Robert Wright in The Moral Animal, a popular presentation of evolutionary psychology, argues that monogamy tends to be associated with societies that are either very poor, so a man cannot support two families, or have fairly even income distributions, so that half of one man is almost always worth less to a woman than all of another . That point is also relevant to women's choice between their two alternative mating strategies, long term and short term. The long term strategy is to pair up with the most desirable man she can get and jointly produce and rear children. The short term strategy is to get pregnant by the most desirable man she can and then rear the child herself, perhaps with the assistance of brothers and other blood relatives, a sister's child being half as good, genetically speaking, as a child of your own. There seems to be good evidence that both women and men are equipped for their roles in both strategies, with different preferences among potential mates according...
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