Decoding Love - Andrew Trees [80]
Men also have their own hormonal fluctuations to worry about. Their testosterone goes through a series of peaks and valleys throughout the day, but it can still serve as an indicator for more significant traits, such as mood and aggression. Some men are naturally low in testosterone, which is good for society because if all men were alpha males, the fighting would never stop. We would constantly find ourselves locked in Travis Bickle-like arguments. “Are you looking at me?” “No, but are you looking at me?” Important life changes can also influence a man’s testosterone. When men are in a stable relationship, their baseline level of testosterone drops. For example, married men have lower testosterone on average than single men, and married men with children have less testosterone on average than married men without children. But their testosterone will ratchet back up if the relationship becomes unstable. A high-testosterone man will also behave more aggressively when it comes to dating. A study was done in which different men competed for the attention of a woman. Men with high testosterone would make fun of the other man, criticize him, and refuse to laugh at his jokes. Women interested in a long-term relationship should try to avoid men who display the traits of someone with high testosterone—they tend to marry less frequently, have more affairs, abuse their wives more, and divorce more often.
STARRY-EYED OEDIPUS
In a result that will delight Freudians, it appears that although men may not want to sleep with their mothers, they do prefer women who remind them of their mothers—at least that’s what the evidence from the animal kingdom seems to suggest. In one study, the mothers of infant male rats were doused with lemon scent. Later, the males were paired with some female rats with lemon scent and some without it. It was no contest. The males mounted the lemon-scented rats sooner and ejaculated more quickly. One man I interviewed admitted that he had a serious relationship with a woman and found himself attracted to her perfume, only to realize later the rather distressing news that the perfume was the same one his mother used.
Luckily, we seem to have evolved mechanisms to protect us against our own personal Oedipal drama. One researcher decided to take a look at marriage on an Israeli kibbutz. Because of the way the kibbutzim is structured, girls and boys are raised in close proximity, almost like brothers and sisters of the same family. When researchers looked at their marriage patterns, it turned out that even though they would not have violated any incest taboos, children of the kibbutzim almost never married. Of the 2,769 marriages, only thirteen were between children who grew up together, and even in those cases, at least one of the children moved in after the age of six. So, it appears that the ultimate antiaphrodisiac is growing up from a young age in close proximity to one another.
Of course, if you want to maximize the number of children you have, there is a powerful incentive to choose someone in your extended family: greater fecundity. According to a study of the Icelandic population, the ideal degree of relatedness to produce the maximum number of children and grandchildren is a union between cousins of the third or fourth degree. Any closer and the couple risks inbreeding. Any further and the couple risks running into genetic incompatibility problems. Who knew that extended family