MATT RIDLEY ON BIRD ADULTERY IN THE NORDIC FOREST

Excerpt from page 223 of Matt Ridley's book THE RED QUEEN

..." Nordic forests seem to be full of deceitful adulterers... some male pied flycatchers in the forest of Scandinavia manage to be polygamous by holding two territories, each with a female in it... Two teams of researchers have studied the birds and come to different conclusions about what is going on. The Finns and the Swedes say that the mistress is deceived into believing the male is unmarried. The Norwegians say that since the wife sometimes visits the mistress's nest and may try to drive her away; the mistress can be under no illusions. She accepts the fact that her mate may desert her for his wife but hopes that if things go wrong at the wife's next - they often do - he will come back to help her raise her young. He gets away with it only when the two territories are so far apart that the wife cannot visit the mistress's territory often enough to persecute her. In other words, according to the Norwegians, men deceive their wives about their affairs, but not their mistresses.

BOOK EXCERPT : THE RED QUEEN by MATT RIDLEY ABOUT FEMALE BIRDS AND ADULTERY

C 1993 Matt Ridley's book "The Red Queen" is published by HarperCollins

page 223-224

  "What's in it for the birds? ... Adulterers father more young. But it is not at all clear why the female is so often unfaithful... A female swallow needs a husband who will help her look after her young, but by the time she arrives at the breeding site, she might find all the best husbands taken. Her best tactic is therefore to mate with a mediocre husband or a husband with a good territory and have an affair with a genetically superior neighbor. This theory is supported by the facts: Females always choose more dominant, older, or more "attractive" (that is ornamented) lovers than their husbands; they do not have affairs with bachelors (presumably rejects) but with other females husbands; and they sometimes incite competition between potential lovers and choose the winners. Male swallows with artificially lengthened tails acquired a mate ten days sooner, were eight times as likely to have a second brood, and had twice as high a chance of seducing a neighbor's wife as ordinary swallows..."

 

MATT RIDLEY : THE RED QUEEN : ON BLOND HAIR

page 294 of Matt Ridley's book THE RED QUEEN

... That blond hair on a woman has been considered by Europeans more beautiful than brown or black has long been noted. In ancient Rome women dyed their hair blond. In medieval Italy fair hair and great beauty were inseparable. In Britain the words fair and beautiful were synonymous. ... Blond hair in children is a fairly common gene among Europeans ... So when a mutation arose in the not so distant past ...for that blondness to last into adulthood but not beyond the early twenties, any men with a genetic preference for blond women would have found themselves marrying only young women... They therefore would have left more descendants and a preference for blond hair would have spread...  Hence, gentlemen prefer blondes.

MATT RIDLEY on CUCKHOLDRY

page 235-236 from Matt Ridley's book THE RED QUEEN

"Cuckoldry paranoia is deep seated in men. The use of veils, chaperones, purdah, female circumcision, and chastity belts all bear witness to a widespread male fear of being cuckolded and a widespread suspicion that wives, as well as their potential lovers, are the ones to distrust...

Both researchers Argo Wilson and Martin Daly of McMaster University in Canada think both love and jealousy are a sexual proprietary claim... Psychologists have found that couples who lack moments of jealousy are less likely to stay together than jealous ones.

ONLINE WALL STREET JOURNAL ARTICLE MATT RIDLEY : WHY SEX? TO KEEP THE PARASITES AT BAY