Liz Smith | 04/01/2008 1:04 pm

Is Adultery Bred Into the Male Animal?

Once again I have to cite my favorite magazine The Week for reminding us of a question that seems eternal. Is it true evolution has bred the male of the species to philander?

This was asked of David Barish in the L.A. Times and he answered: “Among our fellow mammals, males are invariably aggressive sexual adventurers driven by their genes to couple with as many partners as possible.”

Mr. Barish went on to remind of the movie scene in Nora Ephron’s “Heartburn” where the father tells the weeping Meryl Streep “You want monogamy? Marry a swan.”

Also in the Times, Jennie Dusheck answered back that DNA analysis of offsprings’ parentage reveals that infidelity is common among female animals as well as male. She added, “Scientists have been pushing this threadbare argument that men just can’t help themselves for years … The larger question is why we’re even looking to the animal kingdom for lessons in morality. Unlike animals, which have no consciences, human beings can choose whether to act upon an impulse or to suppress it.”

Then, also in the Times, Meghan Daum writes, “Despite abundant evidence to the contrary, most of us desperately want to think that long-term sexual monogamy will work … That’s why people find these public sex scandals so fascinating — and so terrifying. When a straight-arrow family man such as Spitzer gets caught hiring hookers, or an anti-gay crusader like Sen. Larry Craig is arrested for soliciting sex in a men’s room, it suggests that human beings – including your spouse — are, sexually speaking, secretly capable of anything.”

I, Liz, know some happily married people where it appears neither of them cheat. But I know hundreds of other unhappily married people. And even happy ones who cheat.

I would like to hear from our women friends on this subject …

N OTE: Don’t forget to read my nationally syndicated column today!

Read more about: Adultery, Love, Marriage, Silda Spitzer

51 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment

Thanks, Brad! We DO need to pass that amendment! 40 years later we are still not making progress with equal pay and elimination of gender bias and discrimination. Please look out for your daughters and help provide equality for them when they enter the work world.

By Kay Sara on 04/02/2008 10:51 am

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Marriage is very difficult and male or female it is extremely difficult to get everything one needs from a single relationship. The expectations of marriage are very unrealistic and most people who go into marriage do not really understand what it means. Marriage is a one day at a time one issue at a time institution that requires tremendous patience regardless of gender. Men and women view the world differently so why should marriage or monogamy be any different? Being a woman and raising children is not a glamorous job. Women can no more understand the pressures on men for money and power than men can understand what it would be like to give up everything to raise children. And working women? Forget it, they have the most difficult situation of all. The bottom line is that monogamy takes a lot of effort and does not come with a lot of instant gratification the way that animal attraction does! Adultery isn’t bred into either gender, it’s a choice and it usually comes at a price.

By a c on 04/01/2008 5:59 pm

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a c I like what you are saying here. Marriage is an institution that members must understand that it takes time to get it right. Something my husband and I live by…tomorrow is another day we can start over again. I am a working professional, wife and mother. How do people find time to have affairs? After making love with my husband I just could not imagine sharing that part of myself with another man. Maybe I am old fashioned. Not really…I just love this institution. I love my marriage and I am still in love with my husband. And yes, he drives me crazy at times. I suspect I do the same for him. Adultery may not be bred into one’s gender but it is bred into one’s culture. That I do believe.

By Taylor Hall on 04/02/2008 8:52 am

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Is adultery bred into the male animal? Calling it adultery is an interpretation and a judgment of an impulse that I think IS bred into males. For their species to survive, males of all species have historically had to do an effective job of sowing seed wide and planting it deep. Call that what you will. Marriage was defined to limit reproductive sex to one’s partner, and interpreted to limit all sex to one’s partner. That doesn’t change biology, it just makes for some convoluted moral stances.

By Meg Umans on 04/01/2008 6:33 pm

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Maybe if we stopped referring to men as “animals” they would live up to a higher level of behavior.

By Kay Sara on 04/02/2008 10:54 am

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Amen Meg. Bred into? This infers that it was a consicous decision. King of Siam said bee went flower to flower to flower. Takes many spermatoza to fertilize one egg. Marriage was designed to foment profitable alliances and convey ownership. This is necessary in a patriarchial society to ensure legitimate progeny. We are lucky to be living at a time when all of this is being re-examined and redefined. Not an easy one, for sure. Do all men cheat? No. I remember a co-worker once, a married shoe salesman, who after finding me observing his evident perusal of a beautiful young woman shared this, “It doesn’t matter where I get my appetite, as long as I eat at home.”

By iris odonata on 04/01/2008 7:01 pm

I’d guess it’s partly primal and partly culturally imposed, but the fact is men are more likely to cheat and more likely to receive kudos and compliments if they don’t. Rarely is admiration expressed for a woman who remains faithful though a woman has far more opportunities to have meaningless sexual flings than a man does, can often have them with much younger more attractive partners and never has to pay for them. The root of this behavior is the different reproductive responsibilities of a male vs a female and the way society has developed around them. Personally, I think women have it so much better then men.

By patricia hannigan on 04/01/2008 7:04 pm

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I hope not.

