What Women Are Looking For

(in a man.)

Since you, reader, are almost certainly a young woman, in one sense it doesn't matter to you what women in general are looking for, all that matters is what you are looking for.

There is another sense, however, in which it does matter, what "women in general" are looking for, because the men who have that something are going to be much more popular, as a husband selection, than others. And this means that you will have lots of competition to get those men; or, to state it another way, those men are going to have lots of choices.

So, what do women want?

First, they tend to value what men value, namely looks, and for the same reason: looks are an important indicator of health and good genes.

But for women, there are other things that are at least as important, or more so, than looks. Namely, the probability of being a good provider. (Remember, we're not necessarily talking about you here: we're talking about most women.) In the ancestral environment (ie hunter-gatherer life), it was just as hard as it is today to be a single mother. Harder, because life was harder. The risks of starvation and other dangers were rarely absent.

What indicators are there of whether a man will be a good provider? Well, if he is rich, that's a good start. And since, unless we're talking about a very wealthy family, you probably don't want to marry someone who is old enough to be rich, then pre-rich is the best bet. And what is pre-rich? The young men who are most likely to become rich are those who are college-educated (or in process), and are hardworking and ambitious. My personal theory is that popularity with their peers (other young men) is also a good indicator, because that predicts doing well in a corporate environment, which most people are in, of one type or another.