Though a man’s SMV is influenced by his looks, particularly for younger men, not nearly to the same extent as for women, his SMV being more highly correlated to his social status and his resources (or his apparent potential to secure future resources.) A capable man’s SMV peak comes at least ten years later than a woman’s, often in his mid to late-thirties, a decade or more after his absolute physical peak. The more successful the man, the longer his SMV remains high. Do not miss this vital contrast: After the age of forty, a woman is virtually invisible in the sexual marketplace compared to her relative position when she was twenty-five while a successful man is at or just past his all-time SMV peak.
The graph below illustrates this observation by graphing the SMV by age of our Cheerleader along with a hypothetical man, the Quarterback, both possessing a very high peak SMV, but the pattern is just as pertinent to a matched couple with lower SMV peaks. For the purposes of this discussion, as in real life, it’s important to note that this chart represents the person’s SMV as it would be rated by the opposite sex when the opposite sex is at his or her peak SMV. Note that within this hypothetical couple their relative sexual market value meets at about the age of twenty-nine, as the man’s SMV is increasing and the woman’s is beginning to decrease. After they each reach the age of about thirty-eight, the man will hold a relative SMV three full points higher than the woman, a differential that might be maintained for decades, even though their respective SMV peaks were close to identical.
This observation has implications for the man who seeks to marry well. When does a professional athlete want to be negotiating his compensation package? Of course, he hopes that his contract expires just after a spectacular season, hopefully one in which he’s been a post-season star, being named the MVP of the championship team the practical equivalent to owning his own bank. Joe Flacco is living that dream as of this writing, having been named MVP of Superbowl XLVII and becoming a free agent at the end of that very game. Perfect. Be like Joe.[111]
The best time to negotiate anything is when one possesses maximum leverage or value and marriage is no different. To attract the highest quality woman, it behooves a man to stay single until he’s approaching his SMV peak, when his “currency” is highest, waiting until at least his late twenties to consider marriage. The moral Christian man’s initial response to this advice will likely be: “Cossins, you can’t serious. I will die of sexual starvation before I hit maximum SMV.” While each man’s sexual appetite will influence his decisions (just part of the total marriage calculus), as in all areas of life, some men will have longer time preferences, content to delay the benefits of marriage in order to secure a high quality woman five to ten years his junior when he’s thirty-four, while others will have shorter time preferences and will marry a woman much closer to his own age while he’s in his early twenties. It’s no sin either way, merely preference. Just keep in mind that Christian marriage is a lifetime vow, one that you’ll be better able to negotiate the closer you are to your peak SMV. The man with longer time preferences will generally marry better.
Don’t miss the important corollary here: A woman should seek to marry at the peak of her SMV as well, seeking marriage at a young age to a good man with lots of potential who’s three or more years her senior. The graph below plots the SMV curves for the same two people but adjusted for the Cheerleader being five years younger than the Quarterback. There are many benefits to such an age disparity in marriage: By marrying a more tested and established man she will generally find it easier to genuinely respect him. Examine her adjusted lifetime SMV curve and you’ll see that it tracks more closely to her husband’s than the same-age couple above, helping to reduce his temptations in mid-life since the wider the gap in a couple’s SMV, the higher the temptation.[112] Additionally, with a significant age disparity, his SMV will be peaking as she traverses her peak SMV period, the time of highest divorce risk for women.[113] Considering these latter two points together, one can logically conclude that an age difference will mitigate the risks of moral failure by either party. With this five year age disparity, both will likely marry closer to their SMV peak and the maximum SMV delta is decreased by nearly half in relation to a same-age marriage throughout the period of their highest divorce risk.
Though a woman’s SMV peaks on or before her mid-twenties, during the beginning phase of the decline it will not have a noticeable effect on male interest; however, every woman comes with a marriage expiration date (MED), past which it’s highly unlikely that she’ll be able to marry a quality, never-married man within five years of her own age.[114] For example, in the calendar year of 2005, the state of Michigan recorded that the highest number of first marriages for men took place in the age group of twenty-five to twenty-nine. This is not surprising, but take note that the age group of thirty to thirty-four had fewer than one-half the number of first marriages as the previous age group, with the next older five year grouping halving that number yet again. Though many men are marrying in their thirties, there are a decreasing number of first marriages and an increasing number of second marriages; therefore, for the vast majority of women, that all-important marriage expiration date is just two years past thirty. Her thirtieth birthday is a bad day for the unattached and unmarried woman who desires legitimate children of her own making. For many women the approach of MED might be the first warning knock of reality upon the feminist’s fantasy world.
After all, even chasing that elusive feminist dream, most women still pine for their McMansion and the obligatory two children, one of each please, boy first if at all possible. Warning: As a woman approaches and passes her marriage expiration date, she will become increasingly desperate and will begin considering settling (and that’s what it generally is) for a provider man to whom she probably wouldn’t have given the time of day when she was at her SMV peak and the center of male attention. I am not recommending that you disqualify out-of-hand a woman who’s approaching her MED. It’s merely one more consideration to add to your marriage calculus, but consider the situation carefully. You do not want to marry a woman who is merely settling, as her chance of experiencing post-marital buyer’s remorse is high, increasing your chance of divorce slavery.
