As social animals, we need to exchange juicy tales about someone - to connect with one another. For millions of years our forebears must have sat around the campfire, whispering about everyone they knew.

A Rolex watch or an expensive car are the things guys often use to show status, wealth, and basic desirability.

Office romances are few, short, and not usually destructive.

A hundred years ago, if you had a child out of marriage, you'd be a social disgrace. Today women feel comfortable enough economically and culturally to bring up a child without a recognized commitment from a man.

Today, most women are surrounded by ingenious gadgets. They don't grow the peas or raise the chicken that they serve for dinner; instead they hunt and gather in the grocery store. They go through catalogs or department stores to buy clothes instead of shearing sheep, carding wool, and weaving cloth for skirts and coats and blankets.

The human brain is built to compare; it's Darwinian to consider an alternative when one presents itself.

Today, American women bear an average of 2.2 children that live to adulthood. Across most of Europe, women bear even fewer young.