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It’s in the genes
If you think love is about mystery and romance, think again. Evolution and simple biology have the answers, say scientists.
By Leyla Swan
Despite the unlikely love match that was Liza Minnelli and David Gest, I have to admit that I felt sad and disappointed at the news of their break-up. I guess I wanted to believe that, against all evidence to the contrary, their love was more real and enduring than hair dye and a dose of botox.

What went wrong, I wondered. Searching for an answer, I stumbled across the Biorational Institute, an organization dedicated to “fostering personal fulfilment and social progress through understanding the evolutionary roots of human nature”. Science, it seems, has an answer for everything, even the mystery of love.

What’s in a theory
Indeed, entering the website’s comprehensive section on the biology of love (http://www.biorationalinstitute.com/shownews.php? category=love), I found a plethora of articles on scientific research into everything from the soothing effect of men’s sweat on women, to the correct way to kiss (apparently, you should tilt your head to the right).
Assuming they got the kissing part down pat, perhaps David and Liza were just too much alike. After all, according to scientists in the United States, the old adage that opposites attract is not worth the paper on which the Gests’ marriage certificate was written.

Two of a kind
Instead, the team at Cornell University in New York found that people tend to choose partners similar to themselves - or at least partners they think are similar - both in looks and attitude, and with whom they are most likely to hold down a stable relationship.
The findings were based on questionnaires filled out by 978 college-aged men and women. First, respondents rated the importance of four groups of attributes in a long-term partner: wealth and status; family commitment; physical appearance; and sexual fidelity. Then the respondents were asked to rate themselves with regard to those same attributes.

The results showed that if people rated a particular attribute as important in a partner, they were likely to give themselves a high rating for the same attribute, confirming previous research suggesting that like-minded people are more likely to have a successful marriage than more disparate individuals.

“If our findings are confirmed by future work, then this study will have major implications for marriage counsellors and the public at large,” write researchers Peter Buston and Stephen Emlen in the journal, ‘Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences’.

Birds of a feather
“Our results suggest that individuals seeking stable long-term relationships should not seek the highest quality partner available but should simply look for partners who are similar to themselves.”

However, their advice comes with a major qualification. It seems that those who rate themselves lowly will probably choose someone with an equally poor sense of self-worth - a recipe for disaster.

“Individuals who had a high self-perception of themselves were more discriminating in their mate preferences than were individuals with lower self-perception scores,” write the researchers. “The implication of this result is that in an open marriage market, individuals of low self-perception will find it hard to find and keep a satisfactory partner.”
So perhaps the real cause of the Gest-Minnelli separation was not that they were too different, but that they were too alike.

Green-eyed monster
Then again, maybe David Gest was a jealous husband. It seems that many men are, and that there may be little the poor dears can do about it. Psychologists have long debated whether jealousy is an evolutionary trait or a cultural one learnt as we grow up. Some argue that jealousy must have a biological imperative because men are mostly jealous about sex, while women become green-eyed about emotional attachments with other women. As men can never be absolutely certain that a child is really theirs, they become jealous if their partners betray them with another man.

Best mate
On the other hand, say psychologists who support this evolutionary theory, jealousy in women is due to the substantial investment they make in time and energy in producing a child. They simply don’t want to waste their time if their partner is going to fall in love with someone else.

Working on cross-cultural research at the University of Sunderland in the United Kingdom, Gary Brase believes he has uncovered evidence that supports this evolutionary theory.

While studying jealousy in many countries, Brase found that each nation shared the expected differences between male and female jealousy. But when he scrutinized his research a little more closely, he noticed that the fertility rate of each country seemed to make a big difference to the levels of male jealousy.

Countries with high fertility rates, like Brazil, had men who were very jealous about their partners having sex with others. Men in countries with a lower overall fertility rate, such as Japan, were less bothered.

According to Brase, this link between jealousy and fertility rates supports the evolutionary view of the origin of jealous behaviour.

The colour of love
Perhaps the problem in the house of Gest was more cosmetic. If British researchers at Stirling University are to be believed, women look for a man with a healthy, rosy complexion because it signals high levels of testosterone and a hale and hearty immune system.

Corri Waitt and her team in the university’s department of psychology used a computer to manipulate images of 24 wild, adult male rhesus macaque monkeys. They tested pale and red versions of the faces on six captive female macaques and measured their response. The females spent much longer looking at the red faces and used gestures such as lip-smacking to express their interest.

“Non-human primates have the brightest colouration among mammals in the animal kingdom,” says Waitt. “Nobody really knows why - but it could play a role in competition with other males or female mate choice. We have found that the females do seem to be interested in the bright colouration.”

As long ago as 1876, Charles Darwin speculated that female primates are attracted by male colouration. But this is the first experimental evidence to support the theory.

Fading lights
It raises the possibility that a rosy glow may also be an important facial cue for humans, says Craig Roberts, a biologist at the University of Newcastle. “The trick for the female is to pick the male with good quality genes,” he says. “The difficulty is in what physical trait displays that underlying genetic quality.

“It seems that red colouration - which is difficult to maintain in poor health - gives an honest reflection of the male’s underlying genes and health.” Sadly, whatever the real reason for the Gest-Minnelli bust-up, the rosy glow has well and truly deserted them both. (c) Asia Features

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