Discriminating Women

Evolutionary psychologists have long thought that women are choosier than men when it comes to dating because in prehistoric times “dating” was much riskier for women—men could shrug off a one-night-stand, while women who chose an unfit mate could end up with years of motherhood without the help of a stable partner. “That is less true today, yet women remain much more selective,” notes Wray Herbert. “Is this difference a vestige of our early ancestry? Or might it be totally unrelated to reproductive risk, the result of something more modern and mundane?”