By J B on 04/01/2008 7:16 pm

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I agree with Suzanne that without trust there cannot be a lasting love. If I weren’t able to trust the man I have been with for over 40 years I know that my love wouldn’t have been strong enough to resist the temptations over the years. Because I realize I can trust him I too have not betrayed his trust and love. That is not to say that each of us hasn’t been tempted at times,who hasn’t. But we have chosen to respect the trust we each hold for one another and it has held strong. I often heard,as a therapist,that it is too much work to stay in a marraige. Many people use that as their excuse to wander and,eventually,to walk away from their partners. It takes hard work,and giving to the other person,in order to make it work. It wouldn’t succeed if there were other parties in the marraige.

By Judy m. on 04/01/2008 8:06 pm

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I suspect if men were drug out into the street, stripped naked, and branded with a hot iron on the forehead with an “A”, or thrown onto a burning pile of wood, or drowned, or otherwise treated to some of the things that have happened to women who were considered “adulterers,” the lil darlings might well think twice before screwing around. But since it’s the hooker, not the john, who is arrested, well, gee, folks…. This is not brain surgery.

By Mugsy Peabody on 04/01/2008 8:22 pm

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Although it’s romantic to believe that fidelity is equal to some superior type of love, to me it’s like buying into children’s fairy-tales. Although love can be communicated through sex they just aren’t the same thing. Sex is like an appetite—a physical thing wrapped up in some emotion (probably from infancy)—so is eating. Do we get hung up on people’s eating habits (yeah we do! Isn’t that funny?) I enjoy reading about couples who communicate honestly about their needs and wants—and I guess if both partners in a relationships really want to be monogamous in a relationship and can do that or want to work on that it’s great. I think being able to be ones-self with a partner and to be able to be honest is of higher value to me than monogamy. To me it’s a greater shame that so many people have to hide their true desires in order to fill some expectations that may have nothing to do with what they—just another human—really want or need. I think it’d be much healthier if we could accept leaders that don’t have to have conventional marriages and families. How well someone does his/her job has nothing to do with their relationships. We don’t know what arrangements and agreements these couples have made to put on a public face—isn’t it the wearing of masks that makes politicians (leaders?) seem sleazy in the first place? And as for, are men worse than women because they are so oriented to want to f—-: well, it’s a wonder how they’ve managed to keep all the power for so long, considering how distracted they must be!

By Kathy Garner on 04/01/2008 8:40 pm

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Cheating is adultery, and adultery is always a choice. No one is forced by circumstance or karma to betray someone’s trust; betrayal is ALWAYS a choice. I do not believe men are born with the cheatin’ dna programmed into them, but I do believe that many societal levels view men as childish instant-gratification-machines who may even have a perfect right to spray sperm wherever they please. And there are always women who accept this as a norm and even encourage it, more to our shame. I know many kind and decent men who are trustworthy and monogamous, and I have met many ego-filled losers whose desperate need for whatever they want whenever they want it. It’s all about choice. We choose to be trustworthy, or we choose to be jerks. Nice people choose to be trustworthy; anything else is just pure selfishness and childishness and shameful.

By Jane Goodwin on 04/01/2008 11:06 pm

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I wholeheartedly agree with you, Mamacita G.! Everything we do in life is attached to a CHOICE we’ve made. When a man makes the decision to cheat on his wife it is not just something programmed into his DNA. He’s not an animal…..he’s a human being! He made a conscious CHOICE to betray that individual. Unfortunately, our society has enabled these scoundrels for centuries. The “poor men” just simply can’t help what’s in their genetic make-up. Balderdash!!! Can we say the word: narcissist?

By Karen Hittinger on 04/02/2008 9:17 am

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I don’t think men are any more genetically programmed for adultery than are women. Women, however, normally have a greater investment in protecting their homes and families, and as other writers have said, the sanctions in our society are stronger against women. At some point almost all marital partners have to make the decision whether or not to remain faithful, and the depth and strength of their relationship is what determines what happens next. We have no idea what the marriages of the Spitzers or the Craigs are really like; only the couples themselves know. I can’t think of any case in which adultery made the marriage stronger, but I know several couples whose marriages survived it. (By the way, it didn’t escape me that the strongest argument for male adultery as an uncontrolable urge was made by a MAN!).

By Maurine H on 04/01/2008 11:19 pm

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I’ve been married for 25 years, first marriage for both. We have certain protocols that we follow. One is to never be alone with a person of the opposite sex, that cuts down on the opportunities for adultery. The other is to share an email address. We have two computers and he can read mine - if he cares to - and I can read his - if I want to, which I rarely do. But we both know when the other is going through something difficult and having access to those pertinent emails is a short cut to understand the situation, and being a support to the other. There are things that we have agreed on: “Don’t (verbally)share that with me” - like my news articles related to child accidents, which he finds overwhelming; and I don’t like him to tell me some of the male “humor” emails that he gets from his friends. But the understanding that we are committed to transparency, has created a stronger bond.

By Bella Mia on 04/02/2008 12:03 am