In a perfect Cad society, there are no long term social contracts between men and women, and the mating is dominated by genetic interests:

Women invest heavily when mating (pregnancy for 9 months, child-birth death risk, taking care of the baby for years, etc) and have a motivation be picky to get only the best genes from high-status men (hypergamy).

Men invest only some sperm, and thus mating is always a good genetic deal for men. Men thus want to impregnate as many women as possible and are less picky (variety seeking).

In a perfect dad society, a woman has a social contract with a man to share resources and form a family unit to raise children. In a perfect dad society there are strong socially enforced life long social bonds between men and women, and the mating is dominated by maximizing parental investment in the children. This higher investment in children comes at the cost of:

Women give up their genetic inclination to get the best genes and get a spouse (which is inevitably of equal ranking, see figure below) to support her and help raise her children. Women can’t be hypergamous in a dad society.

Men give up their genetic inclination to have multiple women and spread their genes (see figure below) and get an exclusive access to a single woman (this helps the low ranking men and hurts the high-ranking men). Men can’t be variety seeking in a dad society.

However, when the social contracts between men and women are not enforced and without societal penalties for sexual behavior outside of marriages, the mating pattern reverts back to Cad-society where only few of the men mate with most of the women. In addition, men without societal penalties for sexual behavior outside of marriages will prefer to mate with multiple women (if they are high status) and not commit to a single woman.

This is what is happening today, as marriages disappear from the western world and men’s parental investment is replaced by the government and the family courts.

Thus, women’s hypergamy and men’s variety seeking are the same thing, a genetic inclination, in the absence of a social bonds between men and women, to return to maximizing genetic interests at the expense of fatherhood.



