The hunt is as archetypal to males as birthing is to females. The hunt marries young men to wild animals and nature just as birthing bonds a young women to children and life. Men are adapted to take life to serve life. Hunting itself teaches universal virtues, and the taking of life opens hearts and engenders respect and responsibility..

Both males and female may benefit much from hunting and fishing (fishing is hunting with a hook), but boys especially gain from hunting. Initiation to adulthood is inborn and automatic for women: they leave childhood and become capable of reproduction with the onset on menses. Not so for boys who during adolescence are compelled to prove themselves worthy as men. For hundreds of thousands of years boys have proved themselves worthy by killing a wild animal of sufficient size. That demonstrates to prospective brides, in-laws and society their ability to protect and provide.

The instinct to hunt appears early in males. A German scientist examined behavior in over 60 cultures worldwide. He observed in them all that boys between the age of 4 and 5 spontaneously begin to throw rocks, often competing with one another in terms of accuracy or distance. Cultural conditioning cannot explain the boys’ behavior since in many of the cultures adult males do not throw rocks or anything else. Moreover, girls did not exhibit this behavioral pattern. Surely boys are programmed to begin developing weapon skills early in life, a reflection of the long history of hunting among human males. We can be equally certain that the original weapons of our earliest human ancestors were rocks.

Form follows function in evolution, and the human is no exception. The male shoulder is constructed differently than the female’s and better suited for throwing, another indication of the male’s adaptation to hunting. Whether President Jimmy Carter or staunch anti-hunter Cleveland Amory, most civilized men killed a bird or other small animal as a child. Normally they did so before initiated to hunting, and many had never seen anyone else hunt or kill an animal. They use rocks, slingshots, bows or air rifles.

Just as females are biologically adapted to reproduce, males are adapted to hunt, kill and provide. The instinct propels them to pursue the animal, but a surprise awaits them. The same happens to a young man whose rampant sex drive pushes him towards a sexual encounter. His surprise comes when he falls in love, not at all what he anticipated. And that is the way normal human development moves, from lower to higher, in this case, from sexual instinct (eros) to spiritual love (agape).