The roles that males and females may also vary -- although a woman biologically gives birth to a child, a man may assume more or less care for the child, depending upon the situation of a couple. A man who loses his job and has a wife who must support the family temporarily may care for his child, even though a biological explanation for human behavior might theorize that a man has less of a hormonal attachment to the child, and the species would benefit if males generated more children with a wider range of females.
The psychodynamic approach also examines the interaction between culture and biology but from a more personal perspective, given its origins in psychoanalysis. Freud asked the question of why human beings marry outside of their kinship group, even though the first object of affection for both men and women is the mother, specifically the mother's breast during the oral stage of human development (Stevenson, 1996). Culture dictates that the child submit to the father and sublimate the Oedipal desire to kill the father, thus resulting in a more stable society, for no society could exist where parricide was condoned. Biological explanations would note, however, this also results in a more healthy genetic balance for the human race while exponents of a cultural approach would disagree, noting many taboos exist that actually inhibit genetic intermixtures of race and religion -- although a biological approach might again subsume such objections by noting that this sustains the genetic integrity of the tribe, while still allowing for some necessary variation. Furthermore, some biologically oriented theories posit that psychological affiliations for religion and a need to obey religious dictates regarding marriage are genetically...
Such approaches portray learners as "active processors of information," suggesting that rather than being at the mercy of culture or biology alone, human beings engaged in the social relationship of marriage are in a creative dialogue between themselves, as well as with their social environments and with their genetic heritage (Hofstetter, 1997). This may ultimately be the more useful approach for a couple to view their own relationship, even if other explanations have a more convincing or rigorous scientific underlying basis.
Works Cited
Hofstetter, Fred T. "Cognitive vs. Behavioral Psychology. Excerpts from Chapter
Four of the McGraw-Hill textbook Multimedia Literacy. 1997. 23 Apr 2007. http://www.udel.edu/fth/pbs/webmodel.htm
Rubin, Paul H. "Book Review -- Sense and Nonsense: Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Behavior by Kevin N. Laland and Gillian R. Brown, Oxford University Press, 2002." Human Nature Review. Vol. 2: 279-282. 9 July 2002.23 Apr 2007. http://human-nature.com/nibbs/02/rubin.html
Stevenson, David B. "Freud's Psychosexual Stages of Development."
The Victorian Web. 1992. Added to the Victorian Web 6 December 2000. Last modified 27 May 2001. 22 Apr 2007. http://www.victorianweb.org/science/freud/develop.html
