Hypergamy in Multiple Dimensions: More on the Marriage Marketplace

To continue from the previous post, let us next look at three less dysfunctional cases.  It turns out that women aren't just hypergamous in one dimension (status as perceived by the set of women as a whole), they're hypergamous in multiple dimensions.  I'll illustrate with three cases.  We'll start with the easiest one.

Woman A (names changed to protect the guilty) is a woman at around the 80-90th percentile of attractiveness as judged by the median man (very close to her ideal weight with good skin and hair and a coloration combination that is appealing).  She's about 1 sigma from the mean in terms of intelligence and only ever so slightly above the mean in terms of economic/career prospects.  She has roughly average capability in terms of homemaking skills and slightly above average artistic capability.

Obviously she's looking for a man who is 80th-90th percentile status, but also she's likely to insist that he be at least as smart as her, preferably somewhat (half a sigma to one and a half sigmas) smarter than her, since being a member of the Second Sigma, her intellect is a substantive part of her identity.  In addition, she'll want him to have better economic prospects than she has.  How difficult did her multi-dimensional hypergamy make it for her to find a suitable husband?  Not very difficult at all, as it turned out, she was the first of my wife's friends to marry by a large margin.  Her ordinary social circle was perfectly sufficient to the task, because her extra dimensions didn't heavily constrain her choices.  Probably 1 in every 10-20 men would have been suitable matches.  Her high non-neurotypical tolerance and enjoyment of dressing in costume only made it easier.

Now let's turn to Woman B, a somewhat harder case.  She is also a woman in the 80th-90th percentile of attractiveness for similar reasons as Woman A.  Also similarly, she's right around 1 sigma from the mean in terms of intelligence.  She's right at the mean in terms of economic and career prospects, but she's also very non-materialistic in outlook, having spent quite a few years as a missionary in Eastern Europe.  Her artistic and musical skills are excellent, probably at the 2nd sigma, and her homemaking skills are also top notch---she's probably the prepper/survivalist's ideal wife.

 So what is she demanding, besides the obligatory 80th-90th percentile in status?  Again, she's wanting a man who is smarter than she is, but she's less vested in that as part of her identity than woman A.  She's wanting a man who is more accomplished musically and artistically than her, because that is a significant part of her identity.  Lastly, she wants a man who can at least vaguely compete on holiness/religious status with her---at least a member of a church band or choir or worship leader or the like.  How hard was it for her?  Moderately hard, probably 1 in every 50-100 men would have been suitable.  As it was, some matchmaking by her religious allies was required, but nothing that would have been unusual, back in say, the 1950s in the US.  The cutting planes of her additional requirements didn't create any weird and hard to fit geometry for the set of men available to a woman of her qualities.  Her marriage came later than woman A.

Now let's turn to woman C, the hard case.  She's in the 80th-90th percentile of attractiveness for similar reasons as Woman A---amazing how tightly correlated these things often are, although the particular coloration combinations are different for all three women, one having a dark-haired, fair skinned 'Snow White' look,, another having an archetypal redheaded girl appearance, and the last having the Nordic blond hair and blue eyes.  She's the smartest of the three by a fair margin, being between 2 and 3 sigmas from the mean, a fair bit smarter than the denizens of the Second Sigma.  In terms of economic and career prospects, she's up between the 90th and 95th percentile, with excellent financial discipline.  Her artistic and musical skills are good, probably 1 sigma in voice and 2-3 sigmas in various crafts and photography and her homemaking skills are above average, although not in the same class as Woman B's.

Her requirements are pretty difficult, cutting a very small footprint indeed in the set of men from the 80th to 90th percentile in status.  He needs to be at least as smart as she is, and preferably smarter, so she's asking for 3rd-4th sigma in just that one attribute alone.  Complicating this is the fact that a very large fraction of men that smart are non-neurotypical, which puts a significant hit on their status, especially if they don't have a decent emulation capability.  There's also the expectation that he be more accomplished economically than her, since few women want to be the primary breadwinner in their family.  In this case, her nominally positive qualities actually made it a lot harder for her to find a suitable husband----maybe one in 1000-2000 would have fit the bill.  Ordinary matchmaking by her religious allies was not up to the task, such a woman in the 1950s might well have been mysteriously left on the shelf.  Fortunately for woman C, the internet provided a significant improvement to the efficiency of the marriage marketplace, so she was still able to marry prior to the age of 30 to a man inside the envelope multidimensional hypergamy dictated.

Interestingly, all three women wound up with husbands at least a couple of inches north of six feet tall.  Woman A and woman C's husbands are both non-neurotypical, with near flawless and good emulation capabilities respectively.  Only Woman C was more or less locked into a non-neurotypical man as a choice (because a neurotypical man with the other attributes she was demanding would be out of her price range--i.e. higher than 90th percentile status--otherwise).  All three also selected a man with at least one higher degree level or certification in education than their own.

What's the take away here?  If the box your requirements create is small or of an odd shape, you're going to need more selection and sorting firepower than even an extraordinary social circle matchmaker can provide for you.  And if you're a woman with otherwise sterling qualities that are valued less in the marriage marketplace, the converse is true---you need an area with a grossly inefficient marriage marketplace where a man might have to choose, for instance, between a woman of 50th percentile attractiveness and superb other attributes and a 70th percentile woman with poor attributes.  I suggest Alaska.  In more normal markets you're invisible to him and he'll be trying to find the woman around the 70th percentile that has the best mutual fit with him.