Beaut>- was a sign of health and reproductive capability; thus, a beautiful woman historically had wide hips (for childbearing), body symmetry (indicating no deformities), hair and teeth that weren’t falling out (indicat­ing health). And she was young — at the beginning of her fertile years. Society needed to reinforce men’s biological dependency on female beauty […]

The woman is life, and the man is the servant of life. . . Joseph Campbell, explaining why tvomen are in the center of a tribal dance, why they control the dance, and why men dance around the women.36 Beauty power: the biblical story of Rachel and Jacob[1] Jacob lived with his uncle Laban. Uncle […]

When King Aegeus of Athens was about to become a father, he said he did not want to see his son until Theseus was stronger than all others.34 Why? King Aegeus feared that a pampered prince could not protea his people. So Aegeus deprived himself of seeing Theseus until Theseus could lift а massive boulder […]

Self-esteem and masculinity In Sparta, boys were moved into barracks at the age of seven.31 They would be forced to play “games" like "steal the cheese from the altar.” To get the cheese, they had to run through a gauntlet and endure flogging so fierce that some died shortly afterward from concussions and blood gushing […]

It is often said that women are a civilizing balance to the innately warlike male. By taking care of the killing for women it could be said that men civilized women. When survival was the issue, men killing to protea what women bore was the male form of nurturance.30 It was men’s contribution to the […]

I low long does it take a firmly embedded male killer mentality to change? The Vikings (the head-through-groin choppers) are coasidered as ruthless as any. But after the Vikings conquered England, Englishwomen found the men who killed with axes attractive, soon wedding bells were ringing. Within two generations, instead of razing villages, they were raising […]

Empires are often considered the quintessential example of men’s desire for power and conquest. It is ironic that we blame men for creating empires while we all live in the empires men create. But why did men create empires? Empires were to countries what insurance policies are to individuals: a source of security. For example, […]

Throughout history, women in power have used a rationale similar to men’s to send men to death with similar frequency and in similar numbers. For example, the drink Bloody Mary was named after Mary Tudor (Queen Mary I), who burned 300 Protestants at the stake, when Henry VUI’s daughter, Elizabeth I, ascended to the throne, […]

Some historians are now suggesting that matriarchal societies were super­ior because men and women worked more in partnership and that the society tended to be more peaceful.28 But that missed the point, the reason partnership models were developed in societies like Tahiti was not because the societies were patriarchal or matriarchal, but because they were […]

Are men inherently violent? Men often become wom-iolent in societies that (1) have adequate amounts of food, (2) have adequate amounts of water, and (3) perceive themselves as isolated from attack. For example, the Tahitian men, the Minoan men on Crete, and the Central Malaysian Semai were nonviolent during the period in their history- when […]