Evolution of Love

Darwin in Love

Evolutionary psychology reveals much about our propensity to fall in love.

It was the breakup heard around the world. When Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston called it quits, it seemed as though a collective gasp permeated the globe amid one of Hollywood’s most shocking announcements. And just as we started digesting the incongruous split of a perfectly suited couple, we were inundated with speculation about Brad Pitt engaging in an emotional affair with Angelina Jolie, prompting widespread exposure about a physically innocent and yet emotionally powerful affair. With all the hype, psychologists, authors and other commentators have pontificated about the eternally perplexing question: “Why?” But there other more terrifying—and perhaps more liberating—questions to ask (depending on which end of the pole you veer toward): Are we predestined to fall in love again and again and again? Are we actually hard-wired to move out, move on, move in and then ultimately let the cycle recur, `til death do us part? And on the other end of the spectrum: Are there ways to avoid this cycle while keeping our emotional needs satisfied?

According to theories in evolutionary psychology, Brad Pitt’s deviation from marital bliss is perfectly natural. Infidelity—ouch! Such a negative word, but it just happens to be hardwired into our genes. We are born to be wild, it seems. Or at least to spread our love wildly. Robert Wright, author of The Moral Animal: Evolutionary Psychology and Everyday Life, observes, “The language of zoology used to be so reassuring. Human beings were called the “pair-bonding” species.” The ideal of everlasting love was proven viable through nature. Geese do it. Swans do it. So of course, it should follow that humans do it too. Evolution, until recently, continued to support this concept of the eternal soul mate, if not a match made in heaven, then most definitely on earth.

Alas, the more scientists delve into the subject, the more monogamy appears to be a concept of nurture rather than nature. Recently, Wright notes, ornithologists have tested whether a mother bird’s lifelong partner is the father of her little chicks. Alas, the mother bird seems to be a raging flirt. Not only does she frequent the nests of other attractive males, but she gives birth to their chicklets too. There are rules to mother bird’s infidelity. She only seems to cheat with other birds that rank socially higher on the totem pole. Now how the ornithologists truly know about birdy social ranking, we do not know, but for the purposes of this article, we will assume that their expertise has been rigorously tested.

According to Wright, the animal world shows us that we are predestined to fall in love. Evolution has us hardwired for it. If you go with the flow, you cannot help but tumble head over heels into the arms of someone who fits snugly into your designer genes! However, Wright asserts that we are not designed to stay in love. Ah, shucks! We are designed to move on and discover other nests in new and exciting trees. We are designed to fall in love. And fall in love. And fall in love.

So let us leave the animal kingdom. What does Wright say about women? Can we really identify with our feathered friends? Perhaps not. We can, however, be compared to our primate sisters. Our aptitude for monogamy, according to evolutionary psychologists, falls somewhere between the habits of the chimpanzee and gorilla. The chimp is a hussy. The female gorilla is faithful. Women by nature, then, are somewhat adventurous and are not beacons of fidelity, although they are more inclined toward emotional arousal over and above physical arousal. So don’t feel guilty next time you flutter your eyelashes at the cute clerk at the checkout counter. It’s just nature reminding you that you are part of it!

Enough about the femme fatale. What about our men? What’s on their minds? Well, according to Wright, the male gorilla (our not-so-distant ancestor) is prone to creating love nests, aka “harems.” Nearly 1000 of the 1154 past or present human societies ever studied have created a structure that allows men to have as many lovers as he can afford to feed. While the harem is more or less a thing of the past in modern societies, many civilizations are still polygamous, allowing wealthy men to have two or three or more wives. One arguable reason for the decline in the harem is our economy. Wives are very, very expensive, are often richer than their male counterparts, and they realize they are more than just mothers, daughters and wives. They are women. Human. Creative, desirous beings who want to live fully. Definitely not the ideal candidates for a harem.

Evolutionary psychology can give us a glimpse into why the Brad Pitt’s of the world wander out of a seemingly perfect marriage. It can explain and perhaps lessen the burden of any dissatisfaction you may have with a spouse or lessen the guilt you feel when you throw a glance at someone else. The knowledge is not supposed to make you throw up your arms and run off, but rather to understand your human nature a bit more, and allow for it. The unhealthiest way of being is to deny the various aspects of our being. We don’t have to act on all our impulses, but we can accept them. A loving family has many more reasons to stay together than to fall apart due to a dissatisfied hormone or two. The key is understanding who we are and why we do what we do. And as Robert Wright finishes his article, “The first step to being moral is to realize how thoroughly we aren’t.” Self-knowledge is never bad; self-denial always is. Now now. This is really nothing to growl at…