[danielschonfeld]

This question is answered in the interview. She is saying that a household with a stable long lasting relationship is what’s driving these better outcomes. She’s also saying that in America marriage (unfortunately) seems to be the only way to keep people together for a long while (long enough for a child to not experience a parade of parents by the time they are 15 according to the article).

In my personal opinion. I think what she’s stumbled on is yet again proof of Americans hyper individuality rearing its ugly face. The Europeans can stay together longer without the marriage piece of paper because

1) Selfishness derived from hyper individuality doesn’t drive people to nope out of relationships at the first sign of minuscule problems or one side not getting their way

2) Since over there not everything is an economical benefit proposal people value the relationship with different metrics than our countrymen and women do.

[Retric]

Again, both parents in a stable long lasting relationship are capable of a stable long lasting relationship. Americans being bad at this doesn’t mean long term relationships are the sole difference, though they likely do provide some benefits it’s not the total difference in populations.

"I don't know exactly what it is about marriage, but it is a very practical matter," says Kearney, chafing at all the criticism. "If you just look in the data, marriage is what delivers kids a stable, long-term, two-parent household in this country."

The data is clear, however understanding the root causes is important because it impacts what approaches are most useful. If the relationships themselves are important the having a high school class in maintaining healthy relationship could be useful. If it’s the broader issues then we need to address those issues.

[beej71]

I'd like to see a control on this. Is there a group of people who thought they were married, but by bureaucratic snafu actually weren't? Did they have different outcomes than people who were really married?

[jncfhnb]

If there are effects of marriage, it seems fairly obvious that they are due to the explicit commitment that the two people have made to each other, not the government’s tickbox.

Are you actually confused by this concept?

[dijit]

Let's tone down the aggressive comments please.

One large barrier to breakup is how much damage a breakup will do and how much effort it entails.

If a break up is very easy then small insults will lead to break up.

A marriage contract is.. a legal contract; thereby it can be a barrier to a break up.

I have considered breaking up with my girlfriend before yet the effort of splitting our things and ensuring that she has a nice continuation of a place to live comfortably has caused me to reevaluate if the reasons I want to break up are good enough. That's all the parent was suggesting. Does the marriage contract have any bearing on keeping people together.

[jncfhnb]

The effect you describe could be sufficiently studied by comparing married partners to unmarried long term partners.

Not the ridiculous idea of people who thought they were married but were apparently not due to some technicality or bureaucratic error which they were not aware of.

[withinboredom]

In the US, only marriages are registered with the government. So you can’t really count long-term relationships or even common-law marriages.

That’s probably why that’s all they’re looking at. It’s the only thing that can be measured as a proxy for stable relationships.

[Balgair]

Widows/ers would also be a good control.

[ACow_Adonis]

we have a concept in welfare and income stats called equivalisation.

this is where we try to control for the positive material externalities that come from sharing resources among people. you dont have to buy two of everything if you share, it's cheaper to add a room than obtain a whole house and duplicate bathrooms + kitchens etc.

widows would fall afoul of this (in the sense that they've lived with that advantage for most of their lives), as well as obtain a likely wealth effect from inheritance, but it wouldn't surprise me if the entirity or majority of the marriage effect is largely just a restatement of equivalisation + social transfers/safety nets.

[achenet]

I think that having two adult role models to give a child love, and to serve as an example of 'how to have good interactions with others' is also quite important.

I was a child of divorce, and honestly it was a bit traumatizing. My parents were (and still are) often quite angry, mean and dishonest. They spent literally over $100,000 on legal fees, but "didn't have the money" to buy me a guitar.

So despite being (relatively) well off, coming from a violent, if not outright abusive at times household, suffering from parental neglect... yeah honestly that may have contributed to things like "skipping class to do drugs".

I think there's a lot of socializing that can happen in a functional two parent household that doesn't happen in single parent households, and this may be an additional advantage, in addition to equivalisation + social transfers/safety nets.

Plus as previous comments have said, if your parent has the trait "functional, responsible adult capable of having healthy relationships", that probably really increases your outcomes.

