68
erotic 176 Messner, Robert 243
extramarital 224–226 Meyers, Seth 200
falling in 161–162 Michelangelo phenomenon 219–220
father’s 75–76, 81–83 mirror neurons 62–63
free 265 monogamy 49–52, 77, 189–195
ludic 179, 181 monomaine oxidase (MAO) 182
manic 181–183 Montagu, Ashley 18, 61, 64, 92
mother’s 45, 64, 75, 81–83, 208 montane voles 63, 78
need of 103–104, 140 morals courts 224
passionate 4, 169, 179 Morris, Desmond 157
plationic 8, 16–17 Morris, Richard 156
practical 259–260, 263 Much Ado About Nothing 226
pragmatic 183 mullerian inhibiting substance (MIS) 148

297
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myelin 36 peptide hormones 37

myelination 36 Peromyscus californicus 78–79
myths 15–16, 18–21, 54 Petherick, Anna 65
phenotype 150–151
Napier, Jaime 261 pheromones 169
narcissism 134, 177, 180–181, 183 philia 4
natural selection 48 55–56, 90 Philips, Bilal 249
neocortex 31–33, 52, 123–124, 139 Pillitteri, Adele 202
nerve growth factor (NGF) 165 Plato 1, 7–8, 16–18, 148, 244
Nesselrode, John 219 Point Omega 20
Nettler, Gwynn 92 poleaxe theory 201
neurogenesis 122, 124 polymorphism 152
neurons 34–37, 41, 54 Post Infidelity Stress Disorder (PISD)
mirror 62–63 223–224, 233
neurotransmitters 36–37, 46, 115, 121, postsynaptic membrane 36
125, 237 Poussaint, Alvin F. 84
Newton, Isaac 2 Pragma 175, 183–185, 196
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm 43 prairie voles 63
noble savages 9 prefrontal cortex (PFC) 33, 52, 158
nucleotide 152 prepared learning 46
nucleus accumbens 66, 143 Pride and Prejudice 184
Nyborg, Helmuth 198 progesterone 47, 150
nymophomania 172 prolactin 78, 80–81
promiscuity 50
obstetrics-posture conflict 61 female 197, 199–200
Odysseus 8, 184–185 male 190, 199–200
Odyssey 184 pseudohermaphrodites 149
Olivieir, Mark 220 psychoanalysis 106
operational sex ratio 238 psychopathy 151, 177, 179–180
opposite marriage gradient 216–217 psychosocial dwarfism (deprivation
orbital frontal cortex 52 dwarfism) 107–108
orgasm 143, 156, 195, 201–205
Orpheus 8 Quebec Suicide Brain Bank 127
Orwell, George 255 Queen Victoria 186–187, 197
Ovid 140, 265
ovulatory shift hypothesis 232 rationality 31, 256–259
oxytocin 25, 37–38, 63–68, 78, 106, rationalization of inequality 261
123–124, 130, 168, 201–202 Reagan, Ronald 30
real self 220
Paladino, Tom 7 Reik, Theodor 189
Panksepp, Jaap 29 religion 20 , 224, 237
parental investment 51–53, 63, 76, 190, reproductive success 29, 48, 59–60, 76,
230 138, 190, 197, 201, 214, 229, 231
parenting effort 76, 78, 228, 239, 243, 246 Republic 253
partially inoperative androgens (PAIS) reticular activating system (RAS) 54–55
150 retina 55
parvocellular (P-cells) 55 Rifkin, Jeremy 257–258
paternal investment 50, 77, 159, 234 Rilling, James 81
Paz, Octavio 163, 166–167 Rohner, Ronald 75, 253
Pearsall, Paul 116 Romeo and Juliet 176–177, 182, 264
Penelope 9, 184–185 Rossi, Alice 45

