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

Helen Fisher

3.89

1,766 ratings by Goodreads

9780788158216: Anatomy of Love: A Natural History of Monogamy, Adultery and Divorce

Softcover

ISBN 10: 078815821X ISBN 13: 9780788158216

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 1992

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Why do we fall in love? Romping through evolution, addressing a broad spectrum of species & a huge variety of cultures, Fisher casts her investigative net from the tundras of Siberia to the jungles of Amazonia in her examination of the physical & psychological phenomena of love. Enlightening & entertaining, lucid & learned, Anatomy of Love is a reminder that our Western culture is but the latest fascinating design on an ancient blueprint called the mating game. Fun & delightful to read, offering an abundance of fascinating facts new even to somebody well versed in the minutiae of animal behavior. Unravels this ancient saga of love, abandonment & renewed desire with a vulgar gusto that makes her scholarly investigation immensely readable.

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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.

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