A study, published in the Journal of Family Psychology , showed that couples in which the woman is physically more attractive than the man are happier than couples in which the man is physically more attractive than the woman. Why is this? Handsome men on average make bad husbands. Men can pursue one of two different strategies: Seek a long-term mate, stay with her, and invest in their joint offspring (the “dad” strategy); or seek a large number of short-term partners without investing in any of the resulting offspring (the “cad” strategy).
All men may want to pursue the cad strategy; however, their choice of the mating strategy is constrained by female choice. Men do not get to decide with whom to have sex; women do. And women disproportionately seek out handsome men so they will have good-looking children. Even women who are already married may seek short-term mating (i.e., affairs) with handsome men if they can successfully fool their husbands into investing in the resulting offspring. The women then get the best of both worlds: Their children carry the good looks of their handsome lover and receive the parental investment of their unknowingly cheated-on but resourceful husband. Thus, handsome men get a disproportionate number of opportunities for short-term partners and are therefore able to engage in the cad strategy.
Ugly men have no choice. Since women do not choose them as short-term mates, their only option for achieving marital success is to find one long-term mate and invest heavily in their children — the dad strategy. Ugly men invest more in their exclusive relationships than handsome men do. Ugly men are more honest and more attentive to their partners than handsome men; McNulty’s study of newlyweds confirms this. Their data show that the more physically attractive the husbands are, the less supportive they are of their wives in their interactions. Empirical data demonstrate clearly that handsome men have more extra-marital affairs and are not as committed to their marriages, which many wives would undoubtedly consider undesirable.