Mate Selection – Even Elephants Have Their Favorites (Helen Fisher)



What’s the big deal?

As I searched for sources on love, I found an overwhelming amount that discussed mate selection.  They had so many different themes, that I could not possibly link them all together.  I chose to only highlight the few that I thought applied to my friends Ellie and Bekah.  Still, as I was writing this post, I couldn’t help but remember back to our first class when we listened to the Ted Talk by Helen Fisher.  She was arguing that even animals experience love, and her prime example was that elephants can spot their favorite mate across great distances and prefer to mate with that particular elephant on multiple occasions.  While I feel like that claim is a bit ridiculous, I think it is an interesting concept for a title and for a starting point when discussing mate selection.

Cobb, Larson, and Watson write, “Few other choices may become as strong an epicenter for consequences that ripple out across the lifespan of the couple and of the marriage” (2003: 222).  From a very young age, we are taught the importance of choosing the right partner.  Little girls, especially, are told that their wedding is their special day, their perfect day to be a princess.  In order for that to happen, we must find a prince, the perfect man.  We are also given messages about who are appropriate partners.  I distinctly remember during my sophomore year my mom telling me that you don’t find your husband in high school, you find him in college.  Similar messages can be found on the internet, especially on sites like Pinterest. 

 

Pictured above: My boyfriend (Doug) and me going to our Senior Prom in high school. We started dating when we were Juniors and we’re still together.  We’re not engaged or married, but I think the longevity of our relationship contrasts the assumption that a high school romance can’t possibly last.

Pictured above: A common message on Pinterest, that reads, “Highschool is not a time to find your groom, it’s a time to find your bridesmaids.”  This sends a very clear message about who are considered to be inappropriate marriage partners.

Media’s influence

Despite such a high divorce rate and extremely short marriages becoming ever more common (celebrities like Britney Spears and Kim Kardashian come to mind), we are often still socialized as children to believe that marriage should last forever.  This means that mate selection is extremely important.  After all, who would want to screw up forever?  I think this idea is changing more every year, but it was still very common for my friends and myself.  Whether or not we agree with all of the messages telling us who to choose – and more emphatically, who NOT to choose – as a marriage partner, I think that Cobb, Larson, and Watson do have a point.  A marriage partner or a life partner will inevitably leave “ripples” in your life, even after the relationship has ended.  You’ll always have those memories of being together, of your favorite places and songs, of your big fights, and a million other things.  If you have children together, this tie is especially strong and complicated in ways that I couldn’t possibly cover in this post.  But my point is that mate selection is still viewed as something that is extremely important, no matter how many times we go through the process in our life.

The work involved in mate selection is rather obvious: you must find the perfect mate, then make him/her love you and commit to you.  It sounds relatively simple, but the real-life process is much more complicated.  Sometimes, it’s enough to drive a person crazy.  Many romantic comedies focus on this exact topic: a woman trying to find the perfect man, hilarity ensues because of her crazy notions of love, at some point she gives up, and fate finally brings him into her life.  Watch ABC Family, the Hallmark Channel, or Lifetime, and you’ll see so many of these story lines that you go numb.  I was quite surprised, then, that there is no literature on the influence of romantic comedies on mate selection.  I think that would be an extremely interesting study, but I’ll have to leave that to someone else.

Sexually selective cognition – looking for Belle and McDreamy

Maner, Kenrick, Becker, Delton, Hofer, Wilbur, and Neuberg describe sexually selective cognition, how both men and women are predisposed to find attractive – as measured by cultural beauty standards – people when they walk into a room (2003: 1107).  The authors argue that we are more likely to spot and recall these strangers (Maner et al. 2003: 1107).  Interestingly, both men and women are more likely to find attractive women, say at a party of strangers (Maner et al. 2003: 1108).  It would seem that men are looking for Belle and women for McDreamy; we notice attractive people as potential partners and hope to pursue a relationship with them. 

Despite this predisposition, the authors note that we are not necessarily more likely to marry attractive people.  They reference psychological anthropology to explain that attractiveness has historically been an outward sign of health and fertility in women, which might explain why men are more likely to seek out attractive partners (Maner et al. 2003: 1109).  Women, however, are more drawn to men with whom they think they can have a lasting, supportive, and emotionally-based relationship (Maner et al. 2003: 1109).  Thus, the authors seem to explain that mate selection strategies differ and why ‘love at first sight’ generally occurs between attractive people.  Perhaps Romeo and Juliet were simply using sexually selective cognition.  The work by these authors suggests that had the couple died so young, they probably would not have lasted in a long-term relationship.  So the next time you hear someone say they want a love like Romeo and Juliet, you should warn them that’s probably not the relationship they want to strive toward.

Social-moral attitudes

Lacey, Reifman, Scott, Harris, and Fitzpatrick describe three main social-moral attitudes pertaining to potential relationships between love and sex:

the traditional, recreational, and relational groups. Respondents in the traditional category felt their religious beliefs were the guiding force behind their sexual behavior and were the most conservative on all sexual attitudes. Individuals in the recreational category believed sex does not have to have anything to do with love and were the most liberal in their sexual attitudes. Relational respondents believed sex should be part of a loving relationship but not necessarily in marriage (2004: 121).

These belief systems influence and inform love styles (Lacey et al. 2004: 122).  Thus, our attitudes about love and sex very clearly influence what we look for in a mate and what we are comfortable with in a relationship.

A year of weddings

Last year, I was in three weddings.  My two best friends, Ellie and Bekah, both got married.  Doug’s brother also got married.  In addition to the actual wedding, my life was filled with engagement announcements, bridal showers, and wedding planning.  You see, once we have chosen the perfect mate, we can no longer proceed on our own.  We now need the help of family and friends, because planning a wedding has been such a production that we need all the help we can get to tackle the work (See Emily Capilouto’s paper for a better exploration of this).  A big part of this process is documenting the relationship – recording forever that you have chosen the right mate.  Naturally, this means engagement photos.  I decided to include a few of Ellie and Bekah’s engagement pictures because I think they send some very clear images of what it means to find the perfect guy. 

Disclaimer: This may sound cynical, and it is not a reflection of how I feel about my friends finding love and happiness.  I simply detest weddings and bridal parties.  Nonetheless, I am happy for my friends who have been married for almost a year now.  I’m also grateful that they allowed me to use their engagement photos, as I think they are important images that signify the end of the mate selection process and the beginning of the marriage phase.



Pictured above: Bekah and Ben; then Ellie and Jake. The happy couples ooze love as they represent that the work of mate selection is complete: they have found their perfect match and are now preparing for marriage.

Bibliography:

Cobb, Nathan P., Jeffry H. Larson, and Wendy L. Watson

2003 Development of the Attitudes About Romance and Mate Selection Scale. Family Relations 52(3): 222–231.

Lacey, Rachel Saul, Alan Reifman, Jean Pearson Scott, Steven M. Harris, and Jacki Fitzpatrick

2004 Sexual-moral Attitudes, Love Styles, and Mate Selection. Journal of Sex Research 41(2): 121–128.

 

Maner, Jon K., Douglas T. Kenrick, D. Vaughn Becker, Andrew W. Delton, Brain Hofer, Christopher J. Wilbur, and Steven l. Neuberg

2003 Sexually Selective Cognition: Beauty Captures the Mind of the Beholder. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 85(6): 1107–1120.