By Herbert Mugarura
Although women have not yet surpassed men on the cheating scale, more married women than ever before are jumping into the gazetted playing field with someone other than their husbands.

It is difficult to get correct statistics about women’s infidelity because ladies are not keen on confessing them.

However, generally, it is estimated that between 14% and 40% of married women have intimately tangled with someone else, at least once.

Many scholars opined that only men are naturally programmed for multiple partners because they can produce thousand of sperms even into their retirement age yet women are born with a limited number of eggs, which mature once a month and decline when they enter the age of 40.

Better mate
One explanation is the subconscious urge to breed with the best mate. Many females indulge in extramarital affairs with males that out-rank their mates in the social hierarchy.

The few precious shots women get during the reproductive age may drive them to seek the best mate for reproducing her offsprings. Their limited reproductive time may drive them to seek the best mate to reproduce with.

Studies have revealed that the urge to seek a better mate is highest around the time of ovulation when they are likely to conceive.

Females breeding with many men get lots of sperms and only the best with the paramount male genes gets to the available egg.

Hormonal intervention
In 1999, researchers at St. Andrew’s University in Scotland concluded that women seem to desire different types of men at different times of the month, especially when they are most likely to conceive.

They get attracted to men who have very masculine features during ovulation time and then change the preference to ones who are tender, loving and caring when they are not ovulating.


Freedom
Nowadays, husbands are too busy chasing after money, ‘dodging home’ and hanging out with friends. So, wives can easily sneak off in search of fun, usually as an escapee from a troublesome or failing marriage and, at times, just for fun.

Men tend to spend all their time at work, in bars, out with friends, watching soccer and forget that women are emotional beings who need both physical and emotional support. The woman at home feels more like a maid than a real wife. This gives her double reason to seek solace somewhere else.

Revenge
The hubby may have given indications that he is not faithful. He may be caught up in a big lie that breaks her trust, her heart and her confidence. Instead of breaking up a relationship that is hard to fix, a woman may decide to give her partner the same dose of his own medicine.

Temptation
The way men feel the urge to sow their wild oats is the same feeling some women have. However, there are some women who are stronger at resisting temptation, until a life change crops up.

It may be new friends, a new job, a new boss or even mid-life crisis. Intimacy at home may go sour, forcing them to stray.

The writer is a medical doctor at Middle East Family Hospital, Bugolobi

Evolutionary psychologists believe that our everyday, ever shifting attitudes toward a mate or prospective mate (trust, suspicion, rhapsody, revulsion, warmth, iciness) are the handiwork of natural selection that remain with us today because in the past they led to behaviours that helped spread genes.
mugarrajk@yahoo.com

+256 772 444626