[seec]

My experience is similar to yours, especially the mean and dishonest part; your parents did not have money for a guitar, mine did not have money to pay for university. The worst is that since they were both way above the income level needed to have government support (grant/scholarship, access to subsidized housing, etc) the only way I could have done it was to leave my parents as soon as I got adult age (emancipation). They still give little care about what we do (I have younger brother) and still shit on each other and are still very much fighting with money. I learned the other day that almost 20 years lates they are still fighting for the split of 75K with another 75K in unresolved state. I think we really ought to have laws that make people pay for their children if they separate. Like a untouchable fund that has to be filled up depending on the income level of the parents and that can be used later on to fund studies or life starting costs. To be honest I think my father would have made the right thing, but it is my mother who orchestrated the whole thing and left us to rot after leaving will all the stuff plus all the money. It is extremely unpopular opinion but my experience tell me that women shouldn't be allowed so much latitude considering all little real responsibility they are given and how little social cost they will have to pay for it...

[soeptical]

Widows/ers may have some associated confounding factors

[hdjjhhvvhga]

I'm sorry to be off-topic but widows/ers just hurts my eyes. Why not use a more elegant alternative, widow(er)s? Even the uglier widow(s|ers) would be better.

[RulerOf]

I'm sure there's a style guide out there that would suggest using "The widowed."

[kirubakaran]

Or the gender neutral, invariant noun: “widowen”

BTW, shouldn’t “widower” be the person who died and the survivor be called “widowee”?

[throwaway2037]

U.S., Denmark, Sweden, and Finland all have roughly the same divorce rates.

Source: https://wisevoter.com/country-rankings/divorce-rate-by-count...

[xctr94]

You’re comparing against some of the highest rates in Europe; possibly because the Nordic countries value that same individuality that GP mentioned?

[pb7]

This comment is interesting because these are the same countries that are often used to show how “backwards” the US is due to their comparatively strong safety nets, etc. I guess when it comes to Europe, people can only pick and choose the best example for each discussion despite it varying wildly just like the US, is that right?

[xctr94]

No, you’re right; but these 4 countries aren’t even close to the European average on many aspects. Some of them aren’t even part of the EU, which is normally what gets compared against US markers.

[achenet]

from my admittedly limited knowledge of the Nordics, they are much more collectivist than Americans.

For example, Swedes have it drilled into their heads from an early age that "everyone deserves a home". This is not the case in America, where "poor people deserve to be poor because they're lazy, cut welfare, universal health care is socialism" is an acceptable statement, and in fact the basically party line for one of the two major political parties.

[seec]

Why do you assume Europeans do any better at this? Do you have comparable statistics? From my own experience, it is extremely unlikely that it is any different once you accounted for all variables. One reason Europeans might stay together longer together is for the tax benefits and other government subventions they would not get if they were single. In fact, except for single mothers who get everything with very litte conditions but terrible outcomes. The reality does not have much to do with a special government, religion, or whatever convoluted explanation you want to find. The answer is right there in plain sight; expect you cannot really say it because of strong enforcement of the public discourse.

If that was not clear, I am saying that women are the variable that is messing everything up, and as a recipient of this reality I think anyone who believe otherwise is either a fool or politically motivated for some reason.

[theGnuMe]

Europe has a better social safety network and wants people to have more kids.

[mensetmanusman]

Germany has the same fertility rate as Japan.

[dangus]

Sweden is a better example. Incredible parental support, high birth rates compared to the rest of Europe.

(Personally, I don’t think high birth rates are a good thing. The long term survival of our species depends on curtailing global population. But that’s a different subject.)

[pb7]

How is it a better example? A better example to fit your narrative you mean.

Clearly parental support is not directly correlated with high birth rates.

[xctr94]

Germany has very good support for parents, and has been working hard to reverse the downwards fertility trend. Some progress is showing. (Note that I don’t disagree that Sweden is doing better.)

[jokethrowaway]

> and wants people to have more kids.

That doesn't seem to be the case. The last 60 years saw plenty of anti family propaganda (same like in the US) and the numbers confirm that trend.

The only people keeping the number of kids per family high are immigrants from Africa / Middle East who haven't been indoctrinated for 60 years.

[dukeyukey]

How many African and Middle Eastern immigrants do you think the US currently has?

