Sex differences in mate choice criteria are reflected in folktales from around the world and in historical European literature

Abstract

This article reports results of a multiple-coder content analysis of the mate preferences of characters in two different sources of literary data: 658 traditional folktales from 48 different culture areas and plot and character summaries from 240 works taken to be representative of Western literature. This study represents an attempt to extend some of the mate preference findings of Buss [Behav. Brain. Sci. 12 (1989a) 1] in a large data set of non-Western, preindustrial populations. A prominent criticism of Buss was that a preponderance of data was gathered from Western or westernized societies and, as a result, it was not possible to rule out the conclusion that regularities in mate preferences resulted from cultural transfer rather than from evolved sexual psychology. By including information derived from band, tribal, and preindustrial state populations, the current study attempts to address concerns based on the possibility of cross-cultural transfer.