It’s a commonly repeated science “fact” that women of child bearing age looking for heterosexual mates are “wired” to prefer men with demonstrated resources but IRL women often hook up with men who are not (overtly) likely to bring any resources to the table. The implication here is that women are biologically predisposed to want someone who will care for them when they are with child and vulnerable and be able to provide for her and the children as they grow.
How true is this “fact”?
Women are a diverse bunch of people, as are men. On just about any behavioural or cognitive trait, you’ll find more variation within sexes than between them. Unlike what a lot of people will have you believe, there are clear differences between average male and female behavior, and these differences are mostly the result of a combination of genetics and hormonal influences during development, not social/cultural conditioning. (Culture and more importantly economics of course interacts with physiology: a poor woman who wants her offspring to be well taken care of is going to place more emphasis on finding a good provider than a rich one). That said, like a very eminent evolutionary biologist I know likes to say (in this context), the mean and the variance are two separate things.
It’s almost certainly true (and could be deduced simply from theory, without any need for facts) that women in general, should have a stronger preference than men in general, for a partner with demonstrated resources. It’s not true that every woman wants a good provider, and that no men do. Go to parts of Africa and you can find a lot of good looking, enterprising young men whose life goal is to marry a (comparatively) economically successful American/European woman and get out of Africa. My friend worked in the Gambia for three years and knew many such (female-on-male sex tourism to the Gambia is actually a big thing in Europe).
A personal anecdote: a couple weeks ago I was at the grocery store, stuck behind an African lady (Susan, we spoke afterward) who was getting a bunch of purchases. The cute checkout girl that I usually chat with when I’m at the store, was behind the counter. I was trying to figure out a way to get her number and/or ask her out. Susan, after ringing up several pounds of chicken, vegetables, rice, etc. realized she’d left her credit card at home, and was bummed that she would have to go home and get it. I decided to try and play the ‘demonstration of resources’ card to impress the checkout clerk, so I was like ‘Don’t worry, I’m feeling generous tonight’, and paid for Susan’s groceries (it was about $30.) It seems to have worked: the checkout clerk became incredibly talkative afterwards, and ended up givng me her number (yes, it was real, we’ve been chatting).
So clearly, there are some women who do respond positively to conspicuous demonstrations of resource status. Others, not so much.
It seems more like an anecdote about women being attractive to generosity and kindness to me. Are you really sure she wasn’t thinking “Wow, what a kind man!” instead of “Oooh, he’s got thirty dollars”
Try asking the people who repeat that “fact” to cite their sources.
Here’s one example of a possible cite:
I’ve never heard this asserted as a scientific fact, if by “wired” you mean that women innately prefer men with resources, presumably due to genetic reasons. I would imagine that there are studies that show many women prefer men with resources, but without separating out genetic and cultural factors. I am not even sure how you could go about doing such a study that would be relevant across all cultural groups in the world.
You couldn’t look to animal studies to suggest such a genetic link, either, because there are a great variety of mating systems. In some species females do tend to choose males that provide good territories or other resources, but in many species, including most mammals, the male provides no support to offspring and females choose purely on the basis of appearance and behavior. Among our closest relatives, chimps and bonobos mate promiscuously and males provide no direct support to offspring; orangs are solitary (and much mating is essentially rape), and gorillas have harems in which females presumably have little or no choice in which male to mate with.
If women choose males with more resources, it’s almost certainly mainly due to social or cultural factors. But even if there were a genetic component, there could still be a variety of evolutionarily stable strategies. Females who choose handsome womanizers who love 'em and leave 'em could be successful evolutionarily if the male attractiveness is passed on to her sons, who will be passing her genes on as well as their father’s.
In many species with harem systems, from deer to fish, two kinds of males exist: big studly types who can defend many females, and small wimpy males (who one researcher dubbed sneaky fuckers) who don’t even try to defend a harem, but instead hang around until the big male isn’t looking and dash in for a quick one. In some cases such males even resemble females in order to avoid detection.
There’s nothing in there about such preferences in women being innate (“wired”), as the OP implies. I have little doubt that in many, probably most, societies women prefer men with resources or who will help care for her children. But that preference makes sense in intellectual, social, and economic terms; there’s no reason to propose a genetic link.
