My understanding of the nature of men and women may perhaps be an element of Victorian novels, although, not being real big on fiction, I wouldn't know. You'd have to ask my daughters. But, if that's the case, perhaps the authors also had an understanding of the inner workings of the sexes.
I read an article just the other day on this topic (sort of) The author contended that evry civilation before the Judaic imposition of marriage was sexually promiscuous and doomed to collapse. Only a civilization built on marriage can succeed.
Lets see if I can find that link... Hum de hum.... I know I have it in here somewhere....(Clank Crash plunk)...Oh here it is:
First part of article discusses the change brought about by adopting marriage as a moral code. It's an excellent read.
I agree with Jeff and the author. Men are naturally horn dogs. All men. It's just that some of us have been trained to control our base urges, some to the point of being able to ignore even having those urges. This is a sign of living in our immediate (usually Christian) culture, not a sign that man's nature has changed any.
Biblically God gave men permission to have more than one wife. But women could only have one husband. Note that David, a man truly after God's own heart, had many wives. The fact that he had multiple wives was not held against him in any way. In the NT the rules were adjusted to bring us into one man-one women marriages because we had been socially conditioned for a thousand years or so to recognize that as preferable.
Our deep nature keeps chanting "go get laid" while our moral upbringing says "stay true or stay virginal"
GSA(P)