For Hadza, build and brawn don’t matter for choosing mates
Study of hunter-gatherer community in Tanzania shows that, across human groups, mating criteria vary
By Bruce Bower
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 Oct. 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.