Monday, June 10, 2002
Bachelors higher sex drive than married dads?
A story released today by the Australian Associated Press reports that scientist have found that bachelors have more of the hormone that makes men hungry for sex than married fathers.
Scientists discovered that husbands have less testosterone than men who are free and single, especially if they have children.
The effect could be nature's way of encouraging men with families not to stray. Being less driven by their hormones, they would be more likely to remain responsible and faithful.
Anthropologist Peter Gray and a team of US researchers at Harvard University wondered whether men were influenced the same way. They measured testosterone in the saliva of 58 men who were either single, married, or married with children.
In all the men, hormone levels followed the normal cycle of peaking in the morning and falling over the course of the day.
But the decrease was greater in married men than bachelors - and even more pronounced in fathers.
The researchers suggest that lower testosterone makes fathers less likely to stray and encourages them to be true to their wives and spend time with their families.
Gray now hopes to separate the effects of marriage from parenting by studying testosterone in men who have separated from their wives but have joint custody of their children.
