Originally Posted by sapiens

No, they are not. If you look at research relating to what women prefer in long-term mates versus short-term mates, women tend to emphasize the importance of immediate resources (and a variety of other traits) in short-term relationships and emphasize the importance of intelligence, motivation, industriousness (and other traits) in long-term mate selection. An early examination of this can be found here:


Greiling, H., Buss, D.M. (2000). Women's Sexual Strategies: The hidden dimension of extra pair mating. Personality and Individual Differences, 28, 929-963.

A later investigation by a related researcher can be found here:

Li, N. P. (2007). Mate Preference Necessities in Long- and Short-Term Mating: People Prioritize in Themselves What Their Mates Prioritize in Them. Acta Psychologica Sinica, 39, 528-535.

Both of the above studies rely on self-report. Others researchers have used different methods. Both papers are testing hypotheses forwarded by:

Buss, D. M., & Schmitt, D. P. (1993). Sexual Strategies Theory: A contextual evolutionary analysis of human mating. Psychological Review, 100, 204-232.

who got a lot of his ideas from:

The evolution of human sexuality by Don Symons

Most of the research cited above came out of the same lab or group of labs. There is a larger body of research that supports the hypothesis that men and women have different mate preferences, and that those mate preferences differ depending on the type of relationship they are seeking (and on their personal situation).


I would expect that the thresholds for acceptable outcome might depend on the mate value of both partners. So, I would expect marital bliss to be related more to matching levels of mate value between partners rather than absolute mate value levels. To put it bluntly a man who is a 2/10 might have greater marital stability with a partner who is a 2/10 than with a partner who is an 8/10.