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Love and Mate Selection:What’s Love Got To DoWith It??

whitepartof theeye),whichissuggestive

of goodgenes.Masculinefeaturessuchasa

strongjaw,narrowhips,andmuscular

build,whichsuggesthightestosteroneand

fertility,arealsoattractivetowomen.

Denisiuk went on to suggest men have

their own criteria for judging the

attractiveness of women.What men tend

to find attractive in a woman are full lips,

full breasts,and full hips,as well as smaller

waists—all indicative of a woman’s

estrogen level and her ability to bear

children.Sidebar 5.2 presents an

interesting theory of mate selection as it

relates to the sense of smell.

Parental Involvement.Some proponents

of the evolutionary theory of mate

selection suggest the differences in what

men and women find attractive in a mate

are based on their potential parental

involvement.These theorists believe that

since women tend to be the primary

caretakers of their children,they tend to

be more selective about the men they

choose,in order to improve the survival of

their offspring.

Thisevolutionarytheorypurportsthat

menaregenerallylessinvolvedin

childrearing,sotheycanaffordtobeless

choosyaboutamate(Eagly&Wood,

1999).

Psychodynamic Theory

Accordingtothepsychodynamic theory

of mateselection,our parentshavea great

dealtodowith our choiceof a mate.

Psychodynamic theory hasgrown out of

thework of SigmundFreud,CarlJung

(pronouncedYung),andothers.It suggests

SIDEBAR5.2
ISITALL INYOURNOSE?

A Swiss zoologist who tested women’s responses
to men’s sweaty T-shirts has found that women
are attracted to the scent of men who are most
unlike them in an array of immune system genes
calledMHC(majorhistocompatibilitycomplex),
andthatthismayinfluencematechoice.Thesame
type of study conducted with mice found that
pregnant mice prefer the familiar odor of MHC-
similarmales.Itishypothesizedthatnestingwith
relatives may provide support and protection for
the mother and her young. Interestingly, women
who are on the Pill, which raises estrogen levels
andsimulatespregnancy,alsopreferredtheodorof
MHC-similarmales.Thisbringsupthepossibility
thatodorperceptioninpregnancyplaysadifferent
function—that of choosing cooperative partners
andwould-berelatives.
So, what are the benefits of choosing MHC-
dissimilar mates? It seems that MHC-dissimilar
mateshaveahigherfertilityrate,producehardier
offspring with more effective immune systems,
and have a reduced risk of genetic diseases. In
otherwords,fromanevolutionarystandpoint,the
more dissimilar the parents are genetically, the
healthier the offspring, the lower the observance
ofgeneticdisorders,andthegreaterthelikelihood
for survival.Darwin’ssurvivalof thefittest!
Whilethisdoesnotprovidedefinitiveanswers
on mate selection, it does bring up an interesting
question:ismateselectioninoursocietyalteredby
thenumberof youngwomenwhoareonthePill?
Source:Wedekind and Furi 1987,1471–1479.