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Hey, check out the personality on that one!
by Mary - August 3, 2006 - 9:22 AM

The Freakonomics blog has a post titled “Why Do Beautiful Women Sometimes Marry Unattractive Men?”

donald-and-melania-knauss.jpgGee, why do they?

Apparently it’s not always down to economics — at least, not in the way you’re thinking:

A new study by Satoshi Kanazawa, an evolutionary psychologist at the London School of Economics, suggests it may be a simple supply-and-demand issue: there are more beautiful women in the world than there are handsome men.

Why? Kanazawa argues it’s because good-looking parents are 36% more likely to have a baby daughter as their first child than a baby son—which suggests, evolutionarily speaking, that beauty is a trait more valuable for women than for men.

The data for this study must be all kinds of slippery (How do you determine that parents are “good-looking?” Except in obvious cases, do attractive parents always have attractive kids?), but I would like to point out that mental_floss‘ devastatingly handsome president and his super-hottie of a wife just had a baby girl, which is unshakeable evidence in the second point’s favor.

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Comments (6)

  1. yeah, that boss of yours is so dreamy.

    posted by Will on 8-3-2006 at 9:46 am

  2. (rubs her hands with glee in anticipation of a raise)

    posted by Mary on 8-3-2006 at 9:51 am

  3. There is a theory suggesting that people hook up with others who are in the same ‘attractiveness level’ as they are. It continues to say that in today’s society beauty is a form of currency, which allows it to be traded for actual money. Money, then, is also tradable for beauty and you can beautify yourself by being a bit rich. If there happens to be an unattractive man who is fairly wealthy, then he is able to trade in some of his coffers for attractiveness – ending up with a really beautiful gal who is in the same ‘attractiveness level’.

    posted by Miseol on 8-3-2006 at 9:57 am

  4. But can beauty buy you happiness? Now that’s a question worth exploring. Because clearly, money can not.

    posted by David on 8-3-2006 at 11:45 am

  5. power is the greatest aphrodisiac ever invented,not money or beauty,which flow toward it, but not from it.

    posted by retail refugee on 8-3-2006 at 9:41 pm

  6. So if attractiveness is a factor, how did THIS happen:

    http://www.snopes.com/pregnant/medina.asp

    posted by Todd on 8-4-2006 at 1:48 pm

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