298
 Index

Roughgarden, Joan 52–53 Single Ladies 207

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 12, 133 sleep 46, 108
Rowe, David 179 slut-shaming 199
Ryan, Christopher 155 Smith, Adam 260
Smith, Joseph 192
Saad, Gad 210 social bond theory 92
Sadd, Susan 202–203 social constructionism 6, 215
Saeed, Laila 211 social support 92, 110, 126, 130
Sagan, Carl 21 sociality 52
Sampson, Steven 243 sociopathy 98
Santayana, Jorge 7, 91 Sociosexual Orientation Inventory (SOI)
satyriasis 171 197
Scarlet Letter 224 somatotrophin 108
Schiller, Johann 11 Song of Solomon 9
Schopenhauer 1 Sonnet 43 175
Science 24 South, Scott 243
Secord, Paul 239, 241, 244, 247 sperm cells 23, 49
selbstsucht 134 sperm competition theory 194–195
selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors Sperry, Roger 28
(SSRI) 121–122, 124–125, 182 spirit 20–22, 255
self-actualization theory 220 Spitz, Rene 105–106
self-control 94–95 St. Augustine 103–104
self-esteem 141–144, 182, 200 St. Bernard of Clairvaux 20
selfishness 135–136 Stalin, Joseph 100, 255
septum 143, 201–203 Steinem, Gloria 245
serotonin 37, 112, 121–125, 129, 165–167, 182 Stone, Lawrence 265
sex 18, 153–155 Storge 175, 180–181
addiction 171–174 stress 96–97, 105, 109–113, 130, 223
partners 179–180, 189, 195–196 Substantia nigra 37, 166
ratio 237–249 suicide 125–128
Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous Sumner, William 266
(SLAA) 171 superego 33, 37, 94
sex determining region of the Y chromo- Symposium 16, 148
some (SRY) 148, 150 synapses 35–36, 41
sex differences synaptic gap 36–37, 121–122
and offspring care 47 synaptogenesis 41
and love styles 180, 196
in jealousy 233 tactile stimulation 67–68, 70–71, 141, 158
in pelvises 61 Taming of the Shrew 255
in reproductive strategies 49, 246 Tavris, Carol 202–3
in toy preferences 55 Teilard De Chardin, Pierre 19
sexual selection theory 48, 52–53, 193 telomerase 112
sexual specialization 18 telomeres 112–113
Shaheed 249–50 testosterone (T) 63–64, 77–81, 148,
Shakespeare, William 2, 108, 121, 134, 150–153, 243
144, 163, 166–167, 181 195, 226, 233, thalamus 54, 122
254–255, 265 “The Amazing New Science of Love” 104
Shelley, Percy Bysshe 3–4 The Art of Loving 1
Shortall, Jennifer 208–209 The Brothers Karamazov 255
Sidney, Sir Philip 3 The Communist Manifesto 259
Singer, Peter 256–269 The Deseret News 192

299
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The Empathic Civilization: The Race to unoussa 249

Global Consciousness in a World in upsuck theory 201
Crisis 257 uterogestation 61
The E xpanding Circle: Ethics and utilitarianism 256
Sociobiology 256 utopia 253–256
The Fairy Queen 164
The Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Vandermassen, Griet 48
Study 112 VanderMey, Ann 218
The King and I 189 vasocongestion 202
The Merchant of Venice 2 vasopressin 70, 168
The Psychopathic God 100 ventral tegmental area (VTA) 37, 80
The Science of Evil 100 vesicles 36
The Tables Turned 2 virilization 150
T-helper cells 116 Voltaire 16, 243, 259, 265
Theodora 196
theory of Forms 7 Waite, Robert 100
Thorne, Barrie 55 Washington, George 21, 224
Tillich, Paul 3, 20 Wechsler, David 98
Todd, Peter 213 West Side Story 89
tolerance 171–172 West, Mae 199, 244
Too Many Women? The Se x Ratio When Harry Met Sally 204
Question 239 Whitman, Howard 104
touching 67, 111 Wilson, Colin 101
Townsend, John 193 Wilson, E.O. 136, 154
toy-boy phenomenon 214 Wilson, Glen 214
Tracey, Wilen-Daugenti 248 withdrawal 171–172
transporters 121 women’s intuition 53–54
transsexuals 152 Wordsworth, William 2, 167
Trent, Katherine 243 World Giving Index 263
Trieb 45 World Health Organization 104, 125
T-suppressor cells 116 Wright, Robert 86
Turgenev, Ivan 162
Tweedy, Jill 158 XYY syndrome 151
Tzu, Huai-nan 21
Young, Brigham 192
U.S. Census Bureau 84, 238
U.S. Department of Health and Human Zeus 17–18, 148
Services 84–85, 195 Zoroaster 1, 25
UK Adultery Survey 229–230 zygote 147

300