I'll give you a hint - it's quite a lot less than the number of Mormons in the US. Who are a group significantly whiter than the US general population, and with higher birth rates to boot.

[lazide]

Also disportionately represented in our national security apparatus apparently - https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/lx3plx/til_t...

[corethree]

Yes hyper individuality is part of it. The other part of it is gender equality. For most of human civilization genders were not equal so both sexes evolved traits that are also unequal.

The most glaring trait responsible for lack of marriage is female hypergamy. Previously women being of generally unequal/lower status then men and overall a smaller pool of candidates (no online dating) would be forced to be more egalitarian in mate selection. It was easy for a woman to find a man who got paid more than them because this was most men.

Now that women are doing better and having relatively more equal pay with men hypergamy is rearing it's head in a more pronounced fashion. Female selection preferences are much more strict because if women are getting paid equally with men then they must find men that are paid more as well and this is obviously a much smaller pool than when women had no jobs.

This along with exposure to the top men via online dating, women can now match with the top men in the entire city rather then the top men in her social circle. And this is exactly what you see in the online dating statistics.

The top 20% of men match with the top 80% of women and the bottom 20% of women match with the bottom 80% of men. I mean as progressive as you want to be there's no denying what I'm saying here as this data is just glaring. It spits in the face of people who say otherwise as it's measuring current dating behavior. Individualism is part of the story because it does push for more power for women overall. But it is in the end this individualism among women that is changing the game in the US. But not just the US, other countries as well.

So what's going on is you have a few men who have an abundance of choice. They're never going to settle because when men have an abundance of choice they switch their mating strategy from monogamy to harlem style polygamy. And then the rest of the men have a much harder time finding anyone at all.

This is actually more beneficial to women from certain theoretical perspectives. In anthropology there's a saying that monogamy benefits men while polygamy benefits women and general female behavior shows it. Basically for the best genes and resources, women generally prefer to "share" a top alpha man with other women over being in an exclusive monogamous relationship with a beta male.

Men on the other hand don't accept this strategy because they are providers of resources. If a woman sleeps with another man then the partner may end up raising and spending resources on another mans child. Thus all men have intense instincts to basically end an entire relationship once a woman has a single sexual affair.

You can actually see how this behavior plays out in certain countries like Japan where women are totally ok with their husbands fucking prostitutes. As long as that man "loves" them and is providing resources for them, fucking a prostitute without love is totally ok for japanese women. Source: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/i9qS5vDXLSI

Basically we live in an era of changing social norms and it's accelerating natural selection. The majority of men born today will not pass on their genes. Traits of alpha males including height, confidence will be expressed to a greater extent in future generations and it's possible for the trend to continue roughly culling the bottom 80% of men out of the evolutionary process.

Women are slowly getting the upper hand in terms of natural selection, and for men to get the upper hand usually they have to reintroduce monogamy back into the society as this guarantees a mate for every man. Monogamy is the more beneficial strategy to men overall because very few men can actually benefit from polygamy just by the nature of the way numbers work. Monogamous restrictions are pervasive enough throughout human civilization that some women have even evolved monogamous instincts via sexual selection as men actually actively seek these traits out in women.

This is basically what's going on from the most scientific point of view. It's not politically correct so a lot of people vehemently disagree. Of course everything I say here is speaking to a general truth. There are plenty of exceptions but those exceptions do not negate the existence of the general truth.

[reaperman]

> if women are getting paid equally with men then they must find men that are paid more as well and this is obviously a much smaller pool than when women had no jobs.

Well-paid women are much more likely to date men who make less than them. What matters today is that the household is happy and overall has enough financial stability between both earners combined.

> switch their mating strategy from monogamy to harlem style polygamy. And then the rest of the men have a much harder time finding anyone at all.

*harem, not Harlem. Also "harem-style" polygamy is rare in the USA, the most common form by far is "kitchen-table polygamy". In this version, it's actually easier for arbitrary random men to find mates because women in stable poly relationships happily have sex with a wide variety of men "on the side", and can carve out space and time to give those men chances to earn a strong relationship with those women.

> Thus all men have intense instincts to basically end an entire relationship once a woman has a single sexual affair.

