Is One Woman Enough for Any Man?

Which best describes your relationship styles? Select one of the following:

(1) Monogamous
(2) Serially monogamous
(3) Ambiguously monogamous
(4) Mildly polygamous
(5) Polygamous

Relax. If you checked anything, you’re right. Evolutionary psychologists have never been to find the right language to describe our peculiar approach of mating. We practice mostly monogamy, but is that natural or are we boxed in by social and religious mores? Besides humans, only about three per cent mammals pair up. Anthropological surveys of traditional cultures conducted in the past century found that more than 80 per cent allowed polygyny. i.e., a man could take more than one wife, meanwhile polyandrous societies, in which a woman can take more than one man, are rare. The evidence is clear that we have evolved as “mildly polygynous creatures”, argue evolutionary psychologist David Barash and his wife, psychiatrist Judith Lipton in The Myth of Monogamy. However, even when polygyny is okey, few men partake. This is almost always out of necessity rather than by choice, Barash says — “Either they are’nt enough surplus women or a man lacks the fund and/or skill to negotiate and sustain the arrangement.

Because we humans remain with each partner for as long as we can after the romantic wears off, many scientists adopted the phrase “serial monogamy”. Helen Fisher, the author of Why We Love, likes to recall a story about Margaret Mead. When asked why her marriages had all failed, the fame anthropologist responded, “I beg you pardon, I had three marriages, and none of them were failure.”

Although US divorce data support the notion of seven-year itch, Fisher believes couple feel an instinctual urge to split after four years. That’s about the time, she argued, that a child born in a hunter-gatherer society is self-sufficient enough to join a communcal play group and raised by other members of the band. The father and mother can than search for new mates — he for someone younger, and she for someone older and richer — an bear children with a variety of genetic structures, increasing the odds that more of them will survive. The fact that most men dont flee is “a remarkable triumph of the female brain and will”, writes geneticist Anne Moir inBrain Sex, “In sexual and evolutionary terms, there is nothing in marriage for men”. So why do we stay? One argument is that we recognize widespread female promiscuity would make it harder to know if a child is ours. We also stick around because, unlike other primates, humans are born with underdeveloped brains so the skull can squeeze through a female pelvis, leaving our offspring so helpless they require two parents to survive. By the time a child can walk and talk, a few years later, and Daddy is ready to bolt, Mama may well be pregnant again. Where does the time go? Kids continue to weigh on a marriage as long as they are around; one study of 500 families found the lowest point of satisfaction arrives at Stage V, when the children become teenagers. However, in the next three stages — VI, VII and VIII, after the kids leave home — the ratings rise again. Hang in there.

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Chip Rowe, Playboy USA Magazine, March 2008, p.100.

Secret of Success

A young man asked Socrates the secret of Success. Socrates told the young man to meet him near the river the next morning. They met.

Socrates asked the young man to walk with him towards the river.

When the water got up to their neck, Socrates took the young man by surprise and ducked him into the water. The man struggled to get out but Socrates was strong and kept him there until he started turning blue.

The young man struggled hard and finally managed to get out and the first thing he did was to gasp and take deep breath. Socrates asked ‘What you wanted the most when you were there?’ The man replied ‘Air’.

Socrates said ‘that’s the most secret to success. When you want success as badly as you wanted air, you will get it. There is no other secret’.

The Difference between FOCUSING on PROBLEMS and FOCUSING on SOLUTIONS

Case # 1 : When NASA began the launch of astronauts into space, they found out that the pens would not work at zero gravity (ink will not flow down to the writing surface).

Solution # 1 : To solve this problem, it took them one decade and $12 million. They developed a pen that worked at zero gravity, upside down, underwater, in practically any surface including crystal and in a temperature range from below freezing to over 300 degrees C.

Solution # 2 : And what did the Russians do…?? They used a pencil.

Case # 2 : One of the most memorable case studies on Japanese management was the case of the empty soapbox, which happened in one of Japan ‘s biggest cosmetics companies. The company received a complaint that a consumer had bought a soapbox that was empty.

Immediately the authorities isolated the problem to the assembly Line, which transported all the packaged boxes of soap to the delivery department. For some reason, one soapbox went through the assembly line empty.

Management asked its engineers to solve the problem.

Solution # 1 : Post-haste, the engineers worked hard to devise an X-ray machine with high-resolution monitors manned by two people to watch all the soapboxes that passed through the line to make sure they were not empty. No doubt, they worked hard and they worked fast but they spent a whoopee amount to do so.

Solution # 2 : But when a rank-and-file employee in a small company was posed with the same problem, he did not get into complications of X-rays, etc., but instead came out with another solution.

He bought a strong industrial electric fan and pointed it at the assembly line. He switched the fan on, and as each soapbox passed the fan, it simply blew the empty boxes out of the line.

Moral
· Always look for simple solutions.
· Devise the simplest possible solution that solves the problems.
· Always focus on solutions & not on problems

Religion between Discrimination and Tolerance

In a state of tolerance in America, an atheist created a case against the upcoming Easter and Passover holy days. He hired an attorney to bring a discrimination case Against Christians, Jews and observances of their holy days. The argument was that it was unfair that atheists had no such recognized days. The case was brought before a judge. After listening to the passionate presentation by the lawyer, the judge banged his gavel declaring,”Case dismissed!”

The lawyer immediately stood objecting to the ruling saying, “Your honor, how can you possibly dismiss this case? The Christians have Christmas, Easter and others. The Jews have Passover, Yom Kippur and Hanukkah, yet my client and all other atheists have no such holidays.” The judge leaned forward in his chair saying, “But you do. Your client, counsel, is woefully ignorant.” The lawyer said, “Your Honor, we are unaware of any special observance or holiday for atheists.”

The judge said, “The calendar says April 1st is April Fools Day. Psalm 14:1 states, ‘The fool says in his heart, there is no God.’ Thus, it is the opinion of this court, that if your client says there is no God, then he is a fool. Therefore, April 1st is his day. Court is adjourned.