I’ve been observing the Christian dating scene, and one thing led to another blog post about the dating market in general. Our long evolutionary story has optimised us for reproductive success, which means (among other things) that males try to outcompete each other for a mate and for resources, and females select suitable males on that basis. Females do the selecting, by inviting males to compete amongst each other to be selected. That is why males are, on average, more interested in status than females are – it is status that gives indications of good genes, and signals to females that males with high status might make good mates.
In the modern age, humans have developed a socio-cultural sophistication that enables them to be driven by things other than genetic biological stimulus - but status is here to stay, and probably always will be. Status doesn't dominate your chances of passing on your genes as it once did in animal hierarchies, but it does play a key part in assortative mating. Because women generally desire socio-economically upwards pursuits in the men with whom they wish to have children, status is a much more important thing for men than it is for women, which is why men are generally far more competitive than women, and why this plays out in workplace statistics too.
In fact, someone (I forget who, possibly a character in a movie) made an interesting observation whilst standing by the Hudson River looking over at the Manhattan skyline - he said that pretty much the whole thing has been designed, bit by bit, by the driving force of the male pursuit of sex and genetic propagation: that it's one big agglomeration of peacocks' tails.
As some of you may know, in the Gaussian distribution of male and female intelligence, male intelligence has a wider curve than the female curve. This means that over the population there is very little difference on average between male and female intelligence, but that men appear slightly more at the extreme ends of each tail. In other words, there are slightly fewer female geniuses but also slightly fewer females who are at the extreme end of low intelligence.
Accepting that intelligence is heritable, it’s likely that this distribution of male and female intelligence has some causal relation to the evolutionary drive for reproductive sense. In terms of supply and demand, the female womb is a scarcer commodity than the sperm of males, which means that successful men can pass on more of their genes than successful women, but also that the success of passing on genes is overall more consistent in women than men. A greater proportion of unsuccessful women are more likely to have children than unsuccessful men, which probably has a bearing on the distribution of male and female intelligence. The slightly higher risk of being male in terms of reproductive success is likely to play out in the fact that men are at the highest and lowest end of the intelligence spectrum, rather like how the biggest risk takers in the casino are likely to make up both the richest and the poorest gamblers on the night, with the steadier gamblers making up the peak of the curve.
Given the foregoing, a few things hold. People in the dating pool are in competition to find a successful union. Men are in competition with each other far more than women (because men are competing to be chosen, remember), but women are in competition too. Furthermore, men and women are in competition with other men and women who are closest to them in the assortative mating hierarchy (which really comprises multiple hierarchies). Take any example – income, looks, intelligence – and the same varying levels of competition will occur. In terms of financial attraction, quite rich Roger is in closer competition with quite rich Roy than he is with quite poor Pete. In terms of physical attraction, gorgeous George is in closer competition with gorgeous Gary than he is with not-so-gorgeous Gavin.
Across these multiple hierarchies, which are subsets of the overarching assortative mating hierarchy, different males will have different advantages in different areas. Gavin may lose out to George on looks, but win on financial allure. If Gary is both gorgeous and rich, he may be even more of an attractive proposition to females than Gavin or George, but not as attractive proposition as Greg, who is gorgeous, rich and highly intelligent. We evolved in a system where reproductive success is driven by status in multiple hierarchies, and the dating market reflects this.
The Christian dating market is certainly a distinct form of the generalised principles in other dating markets - and there are many other complex driving factors connected to the spiritual and theological elements of pair-bonding - but the underlying engine that drives monogamous and reproductive incentives is as present in the Christian dating market as it is most others.
One factor in the Christian dating market is likely to be that status is not thought of in quite the same way, as Christians understand their transformative state in relation to their identity in Christ, and should no longer be under the thrall of powerful worldly influences in the way they would be if they were not Christians. But not only will Christians not escape the status elements of the world, to a great degree, they will also be part of a Christian subsection hierarchy in which the aforementioned attractive qualities remain a significant factor in status for those doing the choosing, and will also have other kinds of discernment in terms of what they desire in a husband or wife. They will also be doing their best to determine God's will in their selection process, as the Lord may well have other considerations in their choosing that work alongside conventional strategies in assortative mating.
You see, like everyone else, Christians are evolutionarily hardwired to pay attention to status in order to attain reproductive success - but what the Christian knows that no other group of people can possibly know is that all of the worldly things combined are astronomically surpassed by a relationship with Jesus. That is, even when all the worldly things are sought and attained - status, wealth, material luxury, etc - they do not come close to giving us the purpose, contentment and fulfilment we've always longed for, because only in our relationship with Christ do we find these things. To that end, the Christian dating market is on a different level altogether, because it comprises all of the biological and social elements of the standard dating markets, and all the Biblical and spiritual elements working alongside them.
