Why We Love (15 page)

When Singh measured the waist-to-hip ratio of 286 ancient sculptures from several African tribes, as well as from ancient India, Egypt, Greece, and Rome, he found that all favored a ratio that was smaller for women than for men. And in a study of 330 artworks of Europe, Asia, the Americas, and Africa, some of which date back thirty-two thousand years, scientists found that most women were depicted with a waist-to-hip ratio of these same general proportions.
27
Interestingly,
Playboy
centerfolds display these proportions, too, as do American “supermodels.” Even “Twiggy,” the gaunt supermodel of the 1960s, had a waist-to-hip ratio of exactly 70 percent.

A woman’s waist-to-hip ratio is largely inherited; it is produced by genes. Moreover, although it clearly varies from one woman to the next, this ratio adjusts during ovulation to come closer to 70 percent. Why has nature gone to such extraordinary lengths to produce curvaceous women? And why do men around the world appreciate this particular waist-to-hip ratio in women?

Most likely for an evolutionary reason.

Women with a waist-to-hip ratio of around 70 percent are more likely to bear babies, Singh reports. They possess the right amount of fat in the right places—due to high levels of bodily estrogen in relation to testosterone. Women who vary substantially from these proportions find it harder to get pregnant; they conceive later in life; and they have more miscarriages. Egg-shaped, pear-shaped, or stick-shaped: differently shaped women also suffer more from chronic diseases, such as diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, certain cancers, and problems with circulation. They are also prone to various personality disorders.
28

So Singh theorizes that male attraction to a specific female waist-to-hip ratio is a natural preference for healthy, fertile partners. In fact, because this preference is so deeply enmeshed in the male psyche, men of all ages express this taste, even when they have no interest in fathering young themselves or are courting women who are past the age of reproduction.

Of course, men prefer other things in women, too.

Who Men Choose

In a classic study of some ten thousand people in thirty-seven societies, scientists asked men and women to rank eighteen characteristics in order of their importance in choosing a spouse.
29
Both sexes ranked love or mutual attraction first. A dependable character came next, followed by emotional stability and maturity, and a pleasing disposition. Both men and women also said they would choose someone who was kind, smart, educated, sociable, healthy, and interested in home and family.

But this study also showed a distinct gender difference in romantic tastes. When it came to sizing up potential romantic partners, men were more likely to choose women who displayed
visual
signs of youth and beauty.

These masculine predilections are documented across millennia and cultures.
30
Osiris, the legendary ruler of predynastic Egypt, was overwhelmed by the physical beauty of his beloved wife, Isis. As he wrote over four thousand years ago, “Isis has cast her net, / and ensnared me / in the noose of her hair / I am held by her eyes / curbed by her necklace / imprisoned by the scent of her skin.”
31

A Tiv tribesman of Nigeria was swept away by the shapeliness of a woman, exclaiming, “When I saw her dance she took my life away and I knew I must follow her.”
32

American men who place courtship ads in newspapers and magazines are three times more likely than women to mention that they seek beauty in a partner.
33

And on average, men around the world marry women who are three years younger than themselves.
34
In the United States, men who remarry usually choose a woman about five years younger; if they wed a third time, they often take a bride about eight years their junior.
35

When asked why people desire physical beauty, Aristotle replied: “No one that is not blind could ask that question.” Men unquestionably find good-looking women aesthetically pleasing to look at. They also like to impress friends and colleagues with their dazzling girlfriends or trophy wives. In fact, people in general tend to regard beautiful women (and good-looking men) as warm, smart, strong, giving, friendly, polite, sexy, interesting, financially secure, and socially popular.
36

But evolutionary psychologists now believe that men subconsciously also prefer youth and beauty because it gives them reproductive payoffs.
37
Young women with smooth skin, snow-white teeth, sparkling eyes, gleaming hair, taut muscles, a lithe body, and a lively personality are more likely to be healthy and energetic—good qualities for bearing and rearing babies. Smooth, clear skin and babylike facial features also signal elevated levels of estrogen that can aid in reproduction.

So these scientists theorize that across our long hunting/gathering past, those males who chose youthful, healthy, exuberant partners had more children. These robust babies lived—and passed along to contemporary men this male bias for youthful, good-looking women.
38

The Male Brain in Love

“Why does a woman have to be beautiful rather than intelligent?”

“Because men can see better than they can think.”

It’s a stale joke; I know
many
men who think very well. But this tart observation does contain a grain of truth. I say this because our fMRI study on the brain circuitry of people in love turned up some unexpected results: we found several gender differences.
39
These findings were complex and varied. Men did not fit neatly in one category and women in another; as with all gender differences, both sexes ranged in their responses to the photos of their sweethearts; some even overlapped. Moreover, these variations may not be common to all men or all women. But there were statistically significant differences between the sexes. No one knows exactly what these findings mean. But I will speculate about men for the moment and theorize about women later.

In our sample, men tended to show more activity than women in brain regions associated with
visual
processing, particularly of the face.

Could this have evolved to enhance men’s ability to fall in love when they
saw
a woman who was young, symmetrical, and a good reproductive bet? Maybe. This brain activity could also help explain why men generally fall in love faster than women.
40
When the time is right and a man
sees
an attractive woman, he is anatomically equipped to rapidly associate attractive
visual
features with feelings of romantic passion. What an effective courtship device.

