Is Cheating Natural?

Prelude-If you’re old enough to remember the TV show "Land of the Lost," there is a good chance that you have cheated on someone, or someone has cheated on you. I wrote this piece a while back after realizing how many people were being affected by cheating. I personally believe that cheating is selfish, but I wanted to take a deeper look at it. Check out my formula and tell me what you think.-a.r.

Finding out that your partner has cheated is probably the worst thing that can happen in a relationship. It can create a tug of emotion that can cause a sane person to turn into a schizoid in a matter of seconds. The pain can essentially lead to reckless reactions and cause a person to feel hate towards the opposite sex. But before you judge the unforgivable misdeed of cheating, you might want to understand why it really occurs.
First of all, you need to understand the history of monogamy and why it has become the ideal in relationships. Monogamy is basically an Anglo-Saxon concept that originated over 10,000 years ago. But while the concept seems to favor women, it was actually used to sedate a woman’s desire to have relationships with more than one man. Women were sometimes coerced, via the chastity belt, to remain sexually committed to one man. This insured her husband that he was the father of any child that she would bare. On the other hand, monogamy did not confirm the sexual fidelity of a man. It did secure the emotional investment of a father to his offspring, however.
The innate reasons why humans cheat may boil down to the spreading and gathering of genes. According to new findings from evolutionary psychologists, cheating is almost as natural as breathing. Men posses an almost unlimited potential rate to reproduce. So those who cheat may unconsciously do so to insure that their genes are spread to future offspring. Women, however, can only reproduce once a year. As a result, a woman’s reason for cheating may differ. A woman may unconsciously cheat to ensure that her offspring carries the genes of a prototypical male. Curiosities, lack of satisfaction, and revenge are other underlying factors that may play a part in infidelity.
Although there is a natural urge for humans to seek affection outside of their relationships, social standards may cause individuals to think twice or feel regret when they cheat. Also, with the potential spread of disease, the issue of health may play
a role in a person’s decision to remain fateful. We all have the ability to restrain from lustful desires. This allows us to make moral decisions that can be beneficial to our future, and the future of individuals who we choose to be involved with. However, our ability to think rational does not always translate into rational decisions. Therefore, our desires to have more than one mate are, at the core, naturally human.