This is not intended to imply that handsome males do not get females who are more attractive than average. Other things being equal they do, because attractive females (a) are bound to accept handsome males sooner than they accept plain males, and (b) are more interested in handsome males than other females are (shown in both humans
15 and birds
58). The implication is, instead, that a husband’s peculiarities—such as eye colour or facial health cues—will match the traits preferred by his attractive wife more often than a wife’s peculiarites will match those preferred by her attractive husband.
That not everyone pairs up with their first choice is painfully obvious in humans and would seem to be the case in other creatures, too. Female cockroaches, for example, become less choosy as they get older
53, showing that they are cranking down their aspiration level based on a reality check. And of course, in none of the experimental studies conducted so far does
every bird
51, fish
3,
4, spider
5, and fruit fly
12 that is expected to have developed an imprinted preference get a mate with the favourite trait. Generalising our data from humans to other species, rather than the other way around as is usually done, one ought to conclude that the fairest members of the choosier sex can afford to act on their imprinted preferences; those a little less fair are forced to relax their standards and selectivity; and the members of the opposite sex can only show off, court, and hope. The nonchoosers’ pick of whom to compete for must still be guided by their own imprinted preferences, yet such preferences will largely be overshadowed by those of the choosers.
Sexual imprinting has been found wherever it has been looked for
51—a testament to its being an extraordinarily popular, possibly quite ancient, mechanism for acquiring mate preferences. The findings discussed here suggest that humans are no exception. And also that, in our own species as in much of the rest of the animal kingdom, who ends up with whom is mostly determined by females.
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