Violence is not the usual way to constitute relationships; people usually constitute relationships non-violently. So while we have explained the motivation for violence, this explanation raises a new question: why and when do people use violence to constitute their social relationships, rather than using other means? Sometimes people shoot a person who runs over their dog, but much more often the driver apologizes and the dog owner accepts the apology, or the driver offers compensation, or the dog owner brings a law suit. Other options are to complain, or exit: when do people merely walk away from an unsatisfactory interaction, or gossip about it? Sometimes people connect and become one with each other by cutting their bodies the same way or scourging their bodies together, but much more often people connect and become one by feasting commensally, dancing together, hugging, and kissing. What determines which course people follow?

Of course, the incidence of violence is greatly influenced by social-structural, technical, and biological factors, such as the lack of a reliable third-party state police force, the nature and availability of weapons, or the hormones that drive young males. But in terms of the motives to engage in violence, we suggest that the major factor that determines whether people constitute a relationship violently, and, if so, with what kind of violence, is the set of cultural preos that guide the implementation of the relationship. From the observer’s point of view, the best predictor of violent regulation of a relationship is the cultural context. From the actor’s point of view, whether violence is natural or unnatural, inevitable or evitable, depends on his cultural psychology. For eighteenth-century Europeans and American fathers, it was natural and inevitable that they should whip their sons for disobedience, disrespect, or lack of diligence. In this cultural-historical context, fathers made tactical decisions about precisely when and how much to whip, but they didn’t strategize about whether to whip their sons; they didn’t analyze alternative child-rearing strategies or in any meaningful sense “choose” to whip. That was simply what good fathers did when a son was bad. In turn, those sons learned that whipping was right and necessary from their fathers, and reproduced the practice when punishing their own children.