[quote]nephorm wrote:
[quote]Gettnitdone wrote:
Let me make sure I understand what you’re saying… you’re using the argument that hot chicks don’t want to assume an opportunity cost so decide to “invest” in marriage early? That would assume:
A) hot chicks become unattractive quite quickly (for the practical time frame we’re using)
B) the rate in A) is marginally faster for hot chicks than the average woman, who is her competition
and C) marriage is an investment generating returns.
We’re arguing from the stand-point of choosing a mate so C) probably isn’t relevant but a hot chick definitely has a greater “production possibility frontier” between the enjoyment of single life and quality of partner. This is more true if we stipulate that marriage has a cost (loss of sexual freedom, etc) and benefit in the form of offspring. Assuming there is no internal battle for mates between hot chicks (there are numerous quality mates) then my argument makes more “sense” than yours. [/quote]
First, let me clarify that my comment about having a semi-functioning brain was not a shot at you. I realized it could be interpreted that way after I posted it.
So your argument is that her rational strategy is to enjoy sexual freedom until her age makes her about equivalently attractive to her more average competitors, at which point she enters the market?
The rate of declining “value” in looks does not have to be faster for hot chicks than the average woman, because her competition isn’t just other women within her cohort, her competition for the best men will be women that are younger than she is. A 35 year old woman is competing with 22-25 year old women for a desirable 35 year old man. If all the man selects for is attractiveness and potential for offspring, he’s much better off taking the younger woman, who is more likely to remain attractive for longer than the older woman.
Economic actors compromise, of course, but isn’t it a better long-term strategy to maximize your partner selection? But of course, if you’re assuming that there’s no internal battle, i.e., no competition, then there is no market because there is no scarcity. If we have a surplus of quality men, in this hetero-normative hypothetical of ours, then you’re right, a woman is better off waiting until she has just enough child bearing years left to have the number of children she wants, at which point she can wander out into the street, grab a random man by the collar, and head to the justice of the peace. The difference is that I don’t stipulate the surplus. [/quote]
I fear we’re detracting from the original statement, namely, the theory attractive women should wait longer to marry/have offspring (let’s say the two are mutually inclusive and occur simultaneously) because their attractiveness enables them to scout a greater sample of the male gene pool.
You made a very good point about competition between older and younger attractive females. I will admit I failed to consider it. That theory could very well help explain why some young attractive females marry early in their adult lives, an observation I initially made that led me to make the comment about the hot chick’s `theoretical’ reality, which you quoted.
Maybe I complicated the argument by introducing the opportunity cost of sexual freedom (probably not accounted for in old-school anthropology). The more I think about it the more inclined I am to eliminate any attractiveness distinction between females talking about marriage and mating besides the primary hard-to-dispute comment that attractive females have better quality mating choices than the average woman. I’d have to approach any pattern discussions from a deduction stand-point and look at scientific facts (statistic) first before attempting to draw up any theories. Obviously, none of these studies exist. How do we distinguish between attractive, average and unattractive scientifically?
