SPEC File help, Requires not working as expected

["Joshua M. Miller" <joshua itsecureadmin com>]

Hello again,

I am working on defining dependencies for an RPM and having trouble 
getting the Requires portion to work.  I have the following line in my 
SPEC file:

...
%define kernel 2.6.9-55.0.2.EL
...
Requires:	kernel = %{kernel}

When I run rpm -qpR <rpm> on this package, it prints out the dependency 
like I would expect:

[:user host:] rpm -qpR <package>-0.2-1.i386.rpm
kernel = 2.6.9-55.0.2.EL
rpmlib(PayloadFilesHavePrefix) <= 4.0-1
rpmlib(CompressedFileNames) <= 3.0.4-1

...but I can then install the package without having the dependency met. 
 Have I mis-used this value or missed something here?  My host is 
running a kernel from an earlier version and does not have this kernel 
installed, yet I am able to install this package without issues.

I have tried changing the kernel version to 2.8.9 and that works by 
preventing the package install and enforcing the dependency so it looks 
like the Requires does not force checking beyond the first few version 
numbers.  I have found nothing in the documentation that would suggest 
this limitation.

TIA,
--
Joshua M. Miller - RHCE,VCP