Steven Pinker -- How the Mind Works - Hampshire High Italian ...

460 J HOW THE MIND WORKSand left him exposed on a mountain. Oedipus was found and raised by ashepherd and then adopted by the king of Corinth and brought up as hisson. On a visit to Delphi, Oedipus learned that he was fated to kill hisfather and marry his mother, so he left Corinth vowing never to return.On his way toward Thebes, he encountered Laius and killed him in aquarrel. When he then outwitted the Sphinx, his reward was the throneof Thebes and the hand of its widowed queen, Jocasta—the biologicalmother he did not grow up with. They had four children before he gotthe bad news.But the ultimate triumph of the Westermarck theory has beenpointed out by John Tooby. The idea that boys want to sleep with theirmothers strikes most men as the silliest thing they have ever heard.Obviously it did not seem so to Freud, who wrote that as a boy he oncehad an erotic reaction to watching his mother dressing. But Freud had awet-nurse, and may not have experienced the early intimacy that wouldhave tipped off his perceptual system that Mrs. Freud was his mother.The Westermarck theory has out-Freuded Freud.MEN AND WOMENMen and women. Women and men. It will never work.—EKICAJONGSometimes, of course, it does work. A man and a woman can fall in love,and the key ingredient is an expression of commitment, as we saw inChapter 6. A man and a woman need each other's DNA and hence canenjoy sex. A man and a woman have a common interest in their children,and their enduring love has evolved to protect that interest. And a husbandand wife can be each other's best friends, and can enjoy the lifelongdependability and trust that underlies the logic of friendship (more onthis later). These emotions are rooted in the fact that if a man andwoman are monogamous, together for life, and not nepotistic towardtheir own families, their genetic interests are identical.Unfortunately, that is a big "if." Even the happiest couples can fightlike cats and dogs, and today fifty percent of marriages in the UnitedStates end in divorce. George Bernard Shaw wrote, "When we want toread of the deeds that are done for love, whither do we turn? To themurder column." Conflict between men and women, sometimes deadly,