Bonding - what gives?

One of the biggest bugbears of the Manosphere is that modern women don't bond to men very well. Specifically, they don't bond well to their husbands.

I am interested in this subject.
Let's just say I am back to my curious self :-)

What's the story here? Can someone help me flesh out the salient points of bonding?
Can we debunk some of the false myths of bonding? Just for a laugh?

Why is there a complaint against women that we don't bond so well these days?
Is is a straightforward 'oxytocin overload' as a result of too much promiscuity?
That seems almost too simple to be true.

Let me explain.

Even promiscuous women feel strong bonds to their objects of affection. Um, so I hear :-)
So I don't think the problem there is with bonding per se.

But for sure, there is a problem. I concede that.

What, however is the problem?

I suppose the first question to ask is, is bonding necessary for long-term relationships or marriage?

It might seem like a stupid question to some, but I feel it is a necessary question, given the situation we find ourselves in. To get to the root of the problem, sometimes we really have to start at 'square one'.

I ask this question because the implication is that there has to be some sort of bond before marriage. And when this is missing, the marriage is doomed. This is the picture I get when I read this story:

I think Beverley Craven is an exceptionally beautiful woman. And what beautiful girls she has too! Her husband could not have been bad looking :-)
It is such a shame that her marriage has broken down.

But the reason Ms. Craven gives for her marital woes is that 'love' was missing before marriage. In this sense, she needed 'love' to bond her to her husband, and its absence made it impossible to stay with him.

Is this for real??

I don't understand. She had three children with a man she did not love?

How is that possible? Am I being naive again?


And what about the many marriages where an old parent or relative simply arranged the logistics and a man and a woman who had never met each other before found themselves married to each other. And they usually made it to 'till death do us part'.

See...I think that bonding is a dynamic process. No-one is truly bonded on day one. It slowly develops over time. In many ways, it is a retrospective diagnosis, no?

If dead people could talk, the morgue would be full of men and women declaring: 'Ah, that nag of a woman, I suppose she was my life's partner afterall', or 'that chauvinist pig I had to cook and clean for all those years, he wasn't so bad afterall...'


But...again I concede. If after sixteen years of marriage, or whatever the arbitrary time period is, if a woman feels that 'the bond' hasn't arrived yet, who am I to argue with her?

It is said that men bond better than women. I don't know what to make of this so-called 'truism' yet, but I am still 'analysing' this :-)

What is true, (to me) is that most men are certainly more respecting of a marriage bond than most women, especially modern women.

Inhererently, I have an issue with the 'truism' above because logically, it would seem more plausible that the sex with the more potent consequence of the hormone oxytocin, i.e. women, would be the one to 'bond' more.

But where things break down in my thought process is this: can one bond to many people?

A promiscuous man is not likely to bond to anyone. And certainly, the current wisdom is that neither can a promiscuous woman.
But what is confusing for me is that the latter statement is not true.

A promiscuous woman is not good 'wife material' but it seems to be a matter not related to her bonding ability, I find. Am I confounding hidden variables perhaps?

Here is a question:
Is this woman more or less likely to be a good wife one day?

She is quite abnormally bonded to her cuddle bunny. So she has what one would call 'oxytocin overload', lol.

Now don't get me wrong: I am not equating her problem with a promiscuous woman. The source of the oxytocin clearly counts :-)

But the question is, could she still live a normal life with a man one day? Is her oxytocin all used up on that lamb, or is there plenty more where that came from?

Indulge me.
I am in an intellectual muddle about this, as usual. But I think I could get to the truth of the matter with your help.

After 45 years of marriage, this is how Frank reacts to Marie's accusation that he doesn't love her in 'Everybody loves Raymond'. (Response exaggerated for effect :-) but you get the idea...
Men and women's idea of 'bonding' are clearly different!

The reluctant bride revisited

Sometimes you get an unexpected helping hand from an unexpected source.

Two of my last three posts have touched on the subject of The Reluctant bride, even though this was not meant to be the main focus of the posts.

And then I found this on Dalrock:

'The one that got away'

where a Katy Perry video showing an elderly married woman pining away for her ex-lover is shown and analysed.

This is what Dalrock advises:
This should serve as a warning to men considering marriage; check very carefully for this sort of vibe. Women often feel entitled to nurse this sort of “poor me” feeling, regardless of how good a husband you are. This is also why you need to take your potential wife’s past sexual history very seriously.

It is precisely because I am privy to female nature that I agree with Dalrock's advice to men.
But I spot a potential fatal flaw.

This is also why you need to take your potential wife’s past sexual history very seriously.

This refers to the truism that if a woman has had many sexual partners, she may be less likely to bond to any one man.
On the whole, I cosign this. But I am well aware that there are two important caveats here:

1. There are always exceptions which prove the rule.

2. Very importantly, sometimes the individual circumstances in which a woman engages in sexual activity are crucial to decipher her motives.

Some men might respond to No 2 that whatever the circumstances, the risk of potential cuckoldry remains high, as history can always repeat itself. I cannot argue with that.

What caught my attention with Dalrock's last sentence was the implication of the reverse situation.
That if the woman is a virgin, you are relatively safe.

He does not actually conclude this, but I think it is a possible assumption.

The assumption that a woman needs sex to bond with a man.

Like Dalrock's wife, I too abhor the situation where a reluctant bride forges on into marriage/longterm relationship only to destroy that relationship because she cannot get another man out of her mind.
Like Dalrock's wife, I too have seen this play out and it is not pretty to watch.

In some of the cases of this nature that I know of, the woman was a virgin at the time of marriage.

Of course it is true that the hormone oxytocin which surges into the bloodstream post copulation promotes bonding. It is indeed the same hormone which promotes attachment of mother to baby too.

But...

A woman does not have to have sex in order to bond to a man.

There is a reason this hormone is also called the 'cuddle hormone'.
Sometimes, that's all it takes. A cuddle. A kiss. A handhold. A look.

If you are having trouble believing it, consider this.
An adoptive mother can bond incredibly well with her adoptive child. She never bore that child in her own womb. And yet she can bond to that child better than the child's own biological mother.

In the old days, women were able to properly bond to their prospective husbands prior to marriage. Sex was not required to make this process happen.

I know it's only a film, but it illustrates my point.
In my post on Pearl Harbour, I state that Evelyn would most likely have gone on to become Danny's reluctant bride had he not died in the war. And yet Danny is the one she had slept with. She had never slept with Rafe, her true love.

A woman truly bonds with only an incredibly small number of men in her lifetime. Usually, there is one at the top of the list.
She does not need to have slept with him for him to get there, way up above all the rest.

Gentlemen, make sure you are at Top Spot with your woman before jumping into longterm plans with her. (I know you already do!)
Even if she is a virgin.
Especially if she is a virgin.

Unless you are happy with No 2 spot.
Which is not a fun place to be.
The bitter men from the Manosphere already know that.