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Cheating partners: MHC Connection

http://www.newscientisttech.com/article.ns?id=dn10847&feedId=online-news_rss20

The study revealed that as MHC genetic similarities increased, it was the women who were the most dramatically affected. They were less sexually responsive to their partners, more likely to have affairs, and more attracted to other males, particularly during fertile days of their menstrual cycles, Garver-Apgar says. In relationships where MHC genetic differences were significant, these potentially relationship-splitting behaviours were either absent or greatly reduced.

The fraction of MHC genes shared directly correlated to the woman's number of adulterous partners – if the man and woman had 50% of the MHC genes in common, the women had a 50% chance of cheating with another man, on average.

Men were an entirely different matter, the study showed. They did not seem to be affected by genetics at all. As MHC similarities increased, men showed no change in the sexual interest that they had for their partners and seemed no more attracted to women outside of their primary relationship.

Comments

  1. If love was straightforward and unchanging, that would be easy to acknowledge. But, when you take a close look at the nature of love and romance, one thing becomes clear: Love creates both happiness and heartache, opportunities and constraints, joy and sorrow.

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