Love and Marriage

Dawkins’ Chapter nine deals with “romantic” relationships in a rather unromantic way. First of he says that there is of course competition between a mother and father because they don’t share genes, but their children who have half of each their DNA make them cooperate. However the smartest thing for both of them to do is to try to weasel their way into doing the least amount of work possible and then if possible having other sexual partners in order to try to propagate their genes. Sexual partners therefore have relationships of mutual mistrust and exploitation. It also redefines the difference between sexes, defining it simply by the difference in size between their sex cells. It also debates whether in our society males compete for females or vice versa which seems to be the case.

Lunch:
Sarah: So I’m getting married! I’m so excited. I bet our kids will be lovely.

Jane: Why would you want to get married? All sexual partners have a relationship of exploitation and mistrust. He’ll cheat on you, and saddle you with the kids.

S: What? How can you be so cynical! We’re in love and our children will be raised by both of us.

J: You forget that you’re only having children to pass on your genes. It’s better to try to have as many kids as possible with as many partners as possible to ensure your genes survival. Besides, you need to make sure that your genes survive so it’s likely you’ll favor one over another.

S: You’re totally forgetting human nature! We’re not like animals, we love each other and we’ll love our children equally.

J: People are just survival machines, and it’s in your best interest, and theirs to love them unequally. Face it we’re just machines our genes have developed to ensure our survival.

S: You know I think there may be a reason you can’t get a date…

J: The reason is that the world is full of idiots who can’t comprehend Darwin! We don’t do anything for the survival of the species, but for the survival of our genes. Natural selection happens logical because the substandard are weeded out and we continue to evolve.

S. Ok, I think I’ll do you a favor and introduce you to my cousin Russell at the wedding.

J: See, that’s another thing! People do all these things thinking they’re being altruistic but they’re really not. Everything we do is selfish, it just seems altruistic sometimes. Like all those people talking about how some “hero” died in a fire saving ten people! Well, duh. It’s obviously best to lose one copy of a set of genes if the reward is to keep ten.

S: Honey, you need to get out more.

Waiter: Check?