Women also prefer emotional stability to attractive appearance, and they prefer intelligence to the desire to have children. Status, emotional stability, and intelligence are less important features for men when they seek a long-term partner. Men emphasize the value of external beauty, youth and physical health, and a desire for children.
In addition, studies indicate that women are more selective and demanding than men when choosing a life partner. One reason is that women have more to lose in making a bad choice. The poet Margaret Atwood once said: “Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid men will kill them.” Women are more vulnerable, and so they need to be more cautious. The one who is going to invest more and take a greater risk necessarily examines the investment more carefully.
In conclusion, we understand quite well the basic calculations people use to identify a group of potential candidates from which to pick a mate. In contrast, there is no scientific answer yet to the “final selection” question: how do we choose just one from a group of suitable candidates?
These four factors operate, independently, in both men and women; but for the first three, significant differences were found between the sexes
The laws of selecting candidates, it turns out, do not apply to the final selection phase. For example, as mentioned earlier, the most powerful law of attraction at the ‘candidate selection’ stage is that we are drawn to people who resemble us. If the same law was to hold in the “final selection” stage, we could predict that from a group of rather similar candidates, the one most similar to us will be picked. We may also assume that the choices of people who are very similar will be similar as well. But research findings refute these assumptions. It turns out that we do not choose the one most like us from the candidate group. In addition, researchers David Lykken and Auke Tellegen have shown in the nineties that the wives of identical twins are not at all alike. Twins do not tend to covet their co-twins’ wives. The wives, for their part, are not particularly attracted to their husbands’ twin brothers. These results imply that biology and society direct us to the right store, one that has items to fit our budget, taste, and needs. Biology and society, however, cannot determine which item we buy. That, we decide on our own.
The winner-the final selection among all the worthy candidates-is decided by a subjective internal process that is obscure and whimsical and does not necessarily obey the dictates of rationality, evolutionary mandates, cultural pressures, or even our own conscious will, plans or intentions. At the end of the day, as the philosopher Blaise Pascal said, the heart has reasons that reason doesn’t understand.
Another reason for female selectivity is that bringing an offspring into the world is a much more demanding and dangerous matter for a woman than it is for a man
2. Physical Attraction. Physical beauty is an important life advantage, and it is of fundamental significance in the mating game. Bottom line: You do not want to spend blackcupid your life with someone you find physically repellent. Physical attraction, it turns out, obeys the laws of the market: The best goods cost more, and so buyers do not get what they want but what they can afford. Ultimately, the rich drive the Mercedes, the middle class drives the Toyota and the poor ride the bus. Similarly with physical attractiveness, beautiful people end up with others who are very beautiful, average looking with average looking, etc.
4. Sociability vs. Similar Religion. Someone of the same religion as us will be seen as an attractive choice even if he or she does not possess a particularly sociable character. A potential partner who’s very sociable by nature will attract us even if they don’t share our religious background.