Imagine the ideal reproductive circumstances for women: male competition and paternal investment amid enough resources to ensure their children’s survival. Hmmm, this sounds vaguely familiar. Wait a minute! This is modern society, in which men spend resources parenting when they could be off further procreating.
In short, men have been biologically bamboozled. But how?
Economically, the first step is regulation of the free market. Morality performs the role of the SEC, dictating that men enter monogamous relationships even though such relationships hamper male reproductive potential. At least this pesky morality increases paternal certainty, allowing men to be fairly sure that the children in whom they are over-investing are their own.
So that’s monogamy out of the way, but morality can’t explain it all: With exactly enough mates to go around, men shouldn’t need to butt heads, lock antlers, build bowers, or otherwise compete for female attention. What then of football? And of Gold’s Gym and singles bars and law school?
It turns out that female Homo sapiens are tricky and have developed the behavioral ability to combat the natural laws of the universe. Specifically, women have become picky and wary of casual sex that could cause pregnancy. Men, you may have noticed that most women will not mate with just anyone. Instead, women hold their reproductive cards tightly, and will show their hands only to men of their choosing. This forces men to compete even for the opportunity to mate with just one woman! And women use the power of choice to maximize their reproductive potential by wisely choosing men who demonstrate the potential for paternal investment.