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 Ideat Wife According to Male Readers of Physical 
Culture 
Qualities Per cent 
Health. cs ouesanar Gaardea 23 
LOOKS 4.059 HER es eS 14 
Housekeeping........  ........ 12 
Disposition.......... 0.0.22... II 
Maternity............... be EL 
Education iin odessa gi Spe dane ne 10 
Management.. ............... 7 
TORESS «ceo Makeece rag WA aaa hd 7 
Characters. wsary voted sete od 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 tbe 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 
