The extraordinarily long, extraordinarily bloody world wars of the 20th century were fought very largely by unwilling conscripts, and that too was extraordinary, as was the consequence that many came home as worn-out veterans less attractive to women than slick, stay-at-home spivs. The two wars that still loom so large in Euro-American collective memory therefore obscure the twin verities that, in the words of the military historian Martin van Creveld, 'men love war and women love warriors.' That he is right cannot be doubted because, with few exceptions, wars throughout history have been fought by volunteers, who had to love war to tolerate its inevitable hardships; and men would certainly have found other diversions if warriors had not been especially attractive to women. There is also a corollary: when women love warriors, they procreate sufficiently to replace the losses of war - and that too cannot be doubted, for otherwise we would not be here.

LRB 17 November 2005 | PDF Download