“who are roughly three and a half years older.” Buss also claims that women have acquired a preference for men who show signs of ambition, intelligence and stability. In Buss’s worldwide study women rated each of these traits as more important than men did. Women also show a propensity for men who show signs of good health, strength and athletic prowess. Buss claims that this is due to evolution favoring those women who choose men who were successful as hunters and defenders of their family. Good health was also important due to the chance that a male could pass on genes for poor health to her young. Finally, women desire a high level of commitment from a mate. This ensures that a male’s resources are channeled to his family and will not be channeled elsewhere. What males’ desire in a mate is immensely different from females and is often juxtaposed. “Since all an ancestral man needed to do to reproduce was to impregnate a woman, casual sex without commitment would have sufficed for him.” However, Buss argues, that men committing to a relationship also served an adaptive advantage. For one, women often require a male’s commitment before agreeing to sex and secondly, by committing to a monogamous relationship a male better ensures the health and well being of his offspring. Men, according to Buss, search out women who have the capacity for bearing many children. Men, consequently, developed a basis for which to judge a female’s reproductive capacity. One way a man judges a female’s reproductive value is age. “Youth is a critical cue…” to a woman’s reproductive value. As a Woman’s ability to produce children declines with the onset of old age so does her desirability. Buss’s thirty-seven-culture study showed that on average men desire wives that are approximately 2.5 years younger than they are. Men also look to physical beauty a...
