Evolution, Mating and Modern rules for women

Today’s headlines caught my attention.

Ditched-by-live-in-partner-girl-cries-rape-no-bail-for-man

In short, an educated computer engineer girl in the NCR region, files case of rape against boyfriend after 8 years of live-in, because boy refused to marry the girl citing parental pressure and married another girl. Boy’s counter-argument is rape cannot be made out if it has been consensual sex for 8 long years. Court says that case is admitted with no bail for boy, and legal opinion is divided.

The girl is dumb. The boy acted smart. Judge is right in saying,” You had fun for eight years, now face the music and prove yourself not guilty.” Many feel, marriage rape and live-in are all distinct. Boy is right. Many others feel, marriage, rape, live-in are not so distinct and have blurred boundaries. I can only say that this is all too common a story. When love stories or live-in or even marriages fall foul, the girl always bears the burden. And yet, girls make stupid mistakes. Blind in love goes the phrase and truly so, more accidents happen when one is blind.

Let us dissect the mindsets.

Evolutionarily, all animals, humans included have primal needs defined by nature that can be summarized very very crisply in three sentences of one-three words each.

Don’t get eaten. Eat. Mate.

Eating is as natural as is self-defence in not allowing to be eaten, to survive. But then third one is a bit counter-intuitive as it is not about individual’s survival, but about the gene’s or species survival- through mating in mammals. That is why many equate sex to hunger- a bodily need that must be met and cannot be denied.

So far so good. Both male and female of the species have the need to propagate their genes. Need to mate. Need sex. Even if their brains weren’t so evolved this much is drilled into even the dumbest of species.

But then paths and the rules for both, begin to differ once need for sex is established. Men evolutionarily can mate with large number of partners without physical and physiological signs (like pregnancy or menstrual cycle). Women are thus evolutionarily wired to be deliberate in choosing partner and once committed, get locked into a relation as they develop physical signs of bearing that relation, lock themselves out of other potential partners and need to tender to the baby and the kid and so on. Physical relationship rules are accompanied by other rules. For example, emotional and legal.

The reason women are made more discerning in their choice of partners and men philander is because of same evolutionary reason. But then many of my women friends argue. Things have changed. Women earn. There is pill. Family is increasingly becoming nuclear and sins of a gone era are becoming more acceptable socially. Women have their needs too, of being liked by men and to satisfy their evolutionary needs through sexual gratification and should not be the only ones sacrificing. And so on.

I agree. All these carry merit. And all these carry, a cost-social, emotional, financial, legal, reputational. Have you considered them before deciding?

Back to the live-in news-story as the case in point. The girl feels cheated. Rightly so but many argue. Is the girl not able to marry anyone else? Can she not move on in life? Again, one needs to dig deeper into male and feminine psyche. Men have longer reproductive life. If his boyfriend were to wait till 40 years of age also, he could have married but women, after 30 years of age (refer my earlier blog “Turning 30”) become biologically less useful to prospective mates. They cannot fight biological clock. Stakes are higher for women in a relationship no matter how modern society is and pills cheaper to get. Bearing progeny and mating is a human need and men would prefer women in reproductive age(max 40 years, that too with risks inherent). On contrary, men can be reproductive even upto 70s. The girl in this story is rightly worried as now she is on verge of being reproductively past her prime, she has lost her man. No new man would come near her or wrong men would court her, and she has a difficult period ahead any which way.

Apart from reproductive age difference and physical signs of committed relationship in mating, another key differential is physical strength. It needs no elaboration. All these combined, shape and socially condition emotional behavior, social roles, relationship hierarchy and so on. Net result is even in areas not evolutionarily obvious, feminine power gets subdued.

Call it conspiracy of nature or call it plain differences – bottomline is both men and women have to play by different rules and must know them, to not feel cheated later. None of my arguments are to justify male avarice or feminine subservience. But only to define laws of nature. Such laws govern behavior sub-consciously and nobody deliberately wants to think a certain way. We are made to think so by our selfish genes. Such laws exist in any situation where a difference in power exists.

