further thoughts along that line.”
“All right,” Jen said. “As a lay person, I’ll just start by observing that at the center of survival of any form of life is its reproduction. For a wide range of species, from simple to complex, this means some kind of union, of coming together of female and male, that generally has evolved in a rhythm of ovulation and fertilization. And that’s where hormones come in. Such a rhythm, as we move up the scale of complexity, is prompted and controlled by hormones, the chemical substances that reproductive glands secrete.
“I have no expertise to carry that analysis further, and likely don’t need to. What I find relevant, as we’re talking about romantic love, is that the union of female and male, necessary for procreation, opens up a whole panorama of fascinating behaviors.”
“It really does!” That was Beth, breaking in delightedly. “I love the way you put that, about ‘fascinating behaviors.’ All kinds of animals have their rituals of courtship that sometimes appear outlandish, even comical.”
“We humans can be comical enough ourselves, what we will do to attract the other sex,” Luc commented dryly.
“Yes, but let’s not get personal,” Ian said, with an exaggerated gesture.
We all laughed, aware of the pair of lovers among us. Then Jen took up her theme again.
“Each one of us has, or has had, experience with this almost universal impulse. Eros, the Greeks called it, and spun charming, or sometimes frightening, myths of a powerful deity who could also be perverse, like an impulsive child.”
I found that inviting. “Right,” I said. “With the resurgence of Greek mythology in the European Renaissance, Eros becomes the Cupid figure, with his bow and arrows. He may be chubby in some artistic renderings, a cute and appealing child, but he is dangerous. He can choose arbitrarily the targets of his arrows, but the choice is fateful. If Cupid’s arrow hit you, you were in love, no matter what.”
“All are fairy stories, whether charming or frightening,” Ian said. “There could be magic potions, too. A sip of this, and with the next person of the other sex whom you happen to see, you will fall madly in love. There’s a strand of truth, of real-life experience, that runs through such imaginative folklore.”
“What was it, Ian?” Beth demanded, with pretended anger. “What had you been drinking when you told me that you loved me?”
“Don’t worry,” he countered, “there are no magic potions in our world any more. The truth of the folklore is just that we don’t, and we can’t, calculate love. I know, you hear this or that married man say, ‘When I first saw her it was love at first sight’—even ‘I knew that was the person I was going to marry.’ Women say that, too. But I’d say that it’s not a matter of deliberate, rational selection. You may select a person of the other sex as being wonderfully desirable, but you can’t make yourself fall deeply in love with that person nor, much less, can you make that person fall in love with you.”
“So, what is it, then,” Jen asked, “that is operating here? We get back to the sexual impulse. In many forms of life, and taking many patterns, that impulse essentially involves aggressive pursuit by the male and, by the female, passive receptivity. And the behavior moves in cycles. Particularly among the more complex animal species, there is a rhythm established by the sex glands, times when the female is ‘in heat’ and receptive, and when the male, consequently, is more aggressive than usual, and more competitive with other males. Hunters and, in general, people of the woods know about these things—when is the ‘rutting’ season for this or that animal.”
I offered a comment. “It seems very interesting to me that of the more advanced species on this planet, we are one of a very few, if I have this right, who don’t observe a rutting, or mating, season. With homo sapiens it’s common for males to be perpetually taking notice of females and be perpetually susceptible to sexual arousal.”
Jen went on: “What we’re talking about, Eros, carnal love, is as old as the evolutionary beginnings of our species and, at the same time, one of the most basic and important drives in our most sophisticated modern societies. Looking back, we can see that the competition, particularly among males, for a chance at procreation has served a basic evolutionary purpose.”
As Jen paused, Luc spoke up.
“Right,” he said, “Here are some stags in the forest in the rutting season. You see them fighting, butting each other, locking their antlers. Some may be hurt, even killed. Why? It’s the season for mating, and the contest is to see which stag can drive the others away and claim the opportunity to mate with the does that are in heat.
“The result? Their fawns will have his genes, genes of the ablest stag. Stretch that across a hundred, a thousand generations, and you begin to see evolution in action, evolving a viable species.”
“I like that,” Ian said. “And translated into modern society, it means a constant competition and push toward the top. Hormones no doubt are part of the mix; but I’d say that they appear to blend in with much else that human nature and human social traditions add to it.”
“That opens up quite a field for thought,” I offered, “and perhaps, for the men here, a chance to shift away from the theme of the aggressive, promiscuous male.”
“Sure,” Jen responded, getting to her feet. “Let’s make it a chance for a cup of coffee, or what else that I can offer you.”
Beth and Ian followed her toward the kitchen, and soon we were relaxing, enjoying a choice of beverages and of crumpets and the like, set out on the dining room table.
When we had drifted back to the living room and resumed our comfortable chairs, Jen took the lead again.
“I’d like to move now to a different aspect of love. It’s part of the physical, certainly, but among us homo sapiens, it has a spiritual aspect as well. I mean, choosing a mate. Beth and Ian have done that. You represent our primary resource, and I find this a promising subject to explore.”
I spoke up then. “As I left home today to come over here—well, ‘home’ being the snug apartment that I’m renting—there was a honking and, when I looked up, a V of Canada geese going over. I’ve heard how these birds often mate for life. I put that into a haiku once, in a happier time. It was on a fall evening, after rain and almost dark, when this pair of geese passed overhead, low, but in silence.”
Beth prompted, “And the haiku?”
So, I spoke it:
“Gray shadows, silent,
beating damp air, these two geese
pass, faithful, my love.”
“Beautiful,” Jen said. “Thank you, Don. Our inquiry brings us unexpected rewards. About choosing a mate, including a mate for life, one might say that the purpose of coupling is procreation. Each species brings its progeny into the world. After that, it’s a question of survival, and the parts taken by the male and female mates for the survival of offspring are interesting to observe.”
“So, how about an example?” Luc said.
Jen obliged: “All right, consider a clutch of eggs left by a sea turtle, where she has lumbered up a tropical beach and scooped a hollow in the sand. She leaves them there and returns that same night to the sea. It’s the sun’s warmth that incubates those eggs, and when the
