模倣子 Male v. Female Mating Strategies

Memetics Index

There is another factor in terms of mating strategies. A man wants "loyalty" in a woman who is available but will also be having his kids only and not cheating with some other guy whose kids he'll have to bring up, but he also wants to "spread his seed" (which men can do quite widely). This is a bad look for men, i.e., jealousy and promiscuity, but there it is--men don't HAVE to screw around. They can just be loyal.

Women, however, also want the devoted attention of one man (or multiple men--more on that in a bit) but also want her SONS to be the gadabout who spreads HIS seed (and hers) widely, hence they are attracted to the bounder men who sleep around--she wants her SONS to be like that, but not her husband. Per the French film "Les Co-Pères" (excellent, by the way) and the less-excellent American rip-off, "Fathers' Day" [sic] in which a woman whose son runs away calls some of her ex-lovers asking for help, saying, "He might be YOURS." So while men have a couple of strategies, one reprehensible and ultimately not so practical in civilized societies (get a bunch of other women you're not married to to have and raise your babies?...maybe not. François Mitterrand famously had a second family, but presumably this is rare and not well-seen most places). Men probably get the most mileage out of doubling down on attention to one woman (unless they're Genghis Khan or something). Women, however, get advantage from the devotion of one man, but also a bonus from getting sons off of a man who is able to bed a lot of women, and also from cultivating the devotion of a group of steady lovers (see Catherine the Great and a host of others). All of these strategies tend to crowd in on one another, which must make things difficult. You want a loyal man to help raise your babies, supply you with resources, as well as sexual satisfaction, but a group of lovers does this even better (and each man can always suspect that at least some of the babies are actually his), and then get some sons off of some bounder so whatever lady-killer attractiveness he possesses (and attracted YOU to HIM in the first place) shall be passed onto his and your sons, and they will be sexually successful into the next generation.

So the choice seems simpler for men. Getting a woman "in trouble" is such a lose-lose proposition, so focusing on finding a marriage partner seems the way to go, all else being equal. But woman can, all else being equal, potentially garner a lot of benefits from promiscuity. However, as the video points out, it may not be possible to get the good marriage partner and sleep around, or even downshift from sleeping around to seeking a loyal partner, as the proclivity may be deeply-rooted, and men don't want that.