Communism Increases Men’s Beauty Premium In The Mate Market

I must say that I’ve just watched one of the most riveting episodes of the Tribal Odyssey series. This particular episode featured a nomadic tribe called the Wodaabe.

The Wodaabe tribe, a small sub-group of the Fulani people, continually traverses across stretch of desert territory that lies within the geographic boarders of Niger. And, it has cultural practices that are at opposite poles with those of most African cultures in that region.

For instance, in the Wodaabe culture women have sexual mobility that is equal to that of men, unlike in other African cultures, and cultural ceremonies, like a tribal festival called the Gerewol, provide unmarried women with the opportunity to establish sexual relationships with whomever they wish. The festival also gives unhappily married women an opportunity to shop for a better mate.

During the festival, men adorn themselves elaborately, wear brightly colored make-up, and stage a seven day marathon dance-show for the women. The men’s ‘pea cocking’ dances all serve to display their genetic superiority to prospective mates. If interested, the women then make subtle welcoming gestures to the men who tickle their ‘individual fancies’, and if their quarries reciprocate these gestures, then it’s a date. According to this society’s standards of beauty, superior males can be defined as those who are taller than average, have perfect teeth, great posture, acute physical coordination and clear eyes: men who are healthy and youthful. Hence, this implies that young males, or men with a youthful appearance are prime commodities in this society.

In my opinion, the Gerewol festival is analogous to the sexual revolution of the 70s: it epitomizes primate-style hypergamy; it gives more women an opportunity to mate with alpha males, which wouldn’t be the case in monogamous societies. Thus, this allows the genes of alpha males to be propagated widely. In the case of the Wodaabe, and this is just my opinion, this mating practice serves as a natural selection mechanism that gives each successive generation greater height, clearer eyes and better teeth than the one that preceded it.

What struck me as odd was that the males did not bring with them any status symbols to the lekking festival, and this got me wondering: Do Wodaabe women take cognizance of status in their mating decisions? Then it struck me that Wodaabe society didn’t seem like it was highly regimented; it didn’t appear to have much hierarchical stratification, and it probably has a low Gini coefficient. Otherwise stated: the men, status wise, were almost perfect substitutes of one another. Hence, the mate selection choices that women made in this culture are largely dependent on the aesthetic value of their potential mates.

The closing insight I gleaned from ruminating on this programme: communism increases the premium for male beauty in the mate market, and it also reduces the importance of male status in the mating game.