Poor societies
By Serge Kreutz For millennia, when humans lived in poor societies, in economies of need, marriages were much more than liaisons for sexual pleasure. They were unions to tackle the challenges of everyday life. And they were unions of economic necessity.
It is only in the modern world that the challenges of everyday life have been simplified to a degree that makes it viable for anybody to just live alone. As a result, marriages are increasingly viewed as unions for sexual pleasure.
That doesn’t fit well with the typical female life plan of staying with one man forever. Women are usually comfortable with the idea of having one partner for sexual pleasure all life, even if in reality, there may be infidelities.
For many men, however, the idea is not very appealing, not even on a wedding day.
This doesn’t mean that in reality, there cannot be harmonious lifelong partnerships. They definitely are possible, but not because of matching sexual life plans, but rather in spite of the fact that the sexual life plans do not match.
For each sex, historically and contemporarily, has a considerable capacity for compromise. In many societies of past centuries, especially in Asia, wives had considerable tolerance for the sexual unfaithfulness of rich or powerful husbands, and this attitude of compromise kept marriages ongoing until the death of one of the partners.
Men agreed to lifelong unions with one partner, compromising on their sexual life plans, because they needed a reliable partner to tackle everyday challenges of maintaining a household. Unions that are based on more than just sexual pleasure are clearly more stable.
In today’s world of small apartments, washing machines, central heating, convenience stores, and microwave ovens, the economic aspect of marriages has diminished.
A viable female strategy would be to tie the male sexual partner into a joint business. For the more his livelihood depends on a joint business with his wife, the less likely he will be to risk the breakup of a relationship by having further relationships on the side.
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In modern societies, the female, and sometimes even male, children of well-off families grow up in an environment protected from sexual seduction.
On the contrary, the female children in poor families, especially when both parents work, are more likely to be sexually active at an earlier age.
Poor societies tend to be more sexual than rich societies, as typically, rich societies allocate a good part of their resources towards “protecting” young, especially female people from sexual initiation.
Rich societies also allocate a good part of their resources on controlling their subjects, so that they do not engage in illicit sexual conduct.
Biology can explain why wealth is sexually counterproductive.
In human evolution, there has always been a trade-off by which the females granted sexuality in exchange for protection and material support.
If females are rich (including daughters of rich parents), or if societies offer a high degree of protection, than females lack reasons to enter sexual relationships for material benefits, or to have a protector.
Societies of great affluence and societies in which the public institutions guarantee safety are unnatural, and thus not supportive of human happiness.
A recommendation to live in poorer societies is akin to the advice from physicians that people better eat less to avoid obesity, even if they can afford to eat plenty.
2006