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Bigger isn't always better
It is time to reconsider the adage that bigger is better,' according to scientists writing in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters today. Rebecca Sear from the London School of Economics and Frank Marlowe from Florida State University found that traditional hunter-gatherers aren't influenced by size when picking a mate, unlike in the industrialised west where both height and body size affect mate choice.
'In Western populations such as the UK, social psychologists say the 'cardinal rule of dating' is that the man has to be taller than the woman,' says Sear, which results in a greater proportion of male-taller marriages. Other size indicators, such as body mass index, and waist-hip ratio have also been shown in previous studies on western populations to play an important role in mating choice. This has led to the accepted wisdom that size is an indicator of health, and provides an evolutionary advantage.
Sear's study focussed on the traditional Hazda tribe in Tanzania. Numbering around 1000, the tribe members marry freely, making for good study material into mate choice. Contrary to the previous findings on western populations, size was not an important factor for either Hazda men or women, when choosing a mate. Neither did size have an effect on the number of marriages per individual in Hazda people, where divorce is common.
The finding that the impact of size on mate choice is not universal is important says Sear, and can be explained by environmental differences of the Hazda lifestyle when compared to the west. 'There may be some disadvantages to large size in food-limited societies, where costs of maintaining a large size during food shortages may be high,' says Sear. 'In post-industrialised populations, this wouldn't be a factor, and so size preferences become more of an indicator of quality.'
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