The Swiftest Gazelle

Evolution is normally slow. Our Neolithic ancestor who hauled the stones to make Stonehenge over 4500 years ago was genetically almost the same as modern man. The world, however, is now very different from the one in which he laboured.

Evolution is also paradoxically selfish. Although survival or reproduction of the fittest benefits the group to which it belongs, the individual's concern is for the individual's concern is for the individual. The best way to ensure the group's survival is to make sure each individual survives. When a gazelle runs away from a lion, it tries to outrun the lion, of course, but it also seeks to outrun other gazelles. The lion gets the sick, the weak and the slowest runners. The fittest gazelles survive and the group prospers, but this is small consolation to the gazelle that ends its life as the lion's dinner. The survival of the fittest and the genetic prosperity of the group are the result of everyone looking after their own interests. Humans sometimes work against survival of the fittest - we go back and rescue the sick and the weak who are threatened.

According to the laws of evolution, our main objectives as men and women is to ensure that our own genes are passed on. One primitive male strategy based on quantity - a million sperm per ejaculation means that men can father many children. To control his mates and keep them away from other males, he needs to dominate territory. The stronger the man, the better his pick of the women. A female strategy is based on quality - to care well for the relatively few children she can have. In order to provide shelter for her children, the female needed the male around. She evolved a sense of relationship that the male had less evolutionary pressure to match.

So, on a purely genetic level, the male needs territory, possession, the certainty of fatherhood and the knowledge that his children will be well cared for. The female needs strong survival genes for the children, shelter and protection. These drives are still alive and well in us. They still influence whom who choose to mate with and we need to acknowledge them, while realizing they are not the whole story.