# Smart Women **URL:** \ **Category:** Men's Pheromone Advice & Field Reports\ **Created:** [January 7, 2006, 8:17pm UTC](https://pheromonetalk.com/t/smart-women/89 "2006-01-07T20:17:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![PheroQuirk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9e8a1a/32.png) [@PheroQuirk](https://pheromonetalk.com/u/PheroQuirk)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2006, 8:17pm UTC](https://pheromonetalk.com/t/smart-women/89/1 "2006-01-07T20:17:38Z")
[http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/002560.html#002560](http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/002560.html#002560) Do Men Want Dumber Women As Mates Or Are Smart Women Too Choosy? Social scientists at the universities of Aberdeen, Bristol, Edinburgh and Glasgow in Britain tested the IQs of 900 boys and girls at the age of 11 and then checked on their rates of marriage 40 years later. They found that [higher IQ increases the chances a man will marry but high IQ causes an even greater decrease in the chances that a woman will marry.](http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1423032,00.html) (same article [here](http://www.makinglovework4u.com/high_iq_vs_marriage)) “The finding that IQ in early life appears to be associated with the likelihood to marry is important because factors in childhood may determine a person’s marital status in adulthood, which may in turn influence future health and mortality,” says the study, to appear in the Journal of Personality and Individual Differences. For boys, there is a 35% increase in the likelihood of marriage for each 16-point rise in IQ. For girls, there is a 40% drop for each 16-point increase. One possible cause of this result is that many smarter women find it beneath them to be wives. Or perhaps they are too choosy in wanting higher status men whereas the men are not as choosy about status of females and hence can find a suitable mate from a much larger pool of women. Men are more driven to seek physical beauty and youth as a result of selective pressures to seek fertile mates. Whereas natural selection favored a female preference for higher status men as better providers. For the lower status and less intelligent women the smart successful men (and smart men are more successful on average) look like great catches that allow the women to move up in status and in creature comforts. They might also see smarter men as likely to treat them more thoughtfully (at least on average - though there are smart and callous men of course). Another possible cause in the reduction in marriage rates for higher IQ women is that they spend more time in school than lower IQ women and therefore delay marriage past the point of their maximum attractiveness and maximum fertility. This is certainly consistent with a study on the Australian Twins Registry found that [higher education reduces reproductive fitness of women](http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/001476.html). It would be interesting to look at the women in the most recent study to see if higher IQ still lowered marriage rates once educational attainment was adjusted for. Go back and read the comments of my previous post [Men Prefer Subordinate Women For Long Term Relationships](http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/002521.html). Note that some people really took issue when I advanced the argument that smarter women are at a disadvantage in finding a mate. Here is social science data that really proves the common intuition. Anyone still want to dispute this argument? Here is what I want to know: Are genes for higher IQ being selected against? If smarter men are marrying more are they having more kids to compensate for the fact that smarter women are having fewer kids? My guess is that there is a net dysgenic effect. However, in America there is one higher IQ group that has a higher fertility rate: [Higher income Republicans have more children than lower income Republicans and various groups of Democrats.](http://www.isteve.com/04NovB.htm#babygaptac) So the selective pressures on genes for IQ are hard to tease out. We need cheap DNA sequencing which will probably come along in 5 to 10 years and settle this question. By Randall Parker at 2005 January 03 02:18 PM [Human Mating](http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/cat_human_mating.html) | [TrackBack](http://www.futurepundit.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi?__mode=view&entry_id=2560) ---
**Author:** ![PheroQuirk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9e8a1a/32.png) [@PheroQuirk](https://pheromonetalk.com/u/PheroQuirk)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2007, 5:09pm UTC](https://pheromonetalk.com/t/smart-women/89/2 "2007-07-09T17:09:41Z")
I was out the other day at a bar with a friend and we were approached by two girls who work for a high-end introduction agency in London. Apparently professional (as in high-powered investment bankers) or wealthy women represent a majority of their customers for just the reasons outlined above. ---
**Author:** ![Gegogi](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/pheromonetalk.com/gegogi/32/1536_2.png) [@Gegogi](https://pheromonetalk.com/u/Gegogi)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2007, 7:01pm UTC](https://pheromonetalk.com/t/smart-women/89/3 "2007-07-09T19:01:34Z")
My younger sister, controller for a major company, had a heck of a time finding a man. She was very attractive and athletic, but her 6 figure income, degrees and position of power were intimating to most men, and very few were her equal or better. She learned “playing dumb” helped attract BFs, but they’d flee with hurt egos when they saw her paycheck or she whipped them on the tennis court or skiing. Desperate, she took out a classified in the Seattle Times and over a 1000 guys responded (this was in the mid-90s before internet dating). She married one of those guys–a dumb as a stick Navy guy–and lives in marital bliss in the suburbs. Personally I prefer smart women and, working at a university, there are plenty in the grad programs. But, alas, like the above report indicates, am perfectly willing to make due with less in exchange for youth, cheap thrills or a kickin’ bod. ---
**Author:** ![PheroQuirk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9e8a1a/32.png) [@PheroQuirk](https://pheromonetalk.com/u/PheroQuirk)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2007, 10:15pm UTC](https://pheromonetalk.com/t/smart-women/89/4 "2007-07-09T22:15:34Z")
> [@Gegogi](#): > > My younger sister, controller for a major company, had a heck of a time finding a man. She was very attractive and athletic, but her 6 figure income, degrees and position of power were intimating to most men, and very few were her equal or better. She learned “playing dumb” helped attract BFs, but they’d flee with hurt egos when they saw her paycheck or she whipped them on the tennis court or skiing. Desperate, she took out a classified in the Seattle Times and over a 1000 guys responded (this was in the mid-90s before internet dating). She married one of those guys–a dumb as a stick Navy guy–and lives in marital bliss in the suburbs. > > Personally I prefer smart women and, working at a university, there are plenty in the grad programs. But, alas, like the above report indicates, am perfectly willing to make due with less in exchange for youth, cheap thrills or a kickin’ bod. Do you think the US tends to be a little more macho than the UK or some subcultures within larger Asian cities? Amongst the couples in my broader social circle (clearly not representative) I know of quite a few situations where the girl is smarter than and/or earns more money than the guy. (Degrees and even some academic posts don’t carry that much prestige here unless they are at one of a handful of ‘elite’ institutions). Clearly my experience above would suggest it is a problem in London too. However London also has this weird social stratification where you work so hard and tend to frequent certain neighourhoods so that high-earning women may not even get to meet more than a few men who aren’t in that bracket too. ---
**Author:** ![Gegogi](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/pheromonetalk.com/gegogi/32/1536_2.png) [@Gegogi](https://pheromonetalk.com/u/Gegogi)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2007, 9:18am UTC](https://pheromonetalk.com/t/smart-women/89/5 "2007-07-10T09:18:32Z")
> [@](#): > > Do you think the US tends to be a little more macho than the UK or some subcultures within larger Asian cities? I don’t know about the UK, but Korean men in Korea are really macho and traditional in male/females roles. Most would have extreme difficulty in a relationship where the woman has more power, money, education and a better career. My observation in the USA is most men would have difficulty with it, but not nearly to the extent of those in East Asia. Of course there are the exceptions: shameless guys sitting at home unemployed and drinking beer infront of the tube while wifey brings home the bacon.