Indeed, we found another gender difference that could have evolved to help men court efficiently in yesteryear. When our subjects looked at their beloveds, men tended to show more positive activity in a brain region associated with penile erection. This makes Darwinian sense. The very purpose of romantic love is to stimulate mating with a “special” other. This male response directly links romantic passion with a brain region associated with sexual arousal.

Although this may be far-fetched, this male brain response may also shed light on why men so avidly support the worldwide trade in
visual
pornography; why women are more likely than men to regard their personal appearance as an important component of their self-esteem;
41
and why women go to such extraordinary lengths to advertise their assets
visually,
with all manner of clothing, makeup, and ornaments. “If you can’t convince ’em, confuse ’em,” maintained American president Harry Truman. Women agree. Unmercifully, women take advantage of men’s fondness for—and brain response to—visual stimuli.

Male “Mating Effort”

Another male penchant interests me because it also comes, I think, directly from deep history. Psychologists report that men want to help women, to solve their problems, to be useful by
doing
something.
42
Men feel manly when they rescue a damsel in distress.

No doubt millions of years of protecting and providing for women has bred into the male brain this tendency to choose women they feel they need to save. In fact, the male brain is well built to assist women. Men are, on average, more skilled at all sorts of mechanical and spatial tasks than women are. Men are problem solvers.
43
And many of men’s particular skills are fashioned in the womb by high levels of fetal testosterone. Perhaps men evolved this biological machinery, at least in part, to attract, assist, and save women.

Men are also more single-minded than women when they love. Only 40 percent of the young women in my survey agreed with the statement: “Having a good relationship with ___ is more important than having a good relationship with my family,” whereas a solid 60 percent of young men reported that their love relationship came first. Moreover, although most people think women are the ones who wait by the phone, change their schedules, and hang around the office or the gym to be available to a beloved, my questionnaire showed that American men reorder their priorities more frequently than women do.

This male accessibility is far from new. Even Dante, the great Renaissance Florentine poet, apparently lingered on a bridge over the Arno River for hours in hopes of speaking with his beloved Beatrice.

This male penchant may be due to the fact that men have fewer intimate connections with their natal families and friends than women. But deep evolutionary forces probably contribute. Women are custodians of the egg—a valuable commodity. And women expend much more time rearing infants and small children, a vital job. For millions of years men needed to make themselves available to potential mating partners, even risk their lives to save these precious reproductive vessels.

Men are still obliged to expend more “mating effort” to win the courtship game. In fact, men’s mating efforts were clearly visible in their responses to several questions in my survey. For example, men were more worried that they would say the wrong thing on a “date.” They were not as confident with their words. This is understandable. On average, women everywhere in the world are more skilled with the nuances of language, an ability linked to the female hormone, estrogen.
44
But the women in my survey were also more likely to save the cards and letters a lover sends. Women not only savored a suitor’s way with words; unconsciously they were also keeping a record of his mating effort.

The Female Brain in Love

Much of the psychological literature reports that both sexes feel passionate romantic love with roughly the same intensity.
45
I suspect this is true; their responses are just somewhat different. For example, my questionnaire on this passion (discussed in chapter one) showed that more American and Japanese women than men reported feeling “lighter than air” when they were certain their beloved felt passionately about them. Women also experienced slightly more obsessive thinking about an amor.

Our fMRI experiment also showed several ways in which our female subjects responded differently than our male participants. When women looked at the photo of their beloved, they tended to show
more
activity in the body of the caudate nucleus and the septum—brain regions associated with motivation and attention. Parts of the septum are also associated with the processing of emotion. Women also showed activity in some different brain regions, including one associated with retrieval and recall of memories and some associated with attention and emotion.
46

Once again, no one knows what these results mean. But as you recall memories and register your emotions, you inform yourself about your feelings
47
and assemble information into patterns; both activities help you make decisions. And for millions of years, women needed to make appropriate decisions about a potential mating partner. If an ancestral woman became pregnant during a romance, she was obliged to incubate the embryo for nine months, then deliver the child. These were (and remain) metabolically costly, time-consuming, uncomfortable, and physically dangerous tasks. Moreover, a woman had to raise her helpless infant through a long childhood and adolescence.

While a man can
see
many of a woman’s assets for bearing and rearing babies, a woman cannot see a man’s “mate value” just by looking. She must compute a partner’s ability to protect and provide. And these gender differences suggest that when a woman gazes at her lover, natural selection has given her specific brain responses that enable her to recall the details and emotions she needs to assess her man.

“Heredity is nothing but stored environment,” wrote the great botanist Luther Burbank. The vicissitudes of rearing helpless infants in a hostile ancestral environment have unquestionably bred into women other mechanisms they use to choose a mate.

Who Women Choose

In a survey of eight hundred personal advertisements placed in newspapers and magazines, American women sought partners who offered financial security twice as frequently as men did.
48
Many female doctors, lawyers, and very wealthy women are interested in men with even more money and status than themselves.
49
In fact, women everywhere in the world are more attracted to partners with education, ambition, wealth, respect, status, and position—the kinds of assets their prehistoric predecessors needed in a parenting partner. As scientists sum this up: men look for sex objects and women look for success objects.

Women are also attracted to tall men, perhaps because towering men are more likely to acquire prestige in business and politics and provide more bodily defense.
50
Women like men who sit in a carefree position, a sign of dominance, as well as men who are self-confident and assertive. Women are somewhat more likely to choose a long-term partner who is smart.
51
And women respond to men who are well-coordinated, strong, and courageous—as world literature and legend attest.