But women choose mates on a variety of factors. Resources may be one of them, but there are others, including physical attractiveness, confidence, charm, etc. Women who choose men who are not good providers may be choosing on the basis of one or more of the other factors. If any of those characteristics are passed on to sons, then this can also be an evolutionarily viable strategy.
Couldn’t we get some hint as to genetic contributions by comparing mate preferences in monozygotic & dizygotic twins?
True. I have read claims to the effect that women are hard-wired to find wealth and status attractive in potential mates, in the context of evolutionary psychology. But I don’t know where that falls on the “unsubstantiated theory” vs “scientific fact” line.
It is very strongly implied by the way they use “sociobiological”. They claim to be testing a “sociobiological” explanation of the mate selection preferences against a “socioeconomic”, one, and they interpret their results as favoring the “sociobiological” one. That amounts to saying that the mating preferences they find evidence for (which are along the lines described in the OP) are down to “nature” (genetics, “wiring”) rather than to “nurture” (how human society currently happens to structured).
I am not saying they are right (indeed, so far as I can tell from their abstract, their evidence is weak and their interpretation of it is questionable), but yes, they are saying that preferences of this sort are largely innate.
In general, “evolutionary psychologists” have frequently made claims of this sort. It is science by most reasonable definitions (they have empirical data, math, tenure in universities, peer reviewed journals). However, many dispute whether it is good science.
And not only those with harem systems, as discussed in this recent NYT bit focussed on dung beetles.
Good luck finding a large enough sample size of twins raised separately in different socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds, which is what you would really need.
What I was referring to, in the context of the OP, was that it wasn’t being cited as a scientific “fact.” Certainly it’s a common assumption, but that’s all it is.
Why can’t she be attracted to both, like the late Earl Warren?
An interesting variation on that is the common side-blotched lizard, whose males come in three varieties, each of which uses a different mating strategy that beats one of the other male types in an unending round of paper-scissors-stone. Orange throated ones are larger, aggressive and gather harems, blue throated males are monogamous, and yellow throated males imitate females and are “sneaky fuckers”. Oranges steal females from blues, but can’t guard so many females from the yellows; while blues can’t stand up to the bigger oranges, but can guard their single female from the yellows.
There should be selection pressure for women to choose men with characteristics which are more likely to provide food, shelter and safety. I think that there have been studies along these lines.
Maybe not scientifically proven, but it certainly seems fairly intuitive that a man with more resources is going to be more attractive to women than a man with few resources - all other things remaining equal.
Just like how a woman in her 20s, of childbearing age, is more likely to be found attractive by men than a woman in her 50s, no longer of childbearing age - again, all other conditions being equal.
Yes it makes sense but lots of things that make sense don’t hold up to actual study. Also it would be unclear if what triggers some putative evolutionarily selected brain-wiring is actual demonstrated resources (symbolically represented by money or stuff) or physical/behavioral signs that over evolutionary history were associated with resources (physical characteristics).
The factors to select for on that time scale would be the ability to provide and protect the woman and their children, the willingness to stick around to do it, and the ability and willingness to participate in parenting responsibilities as well. The superficial characteristics correlated with one aspect might not be the ones of the other (rugged good looksmight correlate with more ability to protect and provide but less willingness to do so) and the superficial characteristics that correlated with predictive value for one or the other over an evolutionary history time scale might or might not apply in modern world circumstances.
I would be unsurprised if males were more likely to prefer a mate based on physical features and that females were more likely to prefer a mate of higher status as the go-to proxy for the ability to provide and protect.
I would also however be very curious if any possible female tendency to prefer males of greater status over looks diminished as more females become at least equal providers and protectors within a family unit. (And conversely if males begin to put more value on status and less on superficial looks in societies of greater economic parity.)
So you are saying that when people who are accredited scientists say, in a peer reviewed publication, that their research shows that such-and-such is true then they are not saying that such-and-such is a scientific fact? 
It’s certainly a fact that women prize economic status in a sexual/romantic partner more than men, and men prize looks more than women do. Whether those differences are hard wired, is the subject of debate. (I’d bet that they are, to some degree, but I think the jury is still out).