We propose a new, evolutionary, game-theoretic model of conditional human mating strategies that integrates currently disconnected bodies of data into a single mathematically-explicit theory of human mating transactions. The model focuses on the problem of how much resource a male must provide to a female to secure and retain her as a mate. By using bidding-game models, we show how the male’s minimally required resource incentive varies as a function of his own mate value, the value of the female, and the distribution of the mate values of their available alternative mates. The resulting theory parsimoniously accounts for strategic pluralism within the sexes, mate choice differences between the sexes, and assortative mating, while generating a rich set of testable new predictions about human mating behavior. Key words: assortative mating, evolution, game theory, human mating, mate choice, mating strategies. [Behav Ecol] S exual selection theory (Darwin, 1871) has recently been used by a number of evolutionary thinkers to explain men’s and women’s particular, and often conflicting, mating strategies (see Buss, 1994; Buss and Schmitt, 1993; Gangestad and Simpson, 2000). In this article, we extend such work by developing a set of mathematically explicit game-theoretic models of mate choice between potential mates. Our quantitative models incorporate evolutionarily-relevant contextual cues (phenotypic quality, resources, and outside options), into game theoretic models designed to generate the evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS) for mating transactions at specific moments in time. Using the concept of the ESS and game theory allows us to predict the evolved solution (specific