So why not talk about “smart women”, “ambitious women” or “intelligent women”. Well, whether or not it is harder to admit by the ladies, the physical attractiveness of a female is the most important characteristic she possess, and it is the primary tool with which she attracts her short and long-term partners, and the fundamental knob with which she calibrates the expected value of her future male mates.Furthermore, it important to say the age of the women is a direct representation of her attractiveness. Women below 30 years old are considered very attractive and healthy, whereas older women begin to score lower points in the above characteristics. Natural selection has programmed women’s brains to follow specific algorithms that make them pursue mates with the overall mate value approximately the same as the their personal mate value. A lot of studies gave us hints about the relation between a woman’s attractiveness and a man’s masculinity, physical attractiveness, sex appeal, muscularity, symmetry, physical fitness, intelligence and confrontativeness, all indicators of good male genes.
Thus, the prevailing hypothesis about women’s mating strategies states that women will pursue men that are physically attractive and masculine when they look for short term mating (there is conclusive evidence that this happens when they are most fertile), whereas when they seek partners for long-term relationships they pursue men with good indicators of investment, that is, indicators like resource acquisition capabilities, good parenting traits and a good disposition for partnering (loving and attentive men).
This goes hand in hand with the other highly regarded hypothesis : Because all women are not attractive, most of them falling in the middle category, they cannot have it all, so, while they choose a “good dad” with good traits for a provider, they engage in short-term extra copulations, with the hope (conscious or unconscious – we may never know) that the offspring resulted from the affair will be raised and taken care of by the poor sack un-suspicious provider. Ass we will see, the current study will add further evidence to the hypothesis that this strategy is used by only 10% to 15% of women (at most 30%) .
Thus, David M. Buss from The Department of Psychology at University of Texas and Todd L. Shackelford from The Department of Psychology at Florida Atlantic University tried to prove that the main mating strategy adopted by the female gender is that of adjusting their standards up or down according to their own mate value, and, in general (perhaps 88%-90% of females), not engaging in extra-pair copulations with males with better genes. These possible extra-pair copulations may be prevented by the jealousy triggering cognitive devices evolved in men’s brains. Thus, females that seek extra-marital affairs, risk losing their’s partner’s resources, risk spousal violence and harming their social reputation.
Furthermore, the study tried to prove that “Women high in mate value, compared to those lower in mate value, should impose higher standards for a suite of desirable characteristics, including hypothesized good-gene indicators, good investment indicators, good parenting indicators, and good partner indicators.” Good genes indicators are masculinity, physical attractiveness, sex appeal, physical fitness, and intelligence. Good investment ability indicators are the potential income good earning capacity, education, ambition and industriousness, socio-economic status, and a somewhat older age. Good parenting indicators are the desire for home and children, fondness of children, emotional stability, maturity, and kindness. Good partner indicators are being a loving partner, devotion, loyalty, emotional stability and maturity.
The results of the study are compelling. “Attractive women express higher standards for nearly all hypothesized indicators of good genes, good investment abilities, good parenting abilities, and good partner traits.” Attractive women do not have to trade-off certain qualities in their prospective mates because they can get the best, whereas less attractive females are going to have to relax all of the four key clusters of male traits (good genes, good investment, good parenting, and good partnering) and obtain the best possible combination from a single man. Scientists say that the alternative strategy, where the woman get’s her good genes from the extra-pair copulations and the resources and investment from the cuckolded long-term provider, is to be found in low numbers in the population (perhaps in 10% to 12%).
