SEXUAL SELECTION, ASSORTATIVE MATING, ETC. 227 



The qualities which are prized in mates, and which, therefore, 

 tend to be developed by sexual selection, may be ascertained 

 without much difficulty by collecting statements of preferences 

 from a sufficiently large number of people to give a representative 

 expression of prevalent taste. The magazine, Physical Culture, 

 has collected expressions of opinion from its women readers as 

 to the qualities desired in an ideal husband. The first requisite 

 was health; financial success, paternity, appearance, disposition, 

 education, character, housekeeping and dress followed in the 

 order named. The results of a similar inquiry addressed to its 

 male readers regarding the qualities desired in an ideal wife may 

 be tabulated as follows: 



Requirements of an Ideal Wife According to Male Readers of Physical 



Culture 



Qualities Per cent 



Health 23 



Looks 14 



Housekeeping 12 



Disposition 11 



Maternity 11 



Education 10 



Management 7 



Dress 7 



Character 5 



The classification of qualities was somewhat unfortunate 

 and probably accounts for the small value apparently placed on 

 character. A statement of the matrimonial requirements of 115 

 young women of the Brigham Young College, a Mormon institu- 

 tion of Utah, showed that 86 per cent demanded that the pros- 

 pective husband must be morally pure; 99 per cent required that 

 he be mentally and physically strong, 52 per cent that he be of 

 the same religion as themselves, 45 per cent that he must be 

 taller than they, and 93 per cent that he must not smoke, chew or 

 drink, thereby voicing a pronounced difference of opinion from 

 that of Robert Louis Stevenson who declared that "no woman 



