Sadie of Jezebel comes up with my nomination for quote of the day in her reflections on misinterpretations of Natalie Angier’s Science Times article on serial monogamy in women… which evidently meshes extremely well with a recent meme about so-called “mate-poaching” women.
If we need proof, keep in mind that the “husband-snatcher!” furor is still going strong. A rather cavalier piece in the Houston Chronicle sports the same sort of reductive headline that’s been snaring views since the rather more complicated Journal of Experimental Social Psychology results came out. In short, she reports that “mate poaching” is real, and that it says a lot of bad stuff about women. Then readers, who also haven’t read the research and are drawing their own conclusions based on this rather sketchy pop-summary, say things like, “fellas if your wife has hot looking girlfriends, leave the house, cause those b—-h’s are cheating to. ladies, if your husband has hot looking friends, chances are they are cheating with your hot looking girlfriends.” And “THE ALPHA MALE, just like the lion of the jungle his role is to get as many lioness’s pregnant.” Does a moron need “facts” to bolster his grandstanding? No – but he’ll use them.
Angier’s story, incidentally, mainly says we’re wrong if we think serial monogamy is mainly a “harem-building” strategy that benefits only men. How this translates into husband-poaching women is best left to those who think the two-sphere model of gender (where if men are believed to seek new partners women must be believed never to.) In fact, Angier refers to a Tanzanian sub-culture where it appears to be as common, as advantageous, and as admirable for women to change husbands as it is for Americans to change jobs or houses.
Just as one swallow does not a summer make, one culture where women regardes ad the most industrious, virtuous frequently change husbands (and, incidentally, where husbands with multiple marriages are seen as losers) is not a template for other societies. But it does offer yet another reason to continue questioning what we “know” is innately true about gender in relationships. We might also want to examine whether multiple marriages for women are necessarily as detrimental as they’re made out to be. And since, like it or not, marriage-for-life models are no longer the majority model we might want to use the point as a stepping-off point for a discussion on policy initiatives that attempt to moderate rather than disrupt marriage transitions. And we’d probably also want to take a moment to reassure insecure PUA types that letting women (instead of just men) hop from relationship to relationship will benefit only opportunistic “high-status” women.
The last three or four sentences of the previous paragraph bring me back to the real point of this post. Really I just wanted to call attention to Sadie’s great sentence… even if or when it might apply to the way I pick up on some ideas: “Does a moron need “facts” to bolster his grandstanding? No – but he’ll use them.”