Having made these good and honest observations regarding the dynamics of sexual market value, I trust that it’s perfectly obvious that each man will assign differing values to different characteristics in forming their own judgments. In this chapter, I’ve dealt primarily with SMV dynamics, not with how any man might judge the attractiveness of a particular woman for marriage, but pretty, sweet, shapely, demure, and trim never goes out of style.
Hypergamy
The first two facts which a healthy boy or girl feels about sex are these: first that it is beautiful and then that it is dangerous.[115]
— G. K. Chesterton
In this journey you will find it most helpful to understand the meaning of a word you’ve likely never heard: hypergamy. Female hypergamy is the strong desire for a woman to attach herself to the highest value man she can attain. Women have been hypergamous throughout all of history (understandably so), and so it follows that God created woman with a hypergamous nature. Female hypergamy isn’t good or bad in and of itself but, depending upon the surrounding culture, it can serve to either strengthen or weaken marriage, both individually and the very institution itself. Let me explain.
In a culture of high sexual restraint (HSR), hypergamy strengthens marriage as virginal women will tend to marry early to the best man they can attract into a faithful, fruitful, and long-term marriage. Sexual restraint encourages earlier marriage because that is the path to sexual expression and men, especially, are extremely driven to women by their sexual urges. (Never apologize; it’s how we’re wired.) When women at large deny premarital sex, men commit to marriage as a matter of course. As the gatekeeper to sex, the intelligent woman will use a man’s sexual appetite to draw him to commitment. When marriage is the path to sexual release, men will focus their pursuits on wome
n with whom they might consider marriage, thereby keeping women realistic in what man they might possibly obtain marital commitment, the homely woman not confusing herself with the comely, the Quarterback hardly acknowledging the homely girl’s existence. In the HSR culture the Quarterback will marry the virginal Cheerleader and Steady Sam, the town’s best Ford mechanic, will marry Homely Harriett, also a virgin, as chastity is highly valued. Both new families will prosper to their own degree, will have and raise children, and will remain married for life.
The HSR culture encourages fidelity and, just as importantly, provides strong disincentives to those women who stray. Such societies tend to have earlier marriage, more and healthier children and, without cultural disruption, tend to nurture a healthy and stable society with higher rates of marriage, fewer divorces, and a higher percentage of the adult population enjoying sexual relationships. Such are the markers for a productive, stable, long-lived culture. Such was the culture of America prior to the Progressivism of the early 1900s which came to full flower during the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s, fueled by the Pill, penicillin, and abortion on demand. Recall that the economic law of supply and demand states that the lower the price for an item, the higher the demand. By lowering the cost of sex outside of marriage, demand increased, putting America on the path to becoming a low sexual restraint (LSR) culture. By way of illustration, in 1900 there were thirteen marriages to every divorce; a mere hundred years later, there were just two![116] Please stop and consider the immensity of that change, for it is simply astounding and has widespread cultural ramifications.
As a culture casts off sexual restraint and transitions to a low sexual restraint (LSR) culture, the formerly innocuous hypergamy turns malevolent. Homely Harriett, who happily married Sam in the HSR culture, discovers that she can entice the Quarterback into her orb with her sexual wiles. Yes, sex is a powerful magnet indeed, and the Quarterback is a more-than-willing participant, but the Quarterback sees Harriett as nothing more than life support for her vagina, the most convenient semen receptacle of the moment; while, at the same time, Harriett’s hypergamous nature often allows her to rationalize away his intentions, misconstruing his mere sexual appetite for genuine attraction. When the Quarterback predictably dumps Harriett, one might hope that she would learn from her mistakes, but that is not often the case, for the thrill of the Quarterback’s attentions is strong, virginity given is gone, and Harriett looks for her next thrill with a man above her marital reach, and then the next.
Homely Harriett graduates high school with a partner count of five to a dozen men and might well double down over the next few years as she enjoys her youth, her willing vagina overcoming her homely looks regularly as the party winds down. But every new sexual partner further conditions Harriett, her hypergamy having transformed her from a woman who could have been a good mother and a perfectly fine wife for Steady Sam into a woman who Sam wouldn’t (at least shouldn’t) even consider marrying, thereby leaving her with the poorest of prospects as her youth wanes. If Harriett marries, she likely divorces and, if she escapes the endless joys of single motherhood, she will have to be content with Oprah, cats, genital herpes, and poverty into her old age. She will die lonely, embittered, impoverished, and guilt-laden over her likely aborted son.
