A recent study suggests that fatherhood is associated with a fall in testosterone levels. Reflecting on the diverse influences of the five children we love dearly on our lives as a couple, my wife said ruefully in response: Maybe the kids siphon it out of you!
There are, however, more biologically plausible cases to make.
As ever with biology, the forces in play are all about survival. Leaving aside the constraints of culture and considering just the biological influences, a new father with high levels of testosterone might be more inclined to wander off the domestic reservation than one with lower levels. A father whose testosterone levels fell at the birth of a child might face lesser temptations to wander off and be more inclined to stick around and defend hearth and home.
If the tendency to wander put the survival of offspring at risk, natural selection would fight against it. Fathers whose testosterone levels fell with the birth of a child would wind up with more surviving children, who in turn would receive -- and pass along -- the very genes that produced the response that promoted survival.
For us organisms, biology is bedrock. There are greater depths of scientific truth, of course -- in chemistry and physics. But understanding these don't help us live. The spin of our electrons matters, but it's hard to link it to our behavior.
The influence of brute biology in our lives and culture, in contrast, is on constant display -- never farther away than the nearest magazine, newspaper or television channel. The products that are sold to us, and the tales that are told to us, reek of biology.
Cologne and perfume reek of biology, tapping into responses of our nervous systems to scents. The true origins of such responses reside in moieties like pheromones, which help one nervous system identify another, with which it might make beautiful music. Or, at least, offspring.
Much of the biological action, of course, is about making babies, because that is biology's best shot at immortality. Make babies who make babies, and successful genes can go on forever. The action that isn't about making babies is all about survival, in the service of staying alive to...well, make babies. And around we go.
Biology is often the cornerstone of bad behavior. The pattern is well-established: Powerful, successful men (often with attractive, intelligent, successful wives) find themselves caught up in high-profile sex scandals. We somehow always manage to seem a bit surprised, as well as appalled, although I suspect our surprise is more feigned than real. And of course, for every high-profile peccadillo of this sort, there are countless others too mundane to tempt the paparazzi.
There are many variations on the theme of infidelity, but let's focus on the one that prevails: Middle-age (or older) guy with middle-age wife cheats with younger woman.
The scenario was beautifully castigated by Diane Lane's character, Sarah, in the movie "Must Love Dogs":
"All that matters to you guys is the tushies are tight and the bellies are flat ... "
This seems a rather damning indictment. Is it true that guys don't care about intelligence, compatibility or anything else of profound significance -- but care only about the tone of tummy and tush?
No, honestly, it's not true that guys feel that way. But it probably is true that guy biology feels exactly that way, without even the good grace to be ashamed.
Biology is not about personal priorities, or cultural priorities, or ethical priorities. It's about the imperatives of survival and procreation. It is designed for a natural world and is often anachronistic in the modern world. Examples related to obesity and chronic disease abound. We love sugar, salt and dietary fat because in a "natural" world, all are scarce, and more of each would tend to foster survival. The connection those now share to chronic disease is a New-Age contrivance.
From a strictly biological perspective, young women of just the right shape and proportions are apt to be most helpful in the unthinking enterprise of passing genes forward to the next generation.
But there's some irony in this. The men caught up in high (or low) profile infidelities are generally, absolutely not interested in making babies! Making babies takes them from the frying pan to the fire. It's the last thing they want.
So it is ironic that the true origins of the biological impulse they are indulging reside in what they don't want -- and yet they harbor the fantasy that they are using their power, prestige and leverage to get what they do want. They cultivate the fantasy that they are in charge.
But brute biology is driving this train.
Why bother to call all of this out?
Peter Parker's Uncle Ben, in the "Spider Man" movies, famously gave us: "With great power comes great responsibility." Logic dictates what must follow: the less power, the less responsibility. But we don't want an "I'm not responsible" defense in the service of chronic disease, domestic violence or life-shattering promiscuity.
We generally contend that knowledge is power. Ignorance, then, is surely weakness. If we don't understand why bad behaviors occur, they will recur. Those who do not learn from the follies of history are destined to repeat them.
If we mistake the impulses of brute biology for our own decisions and priorities, we are likely to act on them. If we understand them for what they are, we have a far greater capacity to say: "I hear you, but you can forget about it! I'm in charge here." If we pause to analyze the enemy force of brute biology, we have our one, best hope of disarming it. Whether that relates to food choice, physical aggression or sexual discretion.
