. . . in response to the Charlotte Allen article I linked to previously and Carol’s post about it.

First of all, based on my observations in college, I think there’s a lot of truth to the “alpha male” phenomenon. In fact, based on everyone’s observations in the world at large, I think it’s obvious, and has been even during times when the marriage norm was incredibly strong — across time and place, look at the success that male music stars, athletes, political leaders, etc., have had with women. It’s simply true that women are attracted to men of high status, and that some women are willing to leave (or jeopardize) committed relationships with lower-status men to pursue higher-status men.

Other women, of course, will prefer commitment from lower-status guys. In a sexual marketplace where the constraints of monogamy aren’t imposed from above (by religion, social norms, etc.), that’s the female dilemma: Share a high-status man, or extract commitment from a lower-status man. Enough women choose the former option that alpha males get a lot of the women, leaving some other males with no one (as happens in polygamous societies).

The fact that institutions (monogamy, marriage) have kept these tendencies in check doesn’t disprove their widespread existence, and I don’t think it’s troubling or unscientific at all that evolutionary psychologists have abandoned the “women are naturally monogamous, and that’s that” meme for something that actually squares with the available facts.

However, I would like to expand on my original post about Allen’s article, in which I called the piece “a bit alarmist and harsh in places.” While the trends we see in young people’s college years (and beyond) are troubling, the center holds — both in college and in the adult marriage market. I would guess this is due to two factors: One, lots of women will choose monogamy over high-status mates; two, social norms against promiscuous behavior and in favor of marriage still have some sway.

While the hookup culture exists on college campuses, it’s not ubiquitous. Virtually any woman who wants to hook up can do so, but an Independent Women’s Forum (IWF) survey of college girls found that only 40 percent had. Only 10 percent had done so more than six times.

Also, this situation doesn’t persist much beyond college; eventually, monogamy takes hold again, forcing former participants in the hookup culture to pair up. IWF found that 83 percent of college girls considered marriage an important goal, and 63 percent of them wanted to meet their future husbands in college. These girls will follow through, if current trends are any guide; across the educational board, nonmarriage is rare: By the time they hit 40, at least 80 percent of women in each educational category — high-school dropout, high-school graduate, some college, college graduate — have been married.

And contrary to popular belief, the hookup culture’s worst effects are seen not in college, but among the less educated:

To sociologists who study marriage, what’s troubling lately is the chasm that has opened up between the most- and least-educated women. About 80 percent of female college grads ages 30-44 have been married at some point, compared with 71 percent of women who did not graduate from high school, according to the latest Pew research. The marriages of college grads are also increasingly stable. From the 1970s to the ’90s, rates of divorce fell by almost half among college-educated women, but they remained high among women with less than a four-year degree. If there’s a crisis in marriage, it’s because the least educated and poorest women are no longer getting married. And they are the ones who could most benefit from the institution.