Anywhere "affair" is a thing, anyone has intense instincts to end the relationship, because of a catastrophic breakdown of trust. In the vast majority of poly relationships in the USA, women having sex with other men isn't an "affair" and doesn't trigger this type of reaction.

[corethree]

>Well-paid women are much more likely to date men who make less than them. What matters today is that the household is happy and overall has enough financial stability between both earners combined.

Of course the stats play out this way. But it doesn't change the fact women WANT to date men who get paid higher than them.

Think about it. Men do not care how much a woman gets paid. In fact they have a slight preference for women who get paid less. So given that a rich woman has the same attraction level on average as a poor woman, their performance will be on average identical. Meaning they date a man with the same average salary.

Then of course rich women on average will be more likely to have more money than a man with an average salary. Use your critical thinking here. The statistics have to play out this way.

But none of it changes what women want and none of it changes female behavior. We want men who are better than us. We want the best and we demand it.

>harem, not Harlem. Also "harem-style" polygamy is rare in the USA, the most common form by far is "kitchen-table polygamy". In this version, it's actually easier for arbitrary random men to find mates because women in stable poly relationships happily have sex with a wide variety of men "on the side", and can carve out space and time to give those men chances to earn a strong relationship with those women.

Assume that agreed upon polygamy is so rare that it's existence is negligible. I'm talking about people who get married to multiple wives.

What is common is hookup culture. This is the real "polygamy" in the US right now. So take for example my hypergamous instincts make me desire this really hot rich guy. But that guy is so desirable that he has many many options. On some level I know this but it doesn't matter... I want him and I don't mind the fact that he fucked other women and he doesn't mind who I fucked either because he's an alpha male who has an abundance of choice.

The average male who I don't care for and is invisible to me, usually tries to get into an ltr. It's the best option for him due to a dearth of choices. For him it is critical that the woman he is with did not have intercourse with anyone else. This isn't some "thing" I made up that desire in men is scientifically verified to be a distinct instinct than women. Yes. Science as in actual science not some hand wavy stuff that's from most of your reply.

>Anywhere "affair" is a thing, anyone has intense instincts to end the relationship, because of a catastrophic breakdown of trust. In the vast majority of poly relationships in the USA, women having sex with other men isn't an "affair" and doesn't trigger this type of reaction.

Wrong. Again human emotions stem from primal desires and instincts not from arbitrary rules of trust. The topic you are going on about has been studied and the studies show you are utterly and completely wrong. Stop looking at official polygamous marriages. Agreements like that are so rare it's negligible. This is the point: Men are not ok with women having sexual affairs in general and women are a bit more on with it and these two differences stem from biology not some made up relationship rules. Citation:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/per.654 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/14747049060040...

This also explains my emotions. Why I'm more willing to hook up with a man who's done well with a lot of woman and why men in general don't like to marry women with high body counts.

[ckrapu]

An assumption here is that attractive men both pair with women at a higher rate and also have more children. I don't see any reason that's the case - the very largest families I am aware of in my extended social circle belong to men who are not necessarily the greatest catches.

[corethree]

>An assumption here is that attractive men both pair with women at a higher rate and also have more children. I don't see any reason that's the case - the very largest families I am aware of in my extended social circle belong to men who are not necessarily the greatest catches.

Three things.

1. Attractive is not physical attraction. While men are visual women have different criteria for attraction that is much more multivariate. Wealth, confidence, looks, power, personality. Generally, overall social status and height are the two most consistent metrics for female attraction preferences.

2. What I'm describing is a recent phenomenon. A gradual shift that we're seeing in the last decade or so, so relationships established at the beginning of 2010 and before tend to be more traditional/conservative.

3. Birth control changes the game. Evolution manifests procreation as both a conscious desire to have children and as sexual urges from men and women. Thus I may be incorrect here. It may be that thanks to birth control alpha men may not spread their progeny as much and that people in healthy monogamous relationships end up creating the next generation as hook up culture essentially is an evolutionary dead end with birth control.

[hadlock]

> 2. What I'm describing is a recent phenomenon. A gradual shift that we're seeing in the last decade or so, so relationships established at the beginning of 2010 and before tend to be more traditional/conservative.

