he competitive nature of securing mates in order that we pass on our genes. Men and women want entirely different things, according to Buss. Buss’s claim is that the problems faced by the two sexes are different and therefore the unconscious patterns evolved for men and women would necessarily have to be different. Buss argues that women make a larger parental investment and therefore must look for mates who are willing to commit to a long-term relationship. “A man in human evolutionary history could walk away from a casual coupling having lost only a few hours of time. His reproductive success was not seriously compromised. A woman in evolutionary history could also walk away from a casual encounter, but if she got pregnant as a result, she bore the costs of that decision for months, years, and even decades afterward.” A woman therefore must be very particular about who she chooses as a mate. A woman must first consider a man’s resources. According to Buss, men with a high level of resources are better able at providing food, shelter and fending off rivals. The best indicator today for evaluating a man’s resources is economic assets. In his world wide study, women overall “value financial resources about 100 percent more than men do or roughly twice as much.” Another indicator of a man’s resources is his social status. Men high in social status are more likely to hold power and privilege, an invaluable resource which can often be passed down to descendants. In the world wide study women tended to place more importance in social status than men in prospective mates. The study also showed that men tend to marry downward whereas women tended to prefer a mate of higher social status. Age is also another indicator of a man’s resources due to men generally acquiring higher wages as they age. And again we see in the worldwide study a general tendency for women to prefer men ...
