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

Family Values 467contributions are more equal, the undivided attention of one becomesvaluable, and the species settles on monogamy.Many birds appear to be monogamous. In Manhattan, Woody Allensays to Diane Keaton, "I think people should mate for life, like pigeons orCatholics." The movie came out before ornithologists began to submitbirds to DNA testing, which revealed, to their shock, that pigeons arenot so faithful either. In some species of birds, a third of the offspringcontain the DNA of a male other than the female's consort. The malebird is adulterous because he tries to raise the offspring of one femaleand mate with others, hoping that her offspring will survive on their own,or best of all, be raised by a cuckolded consort. The female bird is adulterousbecause she has a chance of getting the best of both worlds: thegenes of the fittest male and the investment of the most willing male.The victim of cuckoldry is worse off than if he had failed to breed at all,because he has devoted his worldly efforts to the genes of a competitor.So in species whose males invest, the male's jealousy is directed not onlyat rival males but at the female. He may guard her, follow her around,copulate repeatedly, and avoid females that show signs of having recentlymated.Xhe human mating system is not like any other animal's. But that doesnot mean it escapes the laws governing mating systems, which have beendocumented in hundreds of species. Any gene predisposing a male to becuckolded, or a female to receive less paternal help than her neighbors,would quickly be tossed from the gene pool. Any gene that allowed amale to impregnate all the females, or a female to bear the most indulgedoffspring of the best male, would quickly take over. These selection pressuresare not small. For human sexuality to be "socially constructed" andindependent of biology, as the popular academic view has it, not onlymust it have miraculously escaped these powerful pressures, but it musthave withstood equally powerful pressures of a different kind. If a personplayed out a socially constructed role, other people could shape therole to prosper at his or her expense. Powerful men could brainwashthe others to enjoy being celibate or cuckolded, leaving the women forthem. Any willingness to accept socially constructed gender roles wouldbe selected out, and genes for resisting the roles would take over.