There is room for considerable bias here;

1. Most generations consider their immediate neighbors more and less conservative, going back and forward respectively

2. People become more conservative with age; particularly when major investments are in play such as a home purchase and having children. It's a small coincidence that children and mortgages both take about 20 years to come to fruition.

[corethree]

>There is room for considerable bias here;

Agreed. But the issue with bias is that the biased person is unable to visualize their own bias. They always think the other party is biased. Unfortunately I believe that out of both of us here, the bias actually lies with you but you're unable to see it. Here's why:

>1. Most generations consider their immediate neighbors more and less conservative, going back and forward respectively

Yeah, but i'm not talking about that. I'm talking about a general trend towards liberalism. The past decade brought about a general liberal movement outside of the one where people get more conservative with age.

That much is obvious. Society is shifting towards more and more woke-ism, feminism which is good in some ways but in other ways it's becoming extremist on those fronts. It's so extreme that many of the liberal policies in California are causing an exodus where people move to more conservative states like arizona and texas.

>2. People become more conservative with age; particularly when major investments are in play such as a home purchase and having children. It's a small coincidence that children and mortgages both take about 20 years to come to fruition.

I'm talking Monogamy and polygamy. Not finances or investments or law. For example in the 60s women sex before marriage was not normal. Now a body count of 5+ among women before marriage is considered normal. But you realize this has nothing to do with mortgages, children or major investments.

The bias here lies with the fact that you see things through the lens of politics. I'm talking about anthropology and biology. It's human Behavior and psychology... Not politics.

[withinboredom]

There are a metric shit ton of assumptions in here that I’m not sure are true. The truth of the matter is that women tend to work together and men… not so much. Once you see the whole picture, I can see how you can see the world through such a perverse lens.

Sadly, I’m about to hop off the train, but if someone replies that they are interested, I’ll provide a writup that will surprise you.

[boppo1]

> writeup

please; I'm always keen on counterpoints to /r9k/ ideology

[withinboredom]

Replied here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37987210

[corethree]

Hold on. This isn't ideology. These are just points and I have nothing against men. It's just facts. Just because I say these things and just because I'm a woman doesn't mean I hate men.

It's unfortunate that these things are happening to men but that's just reality.

Please be logical and rational rather than accusatory.

[corethree]

None of what I said is assumed. It's well defined theories of human behavior from both evolutionary psychology and anthropology.

I am simply regurgitating academic facts. This is markedly different from "assumptions."

[withinboredom]

There is nothing "academic" about what you posted. If it was, there would be footnotes and sources where you mentioned things... that being said...

Assumptions.

You assume that most of human history that women were not equal. This is actually, quite false[1]. Only in recent western history were they unequal. This by no means dismisses the fact that women were, in fact, oppressed for several dozen of the last generations and for most of the western world. However, this is NOT long enough to create any kind of genetic pressure.

> In anthropology there's a saying that monogamy benefits men while polygamy benefits women...

I googled this "saying" and it was only your post that came up. Did you just make this up? lol

> If a woman sleeps with another man then the partner may end up raising and spending resources on another mans child.

Sure, if you have the emotional maturity of a 16 year old, this makes a lot of sense.

> Thus all men have intense instincts to basically end an entire relationship once a woman has a single sexual affair.

No, these are not "instincts", they are a loss of trust in a partner and no relationship can survive if there isn't trust. Open relationships exist, polygamy is a thing. I can assure you.

> where women are totally ok with their husbands fucking prostitutes

I think this just proves my point... trust is essential. Sex is just sex unless you attach something special to it.

> Basically we live in an era of changing social norms and it's accelerating natural selection.

I would absolutely love to see a citation for how natural selection is "accelerating" because, if anything, it is the opposite. We're having fewer children in most developed countries, not more.[2]

:sigh:

Let me tell you what is actually going on now. Women tend to work together, more so than men[3]. What this means, is that there are entire communities where they talk about who they go on dates with. I'm not even making this up.[4] This means if you are a creep, no one will date you because you are a creep. Do something stupid, every woman will know about it on your next date. So, no, there isn't some mysterious "beta" or "alpha" bullshit, it's just that women are smart enough to work together to make sure they don't date the wrong person.

Your entire comment is built on a pile of assumptions and leaps of logic that are barely coherent, with no references to back them up.

