Plenty has been guessed, said and written about the different needs of men and women. Time and again you hear the verdict, or the stereotype, that men don't want commitment. This article takes a closer look at how much truth there is in that claim and what kinds of commitment each gender is after.

Blame evolution

One thing is clear from the start: the very different commitment behavior of men and women has a very biological cause. It also goes back to human evolution. Women are fertile for a limited time only and don't have unlimited capacity to raise children. In prehistoric times, they had to devote themselves to bringing up the kids.

Men, on the other hand, needed different things in life. They had the chance to pass on their genes to a great many women. Polygamy was the order of the day. After all, a man could get the next woman pregnant while the first was still pregnant herself. That way you could be sure that good genes would spread extremely quickly and widely.

Men don't want commitment
Men don't want anything serious

Men today:

Today, of course, relationships follow different rules. Through Christianization, people discovered the concept of fidelity and loyalty, and they no longer lived in clans. The typical arrangement became the classic couple. But the genetically programmed urge of men to pass on their genome remained. Only now it no longer happened openly, but subtly and in secret, in the form of cheating.

But what sets men today apart from men back then:

  • Polygamy is no longer accepted today
  • Cheating is socially frowned upon
  • Men today face intense pressure to perform, both in private life and at work
  • Many men complain about an unclear gender role
  • Men today find it hard to define what makes a man

It's fair to say that it is hard for a man today to hold his own in a society that women have changed. After all, it was women who set off a fundamental social shift in the 1970s. Women now demand emotional closeness, yet at the same time want strong, dominant men by their side. All of these changes in society naturally affect the classic couple relationship and men's commitment behavior at every level.

It depends on status

The higher a man's status, the more likely he is to find potential partners who want to be with him. After all, women have a need for security and provision. Men don't want to enter a commitment that keeps them from spreading their genes. The higher a man's status, the better his chances of meeting interesting, exciting women.

So you could say that men find it harder to commit.