More Equal Men

Loved this article on mathematical modeling of courtship and parallels between animals and humans. Extravagant and useless gifts do make an impression - indelible ones if well personalized. The underlying theory for why that is the case makes perfect sense too.

While gift giving and courtship is gender-unequal, men may become more equal than women in relationships should male contraception turn popular. Where a woman is in a relationship only to have a child, a man can withhold that favor unless she is willing to invest more in return. Casual encounters would become easier with the man in control too. Risk would be replaced by sterility.

That is definitely empowerment for men as long as they buy into the idea of contraception psychologically and are willing to suffer the side-effects. For both sexes the shift in the balance of power would take getting used to and there could be new relationship issues that neither knows how to deal with.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

crossings..
i read yer blog as n when u post it :) ..part of my daily must-do's.
the link doesnt seem to work..(the one on courtship).

Heartcrossings said...

Anon : Check the link to the post now. The article is in the PDF doc

Anonymous said...

crossings :) me again..the link works perfectly..but it seems one shud have a member login id..

the link merely shows a page of various royal soc journals :)

river.

um..they jus wanted me to register..phew..

Heartcrossings said...

Anon: Not sure what's the deal with that. I have the link to the abstract of the article now. You can find your way to the main publication. It is a a good read :-)

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