[1]: https://phys.org/news/2023-10-prehistoric-gender-roles-women...

[2]: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-46118103

[3]: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0956797620956632

[4]: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/are-we-dating-the-s...

[seec]

You are hilarious. Most of what you say makes no sense and has little relation to what is observable in the real world. But the funniest thing is about how women supposedly work together, when everyone knows and experience that men make teams while women create clicks. If you have ever done sports or any collaborative activity, you know very much you do not want to be the guy left alone with too many women. Even if they have similar capabilities; there is no way their ego won't go in the way. Women do not work together at all; they gossip to gain knowledge on current affairs that they will potentially translate to power. They will cheer for their enemy that they secretly hate and all kinds of duplicitous behavior. This is something that is extremely well represented in literature, movies and TV shows. But I guess the authors are hallucinating or living in a complete parallel world where women are much worse than they are in reality? I mean, come on...

[corethree]

>You assume that most of human history that women were not equal. This is actually, quite false[1].

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2021.67680...

You present a source with women being hunters. I never denied this. I here present a source of female and male unequal-ness as a comprehensive study across time and culture. Which do you think is more relevant to the conversation at hand? Which resource was strategically picked to fulfill some biased agenda? Obviously not the comprehensive study.

>I googled this "saying" and it was only your post that came up. Did you just make this up? lol

I googled it too and found multiple resources within minutes. The reason you didn't find it is obvious. You're not conducting a logical search with intent. You're conducting a biased search. You don't agree with me so you don't want to find a source. So subconciously you spend less effort and end up finding nothing. Typical.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-scientific-funda... https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2015/polygyny_health...

What happens next is when presented with sources against his own agenda the naysayer starts to nitpick. Starts to find as many flaws with the source as he can.

Where this saying came from. Where I first heard it was in the UCLA anthropology department. It was stated by the professor and the text book. The professor btw, was female, and so am i.

>Sure, if you have the emotional maturity of a 16 year old, this makes a lot of sense.

This isn't a response. It's an attack please present evidence. It's called paternity fraud and it's a real genetic strategy both in humans and in animals.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternity_fraud

https://canadiancrc.com/newspaper_articles/Globe_and_Mail_Mo...

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-jun-02-op-zuk.r...

>No, these are not "instincts", they are a loss of trust in a partner and no relationship can survive if there isn't trust. Open relationships exist, polygamy is a thing. I can assure you.

Polygamy is a thing. I didn't deny this in my arguments. It exists but it is beneficial to women not to men.

>I would absolutely love to see a citation for how natural selection is "accelerating" because, if anything, it is the opposite. We're having fewer children in most developed countries, not more.[2]

Having fewer children is part of natural selection. It means the children that were not "had" are naturally selected out. Natural selection happens either by not being born or being killed before reproduction. I don't think you understand.

When countries have fewer children it means MORE children are being UNSELECTED. and the natural selection process is becoming more vicious and thus "accelerating".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_selection

>Your entire comment is built on a pile of assumptions and leaps of logic that are barely coherent, with no references to back them up.

I posted sources.

>Let me tell you what is actually going on now. Women tend to work together, more so than men[3]. What this means, is that there are entire communities where they talk about who they go on dates with. I'm not even making this up.[4] This means if you are a creep, no one will date you because you are a creep. Do something stupid, every woman will know about it on your next date. So, no, there isn't some mysterious "beta" or "alpha" bullshit, it's just that women are smart enough to work together to make sure they don't date the wrong person.

Yes that society is our current society. We have entire facebook groups where we identify and red flag men who we don't want to date. As a woman we only want to date alphas. I won't date someone who makes less than me. Alphas exist in the animal world, it makes no sense to suddenly deny the existence of alphas in the human world.

Clearly there are men who are more powerful and more attractive than others. Those men are basically "alphas". Women like you and me tend to work together to improve our own successes. That means polygamous relationships with the top men. This is what I want and this is what you want.

What confuses me is that often your arguments are in agreement with mine. I don't think you're maintaining a logical stream of consistent thought.

[withinboredom]

> I don't think you're maintaining a logical stream of consistent thought.

Apologies, I'm typing this on a busy train.

