Working Through It

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Working Through It

Cheating and infidelity is something that's generally looked down upon. Not only does it have a reputation for destroying relationships but it also has a reputation for ending a marriage by divorce. Evolutionary psychology however encourages the acceptance of infidelity with both theoretical and scientific support as a part of our evolutionary makeup in sexual behavior. As "natural" as it may be, humans sexual behavior should not be the excuse to the abolish monogamous marriages.

Evolutionary psychology encourages the theory that human beings are designed to fall in love but they aren't designed to stay there. With emphasis on the human mind and its role of the environment in shaping behavior, it suggests that adultery, infidelity, partner annoyance and irritation is natural. Theories also suggest that humans do this because the mind is designed to transmit genes for reproduction. (Wright 280). In the article Our Changing Heart, author Robert Wright notes that this infidelity occurs in both men and women and on completely different levels. Men tend to naturally experience these urges on a sexual level while women have a deeper connection with emotional infidelity (285). His concept is supported in part by the fact that women can only reproduce about once and year, while men have the opportunity to do so with each new partner (Wright 282). Infidelity however does have a reputation in divorce, which is no longer a rare sight. Between the years of 1960 and 1990, divorce rates have doubled going from 25% to 50% (Wright 288). Robert Wright may have gotten it right when he said that perhaps lifelong devotion isn't a natural thing for humans (Wright 289). It's quite possible that as evolutionary psychology would appear, natural sexual behaviors doesn't exactly make that lifestyle easy either.

As Robert Wright and evolutionary psychology has shown, infidelity and sexual behaviors can quite possibly be embedded into our systems, as a natural occurrence. However this is not something to rationalize the commitments humans choose to make to one another by marriage. Awareness of the issue will allow people to be be more insightful about it and "lead people to subject their own feelings to more acute scrutiny" (Wright 290). These perceptions of underlying intentions can potentially be seen as illusions (Wright 290). With effort and with work, monogamous marriage can withstand the complexities of natural behaviors, and should be preserved.