As sad as Harriett’s culturally-encouraged but self-made situation might be, her choices don’t affect her alone. To the contrary, the Quarterback uses Harriett’s availability to apply not-so-subtle pressure on other women to perform sexually or find themselves summarily dumped. Many will succumb to the pressure, societal sexual restraint receding apace, one unmarried virgin at a time. All is not lost, for Satan is pleased and the Quarterback finds himself very sexually satisfied through a great variety of young women, as do the remaining highly desirable men, the alphas, but Sam and most of his ilk are alone, frustrated, sexless, and often addicted to porn as their sole sexual release, reading with anticipation Internet articles about soon-to-be-released sex robots advertised to be as sexually fulfilling as the real thing but without the baggage or the diseases. Plus, Sam can purchase a virgin robot. The West (along with China and India) will soon enough discover that a large, sex-starved, male populace is harmful to its stability and future well-being.
Sam, if he unwisely marries Harriett, is destined for divorce slavery as Harriett’s hypergamy draws her to divorce him after the customary five to ten years and two children. If Sam doesn’t marry, a man who would’ve made a good dad is without offspring and without moral sexual relationships. Meanwhile, the Quarterback continues to enjoy easy sexual access to countless women over the following decades, defiling them for marriage merely to satisfy his short-term sexual appetites. Ponder the extent of the damage wrought: An alpha male not restricted by moral considerations and living in a LSR culture might have fifty to a hundred or more sexual partners over his lifetime, while the elite male may enjoy thousands. This scenario, multiplied by millions, sets a society on a near certain path to destruction.
To better illustrate, let’s substitute real people in place of our hypothetical ones. In a recent article, Karen Cross wrote the sad tale of her hypergamy, unfortunately a very ordinary and typical story, one that destroyed her marriage and her future.[117] She married young, early in her SMV peak, to Matthew, a man close to her own age. She wrote, “We were desperately in love and had our future life together mapped out.” She was a white collar career woman in a “junior role at a women’s magazine” while her blue-collar husband “worked fitting tyres and exhausts.” She continues, “But as time went on, and my magazine career – and salary – advanced, I started to resent Matthew as he drifted from one dead-end job to another. I still loved him, but I began to feel embarrassed by his blue-collar jobs, annoyed that, despite his intelligence, he didn’t have a career.” This is textbook hypergamy in action, thinking she’d married below her potential, believing that she could have done better than a man making his living with his hands. “I began to wish he was more sophisticated and earned more. I felt envious of friends with better-off partners,” she continues. And in the natural and predictable conclusion, “I stopped seeing Matthew as my equal.” Translation: She had lost complete respect for her husband, seeing him as “someone who was holding me back.” Why was Karen superior in her own mind to her husband: career and credentials.
As you should expect, as her respect for Matthew waned, the couple’s “sex life had dwindled” as well. Eight years into their relationship, high noon to the hypergamous woman, “I told Matthew I was leaving. We spent hours talking and crying as he tried to convince me to stay, but I was adamant.” Her reason for leaving was simply this: She was “convinced there would be another, better Mr. Right waiting around the corner.” She was willing to destroy her marriage and deeply wound the man for whom she had publicly promised her love for life in pursuit of a mere upgrade, a more “exciting” man, one worthy of her love. You just can’t make this stuff up, but it gets even more revealing: Matthew eventually found a new girlfriend and would no longer talk to his ex-wife. Prepare yourself, dear reader: “I hated the fact Matthew was suddenly putting another woman before me.” Yes, that’s right, she flushed her husband down the proverbial toilet and then became angry when she was no longer at the top of his priority list.
Karen eventually met her ideal man, a “successful singer” and thought, “I had finally found the excitement and love that I craved.” Do you think she was concerned about Matthew while she was sexing it up with her singer? Of course not, but the singer predictably and regularly cheated on her, eventually impregnating another woman and leaving Karen high and dry. Her life then “fell apart” and, surprise, surprise, surprise, she suddenly “realized that Matthew was the only person who had loved and understood me.” Translation: “Help! I’m really not going to do better than that embarrassing blue-collar man after all. Agony of agonies. Oh, how I wish I had him back!” She laments, “My decision to leave him has definitely cost me the chance of ever becoming a mother.” Kar
en Cross’ wedding vows (and half her sisters’) must have been: “To have and to hold from this day forward, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and cherish, till death do us part, unless and until I might do better.” Unfortunately, her sisters are legion.
The results of such decisions are entirely predictable. Quality men aren’t pining for past-MED, divorced women, usually raising another man’s (or men’s) children. Enjoy your cats, Karen.
The man who understands female hypergamy will curb its effects by marrying while approaching or during his SMV peak, will marry “within his means,” and will work to keep his SMV high in his wife’s eyes.
Partner Count Matters
One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.[118]
— Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar
Just as women are the gatekeepers to sex, men are the gatekeepers to commitment. The less a woman has guarded her gate, the more a man needs to guard his. The Christian man (and any other man wishing to avoid divorce slavery) will open his gate of commitment slowly and with great caution, treating it more like a bank vault – alarm off, clock at 7:30 and timer lock disengaged, 4 turns counterclockwise to 91, three turns clockwise to 44, two turns counterclockwise to 19, back to 79, bank manager’s key turned, security guard’s key turned, retract the cylinders, and then think about whether to open the vault door or just lock it back.
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