Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What It Means for Modern Relationships

anatomically modern humans are estimated to have existed as long as 200,000 years.* With the earliest evidence of agriculture dating to about 8000 BCE, the amount of time our species has spent living in settled agricultural societies represents just 5 percent of our collective experience, at most. As recently as a few hundred years ago, most of the

The Spanish word esposas means both “wives” and “handcuffs.” In English, some men ruefully joke about the ball and chain. There’s good reason marriage is often depicted and mourned as the beginning of the end of a man’s sexual life. And women fare no better. Who wants to share her life with a man who feels trapped and diminished by his love for her

This appears to be the overall trajectory of history. While many are perplexed and disturbed by the “hooking up” culture, the sexting of racy images back and forth, full recognition of all legal rights for gay male and lesbian couples, and so on, there’s not much they can do to stop any of it for long. In terms of sexuality, history appears to be f

What isn’t debatable is that conventional marriage is a full-blown disaster for millions of men, women, and children right now.

“Be warned that if you wish, as I do, to build a society in which individuals cooperate generously and unselfishly towards a common good, you can expect little help from biological nature. Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish.”

One reason: most women’s sense of smell is significantly better than most men’s,

If you spend time with the primates closest to human beings, you’ll see female chimps having intercourse dozens of times per day, with most or all of the willing males, and rampant bonobo group sex that leaves everyone relaxed and maintains intricate social networks.

True, as far as it goes. But it doesn’t go very far, because Smith forgets that our ancestors were the original ramblin’ men (and women)—nomads who rarely stopped walking for more than a few days at a stretch.

So now what? Having written this whole book about sex, we’d like to confusingly suggest that most of us take sex way too seriously: when it’s just sex, that’s all it is. In such cases, it’s not love. Or sin. Or pathology. Or a good reason to destroy an otherwise happy family.