Think arranged marriages are loveless? Not so, says psychologist Robert Epstein, a contributing editor for Scientific American Mind magazine. He spoke March 10 at the 92nd Street Y’s Tribeca site in New York City:

“And there’s even a study published in India [Usha Gupta and Pushpa Singh of the University of Rajasthan, 1982] but using an American love scale, called the Rubin Love Scale, that compared love in love marriages in India, because they have those, too, to love in arranged marriages. And in this particular study, love in the love marriages starts out very high. And then over time it decreases. That’s what all of our studies show. And in the arranged marriages--and this is true in my work, too--we see the love starting out relatively low. Because in some cases the people barely know each other, sometimes they’ve had a half an hour of contact in total before they got married. And then it increases gradually, surpasses the love in the love marriages at about five years. And 10 years out it’s twice as strong.”

[ Hear movie clip by clicking on audio podcast above. ]

That’s a scene from the 1968 movie The Party with Peter Sellers attempting small talk. And sometimes small talk can lead to interesting connections.

Studies from around the world have reported that men are more jealous of sexual infidelity than emotional infidelity. And women are the opposite--they’re more jealous of emotional cheating than sexual cheating. Experts often lean on an evolutionary cause for this gender difference: Men can never be sure they are the baby-daddy and women are most concerned with securing a genuinely loyal father to care for the children.

Well, authors of a recent study in Psychological Science question the strength of the evolutionary just-so theory--realizing that there are men who find emotional cheating far worse than sexual cheating. The study reports that personality patterns, shaped by one’s relationship history, can have an impact on jealousy.

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[Below is the original script. But a few changes may have been made during the recording of this audio podcast.]

Ever take the time to really think about the stuff you have? Photos pinned to the bulletin board? Do you carry extra stamps in your purse? Slippers flung to either end of a room, or aligned perfectly--parallel to the bed?

[Below is the original script. But a few changes may have been made during the recording of this audio podcast.]

Ever take the time to really think about the stuff you have? Photos pinned to the bulletin board? Do you carry extra stamps in your purse? Slippers flung to either end of a room, or aligned perfectly--parallel to the bed?