Unsurprisingly, this list of priorities does not follow the same order for women as for men. I suppose this is why another study found that heterosexual men appear to benefit more from marriage, in terms of overall well-being, than heterosexual women, who seem to be better off single.

This is what I've been noticing more and more as I grow older and gain more experience of life, but also now that women have more freedom, can divorce without being ostracized, etc., it's easier to compare their happiness levels inside and outside of marriage.

My (tentative) conclusions, coupled with what I know of biology, religion, and anthropology, are that monogamy is primarily a male invention, probably meant to make certain the male has a child: in a free-for-all polygamous society, all women would know whether they had a child, but no man could ever be sure.

The vast majority of separations I see around me are initiated by women, and women tend to get well real fast, whereas men are miserable, sometimes for years. Women also seem to enjoy the single life, whereas men appear to lead the bachelor life more like a kind of social pressure rather than actual enjoyment.

And if you look at religions the picture becomes even clearer: it's men imposing monogamy on women. You could even argue that when women embrace monogamy, it's just the successful brainwashing on the part of men, who also invented all the art and music and novels that talk about love, always written by men!

Anyway I'm stating all that in a rather sketchy manner and without any support or argument. But I was thinking what kind of series to start doing after I'm done with my biology series, and I'm thinking to tackle sex differences, cognitive, emotional, etc. I'll be learning and posting at the same time, since my knowledge of the topic isn't deep, and I think it's something that objectively interests everyone: who doesn't like to talk about men vs women!

I veered off topic there, but great post! It's nice how you ground the theoretical in the personal by using George's case study. And I think your posts are getting better. Like you say "the more one practices, the better one becomes good at it"!

Forgiveness

Just today I saw this on my fb feed:

😄