Every human has a limited ability to form and sustain relationships with other humans. Bonding is the process of forming meaningful and strategic attachments to other humans. While bonding is a natural process, marriage and other rule-based commitments are not. Longer term commitments are contractual. Natural bonds are spontaneous, self-regulating, and are likely to change. The bonding of male and female mates occurs in many species and serves the needs of infant care.

An average “normal” human supports a small number of relationships that have strategic significance in his or her life. These close relationships have different values and represent different investments of time, energy, loyalty and devotion. The deepest bonding occurs when mother and infant are together continuously from birth and mother breast-feeds the infant. Bonds among family members are the most enduring. Bonds to friends, lovers and spouses are the next most significant. Bonds to colleagues, neighbors and even strangers that are admired from a distance are next. 

 Bonding energies are limited and competition among relationships is inevitable. Emotions and feelings regulate bonding investments.  Jealously is a cognitive-emotional complex that monitors and regulates bonding investments.

Hyper-vigilant behavior emerges when bonding tokens are withdrawn. Anger explodes when another human completes successfully for the affection of a spouse or lover. A jealous human guards the sexual privileges, property and prestige that bonding represents.

The romantic ideal is complete devotion and unconditional love. Such a complete investment in one other person is unusual, temporary and unwise because the couple is isolated and loses support from family and friends who were disenfranchised by the romance.  A more typical romance is exclusive for a few weeks, but lovers tend to fight and other people regain their importance. The family and friends of lovers  recognize the initial withdrawal and later re-investment of bonding energy. A wise friend will know that sooner or later some of the investment will return as the love affair “cools”.

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Emotions and Feelings

A Psychology & Philosophy series of books was developed by Persona Digital. The books are copyright and all rights to reproduction by any means are reserved. We encourage readers to quote and paraphrase topics from Emotions and Feelings 2011, published online, and expect proper citations to accompany all derivative writings. The author is Stephen Gislason and the publisher is Persona Digital Books, Sechelt, B.C. Canada.