By
Syed Ibrahim Rizvi
Professor, University of Allahabad
The trajectory of life is an enigma. The endless sequence of a newborn taking birth, reaching adulthood, and then growing old, obviously without any reason, and then dying is universally true but logically difficult to understand. It is somewhere in between this sequence of events that every life form must procreate to give birth to new individuals, who will follow the same path of life.
It is thus no wonder that the famous evolutionary biologist Charles Darwin hypothesized that the basic purpose of life is to reproduce. Once this function of life is achieved, or the age at which this must happen is crossed, aging sets in and the decline of the body starts culminating in death.
Except for very small living organisms such as bacteria, all higher animals are required to find a mate of the opposite sex to fulfill the basic purpose of life which is reproduction. And therefore, it is also a universal fact that nature has provided living systems with the inherent instinct to be able to choose mates.
Humans are highly evolved with huge cognitive abilities. The human mind is capable of analyzing a huge array of variables and thus employs the art of recognizing intricate cues when the need arises to choose mates. The evolutionary basis of choosing a mate is different in both males and females. Since the cost of reproduction for males is very small, males choose females based on cues that provide information that there are better chances of a successful reproductive event. The recognition of those characteristics in a female which can give an idea of a future reproductive success is the basis of beauty. For a male, everything beautiful in a female is somewhere linked to his understanding of a successful reproductive event.
An endowed bust, a narrow waist, and a broader pelvis are a few prominent features that appeal to almost all males across geographical and cultural regions of the world. A deeper analysis of these features amply demonstrates that somewhere these characteristics convey that the female has a better chance of providing a successful reproductive event. It is therefore very easy to understand that humans have been genetically programmed to find beauty in the hourglass shape of the female. The Puritans may disagree since this argument impinges on certain man-made moral ethics but at the core of heart, every male would confess that there are indeed universal body contours of females which always look exciting.
Any connoisseur of Urdu poetry would agree that poets have time and again sang paeans about the long hairs of the beloved. Scientifically long hairs provide the human mind information about a good protein metabolism. Similarly, a narrow neck is again a cue for good metabolism since most people with broad or thick necks may have inherent thyroid problems. Thick lips with a hue of pink advertise a healthy vascular system. No wonder, universally, women use cosmetics to highlight their lips with different shades of pink. A fair color is a sign of good vitamin D metabolism. Breasts provide information about the production of adequate milk for the newborn and a broad pelvis conveys that the childbirth should be smooth. Such is the elegance of a million years of evolution of humans that all these basic traits subconsciously look beautiful to the human eye. And herein lies the concept of the beauty of a female for a male when he looks to choose a mate.
Strange is the case of females when their mind starts looking to choose a mate. Most of the features that males look for in prospective females are not the top priority of females when they choose a male partner. This universal statement is again explained by the cost of reproduction for a male and a female. Reproduction induces a huge cost on the female. A successful reproductive event is the beginning of a long and painful gestation period, followed by an equally painful childbirth and a long duration of providing care for the newborn.
To fulfill these roles the female is genetically programmed to look for cues that provide her with an idea of whether the male partner would provide her long-term security, support, and sustenance. Financial and social security weigh much higher for a female list of preferences compared to the beauty of the male body. Nature has also given females some telltale reasons to look for intelligence in their male choice. The capacity to create humor is a trait that is linked to human intelligence and it is scientifically proven that females prefer suitors who have an inherent sense of humor and can make them laugh.
Few would therefore disagree that the basic human instinct of finding a suitable mate is inherent in the human brain. Across cultures, the concept of beauty which males see in females is more or less universal. It is also very obvious that females look for factors different from the male perspectives when they embark upon finding a mate.
Falling back on Darwin’s theory of natural selection, it is pertinent that nature has devised mechanisms whereby reproduction will take place producing progeny but only those offspring will have a good chance of survival and can adapt better to the surrounding environment. Production of better progeny depends on the mixing of genes from the two mates, the male and the female. It is thus a convincing argument that two mates with better genes would invariably produce better progeny. This mechanism whereby good and intelligent progeny has been selected in lacs and lacs of reproductive cycles has propelled humans to become as advanced as they are in the present times.
The argument of males searching for beauty and females looking for social security holds only when males and females choose their mates according to their own will. It must be understood that a female can never judge a female for finding a mate for someone else. The converse of a male judging a male also holds. Thus, curious is the case of arranged marriages. Two different individuals are made to forcefully mate and produce progeny without giving nature a chance to play its role of mate selection. Arranged marriages therefore circumvent the evolutionary mate selection instinct of males and females which has evolved over several million years.
Debatable it may sound, but all cultures and societies where arranged marriages are common are less developed compared to those societies where mate selection is just an individual’s personal choice. As the saying goes ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’, let the eyes and brains of individuals, males, and females, work to choose mates. Natural selection will then work to produce more evolved humans.
(The author is Professor of Biochemistry at University of Allahabad)
Outstanding description of female beauty by author. How ever in other member of animal kingdom the male is more beautiful