Unlike most Western guys and gals looking for love, Africa’s Hadza foragers pair up without regard to each other’s size and strength, a new study finds. And that stature-may-care approach underscores the often unappreciated variety of human mating strategies, the researchers say. Hadza marriages don’t tend to consist of individuals with similar heights, weights, body mass indexes, body-fat percentages or grip strengths, say behavioral ecologist Rebecca Sear of the London School of Economics and anthropologist Frank Marlowe of Florida State University in Tallahassee. Neither do Hadza couples feature a disproportionate percentage of husbands taller than their wives, as has been documented in some Western nations, the researchers report in the October 23 Biology Letters. Almost no Hadza individuals mention height or size when asked to explain what makes for an attractive mate, Sear and Marlowe add. People everywhere seek healthy, fertile marriage partners, Sear proposes. “But I su…[...]

Click below to read the full story from the source…
Size and Strength Not a Mate-Choice Factor for Everyone