Relationships/How Women Select Men
The field of Evolutionary Psychology hypothesizes that women use two conflicting strategies when selecting a male mate. The first strategy is to select for optimal genetic fitness. One way of making that selection is by choosing to mate with physically attractive men. The other strategy is for women to select a mate based off of their willingness and ability to engage in future long term resource investment.[1]
Trait preferences
[edit | edit source]Status
[edit | edit source]Women prefer high-status men.[2] In workplace affairs, men are equally likely to have sex with a superior or subordinate woman. Women, in contrast, are seven times more likely to have sex with superior, rather than subordinate, men.[3]
[dubious ]
Looks, Height, and Strength
[edit | edit source]Women prefer men that are taller than they are, and indicate a greater preference for men who are above average height over men who are average height, or short.[4]
Age
[edit | edit source]Women select men who are, on average, three and a half years older than they are.
The worldwide average age difference between brides and grooms is three years. Americans marry closer in age.[5]
In 1890, the average age at which men first married was 26. Women married at 22.[6]
During the first half of the twentieth century, increasing affluence enabled younger men to support families. Secondary education and increased leisure time facilitated dating. In 1956, men married at 22, women at 20.
The FDA approved oral contraceptives in 1956. The U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion in 1973. Women delayed motherhood to start careers.[7] In 1998, men married at 27, women at 25.
Couples today live together from the age that their parents' generation married. The average man now first lives with a woman, either in marriage or as an unmarried couple, for the first time at 22. The average woman moves in with a man at age 20 or 21.[8]
Couples that marry younger than 25 have dramatically higher divorce rates.[9]
Relationship Skills
[edit | edit source]Predictability
[edit | edit source]Women prefer men who have a steady job, are dependable, and are emotionally stable.[10]
Home Ownership
[edit | edit source]One of the highest factors correlating with likelihood of a man to marry is home ownership.[11]
Family Relationships
[edit | edit source]Emotional Connection
[edit | edit source]The prefrontal lobes (part of the cerebral cortex) enable affect-regulation, or the
ability to regulate our emotional reactions, control our impulses, or moderate the survival reflexes of our ancient reptilian system.[12]—Joseph Chilton Pearce, The Biology of Transcendence (2002)
The prefrontal lobes are our most recently evolved brain area.[13] This is also the last area to develop in each individual; maturing between the ages of 15 and 25.[14]
References
[edit | edit source]- ↑ Buss, D. M.; Schmitt, D. P. "Sexual strategies theory: an evolutionary perspective on human mating". Psychological Review. 100 (2): 204–232. doi:10.1037/0033-295x.100.2.204. ISSN 0033-295X. PMID 8483982 – via PubMed.
- ↑ Buss, David M. Evolutionary Psychology (Allyn & Bacon, 1999, ISBN 0-205-19358-7, p. 110.
- ↑ "Office Sex & Romance Survey," special to MSNBC, May 8, 2002.
- ↑ Pisanski, Katarzyna; Fernandez-Alonso, Maydel; Díaz-Simón, Nadir; Oleszkiewicz, Anna; Sardinas, Adrian; Pellegrino, Robert; Estevez, Nancy; Mora, Emanuel C.; Luckett, Curtis R.; Feinberg, David R. (2022). "Assortative mate preferences for height across short-term and long-term relationship contexts in a cross-cultural sample". Frontiers in Psychology. 13: 937146. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.937146. ISSN 1664-1078. PMC 9454610. PMID 36092066.
- ↑ Statistical Abstract of the United States (U S. Department of Commerce), Table 56, "Married Couples by Differences in Ages Between Husband and Wife: 1999" www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/statab/sec01.pdf
- ↑ http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/ms-la/tabms-2.txt No data were recorded during World War Two.
- ↑ Murstein, Bernard. Paths to Marriage (Sage, 1986, ISBN 0803923821, p. 26.
- ↑ Laumann, Edward O., Gagnon, John H., Michael, Robert T., Michaels, Stuart. The Social Organization Of Sexuality: Sexual Practices In The United States (University of Chicago, 1994, ISBN 0-226-46957-3, 477-479.
- ↑ Parker-Pope, Tara. "How Eye-Rolling Destroys A Marriage; Researchers Try to Predict Divorce Rate," The Wall Street Journal, August 6, 2002, p. D1.
- ↑ Buss, David M. Evolutionary Psychology (Allyn & Bacon, 1999, ISBN 0-205-19358-7, p. 114.
- ↑ Lloyd, K.M., South, S.J. "Contextual Influences on Young Men's Transition to First Marriage," Social Forces, 74 (1996), page 1110.
- ↑ Pearce, Joseph Chilton. The Biology of Transcendence: A Blueprint Of The Human Spirit (Park Street, 2002, ISBN 0-89281990-1, p. 41.
- ↑ Pearce, Joseph Chilton. The Biology of Transcendence: A Blueprint Of The Human Spirit (Park Street, 2002, ISBN 0-89281990-1, 40-54.
- ↑ Pearce, Joseph Chilton. The Biology of Transcendence: A Blueprint Of The Human Spirit (Park Street, 2002, ISBN 0-89281990-1, p. 46.
- ^ Buss, David M. Evolutionary Psychology (Allyn & Bacon, 1999, ISBN 0-205-19358-7, 136-137.
- ^ Brin, David. "Neoteny and Two-Way Sexual Selection in Human Evolution," http://www.kithrup.com/brin/neoteny.html.
- ^ Rhodes, G. Hickford, C., Jeffrey, L. "Sex-typicality and attractiveness: Are supermale and superfemale faces super-attractive?" ritish Journal of Psychology, 91, 125-140 (2000); Cunningham, M.R. “Measuring the physical in physical attractiveness: Quasi-experiments on the sociobiology of female facial beauty,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50, 925-35 (1986); Johnson, V.S., Franklin, M. “Is Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder?” Ethology and Sociobiology 14 (1993): 183-199.
- ^ Brin, David. "Neoteny and Two-Way Sexual Selection in Human Evolution," http://www.kithrup.com/brin/neoteny.html.
- ^ Buss, David M. Evolutionary Psychology< (Allyn & Bacon, 1999, ISBN 0-205-19358-7, p. 140.