TL;DR Work of a scientist-philosopher from 1979 describes 2 distinct female sexual strategies in animals. The housewife (described as 'Domestic-bliss') and the slut (described as 'He-man'). Sidebar material from a different perspective.

While tidying up my laboratory I came across quite a few books left behind by a professor that retired a few years back. Hidden beneath piles of dust, among such classics as 'Race and Intelligence' with a black girl on the front cover, one particular title caught my eye - 'Sociobiology: Sense or Nonsense?'. The author, Michael Ruse, specialises in philosophy of science and philosophy of biology. The book covers a variety of topics, I will post a few more excerpts of the most interesting parts. For now, enjoy a part on female reproductive strategies in animals.

Domestic-bliss

In the domestic-bliss strategy, the female forces the male to make substantial investment before copulation. By the time copulation takes place the male is heavily 'committed' to the female, because he has had to build a nest, or feed the female extensively, or go through an elaborate courtship ritual or the like. Basically, now it may not pay the male to desert, because the next female he will meet up with will also demand such prior effort. It may just be in his interest, rather than expanding effort in trying to increase the absolute number of children he fathers, to divert his effort to attempting to see that those children he has already fathered come to maturity.

Of course, this all rather assumes that the next female to be met will demand prior effort. If she copulates immediately, then the male might just as well move on. We must therefore be able to show that such demand for prior effort by females could be held in a population. A group selection hypothesis could do this - it is obviously in the interests of the group as a whole if all the females gang up on the males - but this kind of hypothesis is forbidden. However, one can set up a simple model using a game-theoretic approach to show that the domestic-bliss strategy will work, even given just individual selection. Fortunately, since the details are fairly similar to those required in the restrained aggression model, there is no need for us here to go on to detailed exposition. (Dawkins, 1976, pp.163-5)

It should, incidentally, be noted that as a kind of side-effect to the main selective forces at work here, one may also have some subsidiary forces centering on the possibility of cuckoldry. If a pattern of male parental care has evolved, then if the female does get deserted, selection may well have forced her to act at once to find a substitute father to help raise her offspring. But conversely, since any such step-father would be working to perpetuate the genes of strangers, one would also expect very strong selective pressures against suck cuckoldry. This may be the reason why pregnant female mice abort when they smell strange males, and why male lions taking over a pride kill and eat cubs. (Wilson, 1975, p.85)

It should also be mentioned that in this female strategy we may have a key as to why polygyny (single males with multiple females) is not uncommon in the animal world. In going with an already-mated male, a female is at least going with 'proven' quality, particularly with respect to the provision of parental care, for instance defending a territory and providing food. It might be in a female's reproductive interest to forego exclusive access to an untried male for shared access to a tested male. (Wilson, 1975, p.328)

He-man

The other strategy open to the females is the he-man strategy. Here, in its purest form, the female abandons all hope of getting the male to help in the raising of offspring, What she wants from the male instead is the best possible genes for her offspring, or, less metaphorically, selection favours those females that are attracted to males who carry genes which best complement the females' genes. Conversely, selection favours males which carry 'good' genes. Hence there is a strong selective premium on males being strong and agile and the like, and on a female being attracted to these qualities, It is in a female's reproductive interests that her children have these qualities too. Of course, although qualities like agility are of general value, there will also be the possibility of the development of characteristics which are not very helpful to the male. Suppose a characteristic was helpful to a male but perhaps has been developed beyond a point of usefulness. Nevertheless, it might still be selected because it is taken as a mark of attractiveness, and this in itself is of value to a mother, because then her sons will have the mark and thus have a better chance of reproducing.

The so-called 'he-man' strategy obviously gets very close to Darwin's sexual selection through female choice, what Julian Huxley (1938) later labelled 'epigamic selection', although whereas Darwin rather interpreted the peacock's feathers as being attractive to the peahen analogously to humans finding things beautiful, the modern sociobiologists perhaps rather interprets them as being attractive because they are indicative of the fact that the males are fit and that the female's male offspring will, in turn, be attractive. Thus, for all that the sociobiologists invariably use antrophomorphic language in describing and labelling these phenomena, essentially perhaps they are less open to criticism than Darwin on the score of anthropomorphism. The so-called 'domestic-bliss' strategy perhaps was not really covered by Darwin's sexual selection, although no doubt usually one would also get sexual selection through male combat as males vied to show females that they would be better providers and parents than other males. And obviously also the he-man strategy could well be combined with some male combat: females being attracted to the winners, because then they would have more chance of male children who would be winners.

Note that in the operation of these various female strategies there will be constant tension as males try to appear fitter than they really are and females try to discriminate between those that are really fit and those that just seem to be. About this, in a passage which we shall later see has become somewhat notorious in the sociobiologial controversy, Wilson has written as follows:

Pure epigamic display can be envisioned as a contest between salesmanship and sales resistance. The sex that courts, ordinarily the male, plans to invest less reproductive effort in the offspring. What it offers to the female is chiefly evidence that it is fully normal and physiologically fit. But this warranty consists of only a brief performance so that strong selective pressures exist for less fit individuals to present a false image. The courted sex, usually the female, will therefore find it strongly advantageous to distinguish the really fit from the pretended fit. Consequently, there will be a strong tendency for the courted sex to develop coyness. That is, responses will be hesitant and cautious in a way that evokes still more displays and makes correct discrimination easier. (Wilson, 1975, p.320)

Conclusion

(...) The facts of the animal world do seem to point unequivocally to the operation of some sexual selection, broadly conceived. The differences between males and females are just too common and too striking to be otherwise. Moreover, as I have tried to intimate through the discussion, many of the particular suggestions of the sociobiologists seem to find empirical confirmation. For instance, Wilson shows that, generally speaking, as one might expect, right through the animal world males seem conspicuously absent when any hard work with the children is required; and, moreover, males tend to be sexually promiscuous. On the other hand, where really intensive care is required, males can be 'persuaded' to take an active role. For example, in the case of many species of birds the males help with child rearing.

Nevertheless, for all of these positive facts there are early days, and in many respects we hardly have hard-tested theory. For instance, models can be set up to show that individual selection can promote and maintain female behaviour that will cause males to provide extensive parental care; but,(..) the models are as yet crude and the appropriate figures are chosen to get the right results, not because they are a proven fact. But perhaps one should not ask for more at this stage.

Lessons learned

The described female sexual strategies are very applicable to understanding underlying human 'coding'. Interestingly, both of the strategies are valid. There is no universally better one, it will depend entirely on circumstances which one will be more effective. There are multiple caveats to each one, which explain such behaviours as e.g. coyness in females as a method to distinguish between fit and pretended fit male. Overall, paragraph after paragraph, key aspects of the sidebar are explained from a different point of view.

References

Dawkins, R., (1976), The Selfish Gene, Oxford Univeristy Press, Oxford.

Huxley, J.S., (1938), The present standing of the theory of sexual selection. In G. de Beer (Ed.), Evolution, Clarendon Press, Oxford. pp. 11-42.

Wilson, E.O., (1975), Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, Belknap, Cambridge, Mass.

Excerpt from:

Ruse, M., (1979), Sociobiology: Sense or Nonsense?, D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland, pp. 36-9.