We should long since have met the enemy that imposes so much modern misery and acknowledged it is us -- our own primitive selves. It is the job of our modern selves to know this, and by knowing, exert power over it. DNA is amazing stuff, but we should not be ceding control of our personal destinies to it.
Dr. David L. Katz; www.davidkatzmd.com
www.turnthetidefoundation.org
Follow David Katz, M.D. on Twitter: www.twitter.com/DrDavidKatz
Myles Spar, M.D.: Testosterone: Friend Or Foe?
Deepak Chopra: You Are Not Your Brain: Interview With Alva Noe, Ph.D.
Daylle Deanna Schwartz: Why We Tolerate Jerks
Tom Matlack: What the Heck is a "Good" Man Anyhow?
Can We Blame Our Bad Behavior on Stone-Age Genes? - The Daily ...
Children Sap Their Fathers' Testosterone Levels, Northwestern ...
New Fathers' Testosterone Levels Drop After Baby | NBC 4i
Medical Daily: Children Affect their Fathers' Testosterone Levels
Your article needs work - and more than that, it needs education outside the bubble of privilege that allows you to assume you speak for every human on earth, or even a majority.
As an aside, anyone who doesn't understand the biology of love or what role it plays in the continuation of the species - I have actually heard some petulant manchildren describing it as an emotional coccyx - has clearly never dealt with an 18-month-old having a 2-hour meltdown in the middle of the night every night for 3 weeks running and still had a living child they still wanted to feed at the end of it.
No, it doesn't.
It may suggest that while the emotional support of a father may be very helpful, it is hardly as biologically necessary as the transition from egg to zygote.
You need a father to get into the world. You don't really need a father to get through it. Biologically speaking. That's the whole point.
To jump from "not biologically necessary" to "irrelevant" is a bit rash.
For example, this article starts by postulating that testosterone drops in fathers of young children as a way to ensure that fathers will stick around and help protect and nurture the children.
However, biology makes men fertile up to almost their date of death. This would seem to imply that fatherhood in the emotional sense is irrelevant. The only thing the baby needs from the dad is the sperm. After that, he's free to drop dead.
Which is it? Does male senile fertility mean kids don't really need fathers? And if biology DOES want men to be family men, why does it torment them with constant longings to leave the marital nest?
Sounds like you're trying to explain away this latest study so you can satisfy your own sense of morality.
Divorce rates are at 50%, it's often discussed as a sign that morality and family is breaking down when it might be more of a sign that society is evolving. We no longer place stigma on divorced people and women are no longer dependent on a male for financial survival. Perhaps people are living more honestly; relationships change, especially sexual relationships, that's a fact based on research of the endocrine system which plays a role in sex and romance. Of course it's important to control biological urges with our will if we want to live in a civilized society but I don't see this issue as black and white, or bad and good. Staying in an empty and unsatisfying relationship because of appearances or financial need or simply because of a promise made seems like bad behavior to me, behavior that can hurt others.
Many people divorce after raising a child to adulthood, perhaps this should not be viewed as a failure.
Some tribal models are very interesting, relationships and family can be more fluid, children are often raised by many members of a tribe.
And part of it is the curse of the psychotically-uptight Puritans on American culture.
Perpetually shocked, grateful and yet--for some bizarre reason--horrified by the very act that brought them into the world.
Let biological man be. If he needs a vent, let him have it. Legalize prostitution. Red light districts, like Amsterdam.
It would save a lot of marriages. We'd have more emotionally stable and happy children.
Too radical for The New Corporatized America, I know.
Addicts generally have a less developed frontal cortex and so are less able to say "No" to the imperative created by the secretion of these chemicals.
Therefore the "lame defenses" (I am NOT justifying the behavior by the way, merely suggesting a physical, chemical basis for you to understand that sometimes when people say, "couldn't help it" they are actually telling the truth.) are often more than merely "lame defenses", but physiological realities.
Look it up.
Genuine human beings would find it a lot easier to behave a lot more humanely. Fidelity is only the tip of the iceberg. Genuine human beings wouldn’t be plagued by bigotry, racism, hatred, greed, territoriality, corruption, slavery, pollution, deception, theft, killing, hypocrisy, misogyny, genocide and wars. And I doubt that genuine human beings would sit back and allow children to starve to death.
Chimpanzees are clever, political animals who spend their days obsessing over safety, fear, power, peer-approval, attention, esteem, status, and sex.