So, what do I mean when I say rules are different and how can women “play to win” by those rules? For one, women have this so called “ladder theory”- friends list and another potential mate list. They must understand the two and be firm on their sixth sense in sticking to names in either list. Second, prevention is better than cure. Understand male mindset. They would like to shoot and scoot. Its evolutionarily stable strategy. You cannot do that. So, act pricey and do not give in till you get the commitment you want. Be it commitment of marriage or just an acknowledgement of relationship. Live in or sex is not something you give first and then hope for a quid pro quo. You first get commitment, not verbal, not private but social and public and legal. Else, stake is all yours. If it falls through, cost is only on you.

This girl has got it all wrong. 8 years of live-in, she kept investing in a relationship, because she” had” to. Simply because she opted to live in.  She could have no other man committed to her, as the world knows if you are in live-in, either you must be of easy virtue or you are taken. Simple law of mating is, all want exclusive rights to your genes. Not shared. Now, as for the boy, yet another law of mating is to keep aiming higher. If a man has 7/10 gene in his girl, he wants 8/10 n 9/10 n gets attracted to others he rates so. Ditto for women. All want genetically higher outcomes. Look how easily guy in live-in relationship, said, his parents are against marriage to live-in partner and opts for arranged marriage. No rocket science, simple evolutionary mating principle. Boy has this 8 years of relationship, he has a possibility of a better offer, he would move on. He isn’t committed by marriage or by kid (or by law and that is what judges are trying for first time). Girl got locked in by her one-sided commitment, emotional  and cannot just shoot and scoot. Nature made girls higher on empathy and emotional investment, made them more discreet and discerning in selecting a partner, gave them women’s sense. They abandon these gifts to their own peril.

Some tips:-

• ·        Call bluff early. If you feel blackmailed, you quit asap, no matter what be the stakes. Once you allow yourself to be blackmailed, its all downhill as you hand over power balance to the unscrupulous other person.
• ·        Do not deny your mating instincts. Do not be a recluse. But stop short of giving in, especially being aware that certain steps may be irreversible for you,  without extracting public legal commitment. Old fashioned but even more valid.
• ·        Do not think pills or abortion are the solution to casual relation. Word spreads and reputation matters. More, emotionally shattered psyche does not heal easily either.
• ·        Increase stakes for the guy in relationship. May be by including his parents and family. By making him commit financially. By marriage. Public announcements by him.
• ·        Use laws. Laws are to strike balance between unequals and thus most are in favor of women.
• ·        In office or friends circle, have many male friends, all with infrequent but equal relationship, to keep your ego boosted, feel wanted and yet not shut out males who malign your relationship in case you get too close to only one. That would be risking too much before marriage.
• ·        Done a mistake and landed in a situation? Think evolutionarily. How would the mate behave? Chances are he will act that way only, being only human. Plan and act to get that to your advantage. More on such tricks in a later blog.

Do girls not know these rules? They often do, though not all. Why they fall prey still? Well, one, they get blinded. Two, many do wishful thinking hoping against laws of nature. Three, often, they fall into blackmail cycle. Four, they mistake sequence of give and take. They feel if Ithey give in first, boy will be obliged to reciprocate with commitment. Never happens. Five, they do not talk to close friends and/or  listen to them. Five, even when they realize folly, worrying about future stakes, it suits them to suffer and not make a show of their foolishness. Six, many think and shared too with me so casually, that they keep sex as different from marriage. Enjoy sex, don’t invest emotionally. Once decided to marry, move on, away from casual sex. Requires too much of self-control like an on-off switch. Not practical. Seen hardly any, who can manage the change overnight. Results in hangover and worries and disaster. Lastly, living in.....denial, is so common that evolutionary logic falls on deaf ears. "My man is different."

Those who know me, know me as one big votary of conventional thinking. But on rationality and common sense, and evolutionary logic, not because I like all things old. Evolutionary behavior would never go out of fashion.I am guilty of reading too much into a woman’s mind and would like to hear views and learn.