Faithful or lovelace, chimpanzee or gorilla, who are you?

You suspect your other half as a betrayer, why do you think your wife is delayed at work? Your husband decided to go to the country without you?
And you already have serious thoughts about treason, that your loved one has found and loves another?
Or maybe you yourself look at other men or women as an object of desire and are afraid of these thoughts?
But you don’t even think about the fact that the reason may be completely different and this very reason is due to thousands of years of evolution! That's what scientists think about it ...

Benjamin Franklin once joked: "Where there is marriage without love, there will be love without marriage." His work is well known to American history, however the truth expressed by the founding father can be directly related to the true history of evolution.
Christopher Ryan (author of Sex at Dawn) suggests some considerations about the role of diversity in the sex life of our beloved primates. He suggests that men seek a variety of sexual partners, and women are attracted to various techniques:

“When researchers considered this issue when developing a scale of sexual boredom, they found that for men, sexual boredom was associated with a variety of partners (or lack thereof), while for women, it was more associated with a variety of sexual techniques of different men . In other words, women get more pleasure when changing the way they satisfy, while men react to changing partners. Almost everyone knows that this is true, but only a few dare to discuss it: diversity and change are a necessary element of a man’s sex life. ”

Ryan suggested that such relationships today are the result of our evolutionary heritage. Although I am ready to agree with his main conclusion about men (data from biology and anthropology clearly indicate that men are more concerned about quantity than quality), his conclusion about excessive male sexuality compared to female is premature. Since statistics show that women are more likely to be satisfied with relationships at any given time than men, it turns out that when men seek new partners, they are more likely to find someone who is already engaged (i.e., has a permanent relationship )
According to The Janus Report on Sexual Behavior35 percent of men admitted at least one case of adultery, but 26 percent of women (one in four) also admitted to infidelity. However, these figures should be viewed with some skepticism, as men are often exaggerating the number of sexual partners, and women are often underestimating them. So it’s quite possible that for every Vania pikaper shooting girls on the dance floor, there is Katya, who loves loose relationships, following him step by step.
Just as the presence of several partners can be part of the male nature, the same is true for women. On average, 10% of children worldwide appear as a result of adultery.

Since sex with different men varies in quality ... and is easily accessible with men belonging to different social groups, women have the opportunity to edify their partners' horns, and sometimes still benefit from it.

It turns out that while the evolutionary strategy of men involves many sexual partners, the female strategy is the desire to increase the genetic diversity of the offspring. Women have the opportunity to have children from different partners, or even receive financial support from several fathers at the same time ...

In the comments on Ryan's article, many people expressed their indignation that any infidelity can be justified by the roots in human evolution.
To understand the nature of human relations, we can consider animals of related species. Chimpanzees and bonobos (their DNA is approximately 99% human) have a free mating system. Females have sex with several males from their group and choose males that they like best. The evolution of sexual jealousy in its nascent form can be observed in chimpanzees when a low-ranking male is caught mating with a female that the high-ranking male has chosen. Restlessness in the forest becomes after that. Bonobos have a slightly different situation. Females mainly give signals for mating in order to show the males that they are ready to accept partners. In the world of primates, there is a rivalry between males with each other in what biologists call "sperm competition." Large volumes of ejaculate are prepared to “wash” the semen of the previous male.

In contrast, gorillas live in the so-called harem system and in large males the testes are so small that it is even difficult for anatomists to simply find them. This is because there is no pressure from competing males and their reproductive system produces a sufficient volume of ejaculate (however, this does not mean that females always mate only with their harem leader :)). Gibbons are monogamous monkeys, and accordingly have small testicles relative to the size of their bodies. In all these cases, the mating system of primates can be determined by the size of their testicles.

So, the facts examined lead to an obvious question: are people closer to chimpanzees and bonobos or gibbons and gorillas? Certainly, as might be expected from genetic similarity, the human testes are large, like chimpanzees and bonobos. In fact, in their analysis of the SEMG1 and SEMG2 seed genes , Sarah Kingan and Steve Dorus found a direct relationship between the average number of sexual partners in women and the evolution of these genes in men. A person is closer to chimpanzees and bonobos, and this clearly indicates that people developed with a free mating system.

This structure is also visible in anthropological literature, 83% of pre-industrial societiesare classified as polygamous (one man marrying several women), and unfaithfulness of spouses is quite common. In many societies, women adhere to the “polygamous motherhood” strategy, in which a woman will have children from several men and receive support from each of them. As Miriam Zetzen writes in his book Polygamy:

A woman has only one husband, however, there may be several men who have acknowledged their paternity, thereby giving her the opportunity to effectively manage several men at once. Since these men are usually associated with different genera, their children gain access to other related networks, thereby optimizing the access of the woman and her children to the resources available to relatives' families.

Having examined various arguments supporting the violent behavior of men, Ryan asks the following question:

“If men have developed over millions of years in search of sexual novelty (which avoids genetic stagnation in small groups in sparsely populated areas of the planet), do we rightly condemn them for their exorbitant appetites ? ”
This is a fair question, however, it is necessary to consider its other side. Every man who wants to justify his pampering with a secretary should also ask himself if he is ready to help her raise a son?

Although this does not mean that all men or women will deceive their partners, it turns out that sex is the main reason for a happy or unhappy relationship. According to a survey by ABC Newsmen go left to satisfy sexual needs, but women do the same to satisfy emotional needs. Satisfaction in sexual life is the best indicator of a successful relationship:

Regression analysis shows that sexual satisfaction is a good predictor of a successful marriage. Although the direction of communication in the regression analysis is sometimes difficult to establish, but most likely satisfaction with sex gives rise to satisfaction in marriage, rather than vice versa. This follows from the fact that more people are happy with marriage than the number of people who are happy with their sex life. If satisfaction in marriage led to satisfaction in sex, then this gap between the two groups of people would not exist.

While Benjamin Franklin moved to France to brighten his life with love, for those who are not satisfied - but do not want to lie to their partners - there is a growing movement looking for alternatives to deception. Books on open marriage and polygamy are becoming popular in large bookstores throughout Europe and the United States. If indeed several partners are the norm for a person, openness and honesty about personal needs is the best approach. Reproaches for moral licentiousness stumble upon blank walls, as people in modern society are approaching the sexual habits that have existed in our species for millennia, that is, before a civilization created according to religious canons.

PS: Those who are so actively minus, do not be lazy, leave comments! ;)