[bluejay2]

Women are, in general, hypergamous, meaning they are looking for men who are "above" them along some dimension: wealth, status, looks, education, etc. I can not find the link, but I read somewhere once that something like the "top" 80% of women are competing over the "top" 20% of men. In other words, the "bottom" 80% of men are un-dateable for those women. That is how you end up with the situation described.

[baobabKoodaa]

Sounds like you've read the OkCupid blog post that used to be online, before Match decided to buy OkCupid and censor them.

[quantumBerry]

They were censored? How is this even controversial? Females have a biological incentive to be more choosy than men as their reproductive investment is much higher -- it seems obvious that the result is rational from a biological perspective.

[blunte]

> it seems obvious that the result is rational from a biological perspective

Only if you believe in the relatively modern human concept of two monogamous people being the only parents of a child.

Biologically speaking, a woman wants the sperm which will provide her the most survivable and resilient child, plus any number of other adults around who will help care for and protect that child.

This idea of a woman being choosy is a very new concept. You don't have to go back far in time at all to see where women had no choice at all (or look in some current cultures).

But if you go back further, or you go to places less touched by modern conventions, you find men and women of groups being generally sexual with each other, and being responsible for all the children in their group. This appears to be how humans survived and flourished for most of human history; or at least, it fits the existing evidence much better than the idea of a monogomous (and very 1:1 protective) couple.

Sure, if a woman knows she is only ever allowed to have one partner (and she's not allowed to be an equal participant in the world where income or resources are earned), she will choose the man more likely to guarantee that the basic survival needs are met or exceeded as much as possible. But she will still biologically seek the strongest, fittest, most genetically compatible and complementary man she can have sex with. From a modern human survival standpoint, this is the path of success.

[quantumBerry]

A woman takes 9 months to birth a child, and up until very recently had some serious risk during childbirth. The dude just has to shoot his load. This imbalance in reproductive investment predates modern human concept of monogamy.

> if a woman knows she is only ever allowed to have one partner

If each woman and each man can only choose one partner, i would expect the choosiness of men and women to become much more equal, because the reproductive investment of the man and the woman start to look a lot more equal (a lifetime investment for each). In reality we know that humans historically have not really been monogamous creatures, even in societies that are nominally so.

[FooBarBizBazz]

I was about to quibble with

> Females have a biological incentive to be more choosy than men as their reproductive investment is much higher

until I saw you had also written

> If each woman and each man can only choose one partner, i would expect the choosiness of men and women to become much more equal

which is the missing piece I was going to add.

> In reality we know that humans historically have not really been monogamous creatures, even in societies that are nominally so.

But, to shift emphasis a little, in those societies, many many people really were monogamous, there absolutely were, and are, functioning lifelong pair-bonds, there were men who devoted a lot of themselves to being good husbands and fathers, and, I'd like to think, there still can be. But yes, such men will need to be choosy, because they're making the biggest investment of their lives.

[blunte]

It seems that your definition of "good husbands and fathers" implicitly disallows non-monogamous interactions.

I would bet that men (from couples) who have clear and open communication can be otherwise very loving partners and devoted parents without also having to be monogamous. If you zoom out just a bit and look at what is physically occurring, why should it be that physically touching someone else would prevent you from continuing to be a good parent and partner?

[bluejay2]

I think you are right.