Sir Eric’s clear and worthy questions at 2127 inspire this post.
Two conquerors face off. He seeks conquest; she seeks marriage. The female nature is willing to change to conquer. But the male nature resists, resents, and even retaliates against changing to please anyone else and especially a woman. (We observe it in toddlers.)
Bonding arises out of the male nature only when tied to something of significant interest. A prospective conquest is of prime significance. Males thus face an internal conflict. To conquer they have to change to please a woman if she won’t easily part with her favors.
Women love and partially bond before conquest, and sex finalizes the process for them. Bonding is not necessary for conquest but mutual bonding is for marriage. Thus, another conflict. Lifetime obligations don’t emerge unless the man changes sufficiently well that mutual bonding occurs.
A man will change provided he has the proper incentive. His self-interest to conquer makes him willing to pay that price. He will change over time to conquer a resisting woman. He will teach himself to please her in order to please himself and vice versa. It starts as desire to conquer but morphs away from sex to her when her fascination and promise for his future outshine his desire to conquer. His pleasing actions become new habits over time and reprogram his heart into believing she’s worth it.
All done in hope of convincing her into bed sooner rather than later. His conquering motivations provide the glue, his actions clamp two self-interests together in mutual bond. Thus, it appears that he changes to please a woman but he doesn’t. He changes to please himself, to facilitate conquering her. Both are beneficiaries of the process that works in two steps when women hold out for marriage.
1) Frustration being the father of invention, men denied first sex together find words of commitment. Further denials of sex bring out greater effort including his conscience to honor his words and thus deepen his commitment. Such commitment, however, doesn’t hold nearly as much adhesive as does the second part of the bonding process which happens over more time.
2) Devotion emerges out of his continued actions that please him for pleasing her, and those actions program his heart with emotions that bond. (The deeper his devotion becomes, however, the more it shifts her toward the alpha role in marriage, which invites her to do wrong things and thus makes it easier for her to screw up their marriage).
Thus, if change is a trap, he’s self-seduced by desire to conquer. By withholding sex, a woman provides the incentive that drives him to change and become capable of bonding well with her.
When her actions work contrary to his intentions, his frustration for first sex turns into the pursuit of sex only and less interest in her. Consequently, her job is to keep him in pursuit, which calls primarily for no sexual relations. Remove that incentive and a man’s bonding is far less likely to solidify into permanent obligation.
I realize the real world doesn’t work like that today. But, I describe the nature of men and women that closes the gap between her natural inheritance to be compatible with a mate and his natural resistance to mate up permanently with only one.