Anatomy of Love: A Natural History of Adultery, Monogamy and Divorce - Hardcover

Fisher, Helen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0671711644 ISBN 13: 9780671711641

Publisher: Simon & Schuster (Trade Division), 1993

Synopsis

This book traces the origins of courtship, marriage, adultery, divorce and remarriage back 4,000,000 years to the grasslands of Africa, examining those traits and tendencies of love that we inherit from our past. The author examines flirting and courting, explains "love at first sight" and why we fall in love with one person rather than another. She explores the brain chemistry of attraction and attachment and, looking at divorce and adultery in societies around the world, proposes a new theory of the "four-year itch", which explains when and why most marriages are most likely to end.

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

In this engrossing, entertaining book, Fisher, a research associate at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, draws on anthropology and biology to answer eternal questions about love and sex, men and women. Breezy but serious, she cites everything from chimpanzee polities to the !Kung people of the Kalahari Desert to provide details on courting styles, multiple orgasms and homosexuality. Fisher (The Sex Contract) allows that she's not politically correct, and some may be troubled by her assertions that adultery occurs in nearly every culture and that male attraction to beauty and female attraction to money are probably innate. She offers her own theory on challenges to marriage in traditional societies: the proverbial seven-year itch may be better seen as a four-year cycle allowing relationships to endure at least long enough to raise a child through infancy. Surveying reasons (such as the introduction of the plow) for the growth of the sexual double standard in Western society, Esher concludes that increased equality between men and women will restore older traditions of love and marriage. BOMC and QPB alternates; author tour.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (Trade Division)
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0671711644
• ISBN 13: 9780671711641
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 320