We are, in fact, in agreement on much. However, we are viewing reality through different lenses.

> I here present a source of female and male unequal-ness as a comprehensive study across time and culture.

It seems to focus mostly on the last 1-2k years, and not so much on the hundreds of thousands of years before that. You said:

> For MOST of human civilization genders were not equal so both sexes evolved traits that are also unequal.

(emphasis mine). For most of human civilization, was a very, very long time and most written records have (unfortunately) been lost prior to a few thousand years ago. That was the part I was rebutting, because it was an invalid premise that is then used to deduce that there was some kind of genetic pre-disposition that was used throughout the remainder of your comment.

> I googled it too and found multiple resources within minutes.

I couldn't find the quote: "monogamy benefits men while polygamy benefits women and general female behavior shows it" since you made it sound like it was a popular thing. I admit, I didn't bother researching the entire topic, since it wasn't "a saying".

I'm not debating who it is useful for, I was saying that it is a non-issue. Women and men cheat, and cheating is when one person in a relationship breaks the rules of that relationship. It doesn't matter if it is an open relationship, monogamous relationship, polygamous relationship, friends with benefits, swingers, platonic friendship, or whatever. If you break the rules, you can't be trusted and the relationship must be ended.

In a monogamous relationship, one of those rules is usually against sex with another person. There's no "instincts" there, they broke the rules. End of discussion. The fact that it was sexual intercourse is a non-issue. The rules of the relationship were broken.

> It's an attack please present evidence.

I present to you: adoption. It's when a man (or woman) raises another man's child as their own. The adopted even get to inherit property in some parts of the world.

> As a woman we only want to date alphas. I won't date someone who makes less than me. Alphas exist in the animal world, it makes no sense to suddenly deny the existence of alphas in the human world.

Well, there is no such thing as "alphas." This comes from a debunked paper that got popular 50 years ago ... we are not wolves and even wolves don't have "alpha males" in the popular sense.[1] A pack of wolves is simply a family and it makes sense that mom & dad would/should be the only ones having sex instead of brothers/sisters. Even when it is a mixed family, the breeding pair changes, come and go.

Instead of saying that women want "alphas," I think it is simpler to just state the reality of the situation: women want men who can pay child support / alimony, in the event things go sideways. When shit hits the fan, you don't want a hot guy with no future (maybe sometimes, actually), you want a guy who can (monetarily) care for your children that you'll be inevitably stuck with because our society sucks at taking care of single mothers. Women have even come up with creative solutions to ensure they don't end up with "losers" getting them pregnant. Fixing society's issues here is probably the way to unfuck large portions of our society, but it is unlikely to happen because it is stuck in a feedback loop -- there is still a patriarchy who has no desire to fix this.

Anyway, like I said, I think we are saying the same stuff, just different ways of seeing it.

[1]: https://www.wolf.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/267alphastat...

[kelseyfrog]

Women's perspective here: this is a very beta perspective on mating strategies. Easy pass.

Curious though, have you thought about changing your perspective to increase your evolutionary fitness?

[BigRedDog1669]

You are right, but kind of proving their point by not engaging with the content and dismissing it. As a women you can sit back passively and pass on people, while the men have to put in the effort and come to you.

Edit: The question was added to their comment after I clicked reply.

[corethree]

I'm a girl. This perspective is literally talking about the benefits to our gender.

[oasisaimlessly]

One of your 20%'s was probably intended to be 80%.

That aside, yeah; we live in an interesting time. Sadly, technological progress, equality, and monogamy are all positively correlated, so despite some acceleration of natural selection, this is surely a net negative for society.

[corethree]

> One of your 20%'s was probably intended to be 80%.

corrected, thanks.

[Racing0461]

You'll be downvoted on this website, but you spoke nothing but facts.

###

I'll sum this up.

The female's mating strategy is the dual mating strategy (genetics vs resources). Historically women had to find some balance in this (should i marry the prince or the struggling artist - plot of tianic). Modern society satifies the resources side of the equation (whether that be overt welfare or covert welfare (getting a student loan + going to college + paper pushing corporate job)), leaving women the freedom to completely maximize the genetics side. The men providing the genetics side has no incentive to stick around to fulfill the resources side.