The Great Depression of the 1930s saw more American unmarried women working from nine to five, mostly in repetitive, boring, subordinate, dead-end jobs. But the number of working women doubled between 1870 and 1940. During World War II it doubled once again.
Helen Fisher
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.
Anthropologists have found evidence of romantic love in 170 societies. They've never found a society that did not have it.
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.
When you massage someone, the levels of oxytocin go up in the brain, and oxytocin is one of the chemicals that drives attachment.
Good-looking people are always looking for other good-looking people.
There's biology in everything, even when you're feeling spiritual.
The human brain is built to compare; it's Darwinian to consider an alternative when one presents itself.
Nobody gets out of love alive. You turn into a menace or a pest when you've been rejected.
Natural beauty really entices men. They will tell you this time and time again, and studies consistently prove it.
Romantic love is an addiction.
Any kind of novelty or excitement drives up dopamine in the brain, and dopamine is associated with romantic love.
There's a lot of talk about the positive aspects of love. We as a society downplay the danger, the anxiety, and the disappointment. We romanticize romance.
Research shows that couples who have a lot of similarities, including intellectual compatibility, end up staying together.
Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere; some say the poorest in the world.
Until recently, we regarded love as supernatural. We were willing to study the brain chemistry of fear and depression and anger but not love.
People have often asked me whether what I know about love has spoiled it for me. And I just simply say, 'Hardly.' You can know every single ingredient in a piece of chocolate cake, and then when you sit down and eat that cake, you can still feel that joy.
I think romantic love evolved to enable you to focus your mating energy on just one individual at a time, thereby conserving mating time and energy.
Along with our many human propensities, we evolved a huge cerebral cortex with which we make decisions.
Your sweetheart calls you by another's name. His eyes linger too long on your best friend. He talks with excitement about a girl at work. And the fire catches. Jealousy - that sickening combination of possessiveness, suspicion, rage, and humiliation - can overtake your mind and threaten your very core as you contemplate your rival.
You know, when you've been dumped, the one thing you love to do is just forget about this human being, and then go on with your life - but no, you just love them harder.
People kill for love. They die for love.
As women in industrial societies join the paid workforce, they gain the economic means to depart unhappy marriages more easily.
A Rolex watch or an expensive car are the things guys often use to show status, wealth, and basic desirability.
In that early-love stage, you're in that state of exhilaration. You talk till dawn. You become obsessed with 'What does he think?' 'Does he like me?' 'Does he think I'm fat?'
Experiences shape the brain, but the brain shapes the way we view experiences, too.
You can be instantly scared. You can be instantly happy. So why can't you be instantly romantically in love? I think when it happens, it's because you are ready to fall in love.
Men tend to be hierarchical, but women are driven to make lateral connections so they can cooperate.
Women apparently are quite drawn to men who have differences rather than similarities in their histocompatibility system. They pick it up by smell, and they can pick it up from kissing.
Barriers tend to intensify romance. It's called the 'Romeo and Juliet effect.' I call it 'frustration attraction.'
I think the happiness we find, we make.
Your face and head give more information about you than any other body part.
Young women today do not marry the men they met in high school, or even the one they go out with at college, because they do not need to.
I was married and divorced at 23.
When chimps threaten, they open their mouth and show their teeth. It's a little like waving a knife in front of you. It's very primitive, and therefore bizarre.
We are wired to find love.
Mothers really were not built to raise babies not only by themselves, but with only a partner. For millions of years, a woman had much more than just her husband to help rear her young... This whole idea of 'it takes a village to raise a child' is exactly how we're supposed to live.
Despite the myth that men are less committed, they are predisposed to desire marriage.
Touch is the mother of the senses. Not only are women more sensitive when they touch, but they're also more sensitive to being touched.
There exists no culture in which adultery is unknown, no cultural device or code that extinguishes philandering.
The only people you and I are likely to know in common are people in the news - politicians, journalists and celebrities.
Overdone lipstick is a deterrent to men. It rubs off easily onto their skin and the edges of their shirts, so it discourages them from kissing, touching, and coming closer to you, which is what they really want to do!
If two very different people pool their DNA, they'll create more genetic variety, and their young will come to the job of parenting with a wider array of skills.
Almost always, when I'm on TV, the producers who call me, who negotiate what we're going to say, is a woman.
You can get into a very fancy car and know everything about the engine, but when you drive in that car, you feel that rush. In the same way, I think the more you know about love, the more you can enjoy it. And knowing about your personality type, who you are and what kind of person you're dealing with gives you a great leg up.
We spend our lives trying to get along with people so we can keep our jobs, keep our marriages together, so that we can raise our kids properly.
Men and women are like two feet; they can help each other get ahead.
Most of us make up our minds in the first three minutes of meeting someone whether there's a potential for a relationship.
Games are the way we keep romance alive. They're based in human hardwiring. Playing hard-to-get or leaving a little to the imagination allows the woman to be wooed and appreciated and the man to be challenged and intrigued.
There are cognitive processes and limbic reactions associated with basic emotions. And you can change brain chemistry, but you're still not going to change memories and experiences in a human being.
