Comment on: Competing for Love: Applying Sexual Economics Theory to Mating Contests

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318768331_Competing_for_Love_Applying_Sexual_Economics_Theory_to_Mating_Contests

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016748701630277X


This was an interesting paper.  One thing that the paper does not discuss is the influence of the government in sexual economics.  The highlights on page

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016748701630277X

include

•

Men compete both individually and in groups to amass resources to exchange for sex.

•

Because men can compete as groups, male competition is less zero sum than women’s.

The fact that men cooperate with other men in groups is highlighted, apparently meant to indicate that women do not cooperate in groups.  Indeed the paper comments

"The deficit in women’s cooperation with women has been apparent throughout history and continues to be evident among modern samples ... "

In my view the authors are ignoring some hugely successful cooperative strategies among women.  The authors talk about why cartels are not too effective for women, but ignore what has been very successful for women.  Collectively, women have been able to use the government to block, or at a minimum impede, a  man's capability to get a market price for his resources.  This is especially true for  men with substantial resources.  Consider:

A woman marrying a much more financially successful man has essentially no legally enforceable marital obligations and no financial obligations upon divorce.  The man often has huge financial obligations to supply the woman her "entitlements."  So, it is obvious that she is getting entitlements, but what is he getting? She has no obligation to supply children, sex, or even companionship.  He gets nothing remotely commensurate with his obligations.  

Even when women enter prenuptial agreements,  the women are often able to use government power to void or alter the prenup, thus removing a  man's capability to get a market price for his resources. Women also cooperate, sometimes successfully, to use the government to increase the demand for the group's sex by (among other ways)

1. Making prostitution illegal
2. Making it more difficult for men to obtain "mail order brides."  For example, some women in the United States are cooperating with each other against the interests of many competing foreign women who desire an American husband.  (Interestingly, this puts American women in collusion with very patriarchal societies [e.g. the Philippines] that want to keep "their" women from obtaining fair market value.)
3. Restricting substitutes like pornography and fembots

By and large, groups of women have been reasonably successful at using government to distort the market in their favor. As with most government distortions in marketplaces, there are winners and losers, with the losers attempting to counteract the government action.  For example, see

• The Defense of Default Marriage Entitlements and Epicycles
  https://smolyhokes.blogspot.com/2017/10/marriage-entitlements-and-epicyles.html
• Marriage Entitlement Ideology - No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
  https://smolyhokes.blogspot.com/2018/01/marriage--no-good-deed-goes-unpunished.html

• Beggar Psychology and Family Law Psychology

  https://smolyhokes.blogspot.com/2018/01/beggar-psychology-and-family-law.html