While, as Angier puts it, "observers of human mating customs have long contended that serial monogamy is really just a socially sanctioned version of harem-building," in fact, she suggests, perhaps women are, by nature, also inclined to live polygymously.

In a report published in the summer issue of the journal Human Nature, Monique Borgerhoff Mulder of the University of California, Davis, presents compelling evidence that at least in some non-Western cultures where conditions are harsh and mothers must fight to keep their children alive, serial monogamy is by no means a man's game, finessed by him and foisted on her. To the contrary, Dr. Borgerhoff Mulder said, among the Pimbwe people of Tanzania, whose lives and loves she has been following for about 15 years, serial monogamy looks less like polygyny than like a strategic beast that some evolutionary psychologists dismiss as quasi-fantastical: polyandry, one woman making the most of multiple mates... "We're so wedded to the model that men will benefit from multiple marriages and women won't, that women are victims of the game," Dr. Borgerhoff Mulder said. "But what my data suggest is that Pimbwe women are strategically choosing men, abandoning men and remarrying men as their economic situation goes up and down."

In addition, the researcher found, these multiple-marriers are not deemed the flighty "bolters" of Western perception, but, rather, "considered high-quality mates, the hardest working, the most reliable, with scant taste for the strong maize beer the Pimbwe famously brew." While this is obviously a specific study of a certain group's practices, as Salon's Judy Berman puts it, these are "Darwinian extremes," and as such it's tempting to extrapolate about a society not mired in our constructs. I'm wary of this, as a rule; because a society doesn't have our mores doesn't mean it can't have its own, surely equally entrenched and capable of altering a society's shape? To suggest anything else seems both reductive and patronizing. But let's say we take the argument to this far-fetched extreme and start the perennially-popular par;or game of "what-if." What if this says something about basic human nature? What do we learn? That women are security-minded? Angier's circumspect, saying only, "the results underscore the importance of avoiding the breezy generalities of what might be called Evolution Lite, an enterprise too often devoted to proclaiming universal truths about deep human nature based on how college students respond to their professors' questionnaires." I'm inclined to concur: if we choose to regard this as some kind of triumph for evolutionary equality, the results lead themselves equally open to far-flung "gold-digger" interpretations. The best conclusion to draw, to my mind, is what I'll call the creationist's paradox: you can use loosely-interpreted evolutionary arguments to back up as many arguments as a Bible-thumper can find Good Book justification for his.

If we need proof, keep in mind that the "husband-snatcher!" furor is still going strong. A rather cavalier piece in the Houston Chronicle sports the same sort of reductive headline that's been snaring views since the rather more complicated Journal of Experimental Social Psychology results came out. In short, she reports that "mate poaching" is real, and that it says a lot of bad stuff about women. Then readers, who also haven't read the research and are drawing their own conclusions based on this rather sketchy pop-summary, say things like, "fellas if your wife has hot looking girlfriends, leave the house, cause those b—-h's are cheating to. ladies, if your husband has hot looking friends, chances are they are cheating with your hot looking girlfriends." And "THE ALPHA MALE, just like the lion of the jungle his role is to get as many lioness's pregnant." Does a moron need "facts" to bolster his grandstanding? No - but he'll use them.

"Facts" as we know can be dangerous things. It's not, obviously, an exactly analogous situation, but I thought of this earlier while reading a piece about Marriage Works USA, a campaign of the federal Healthy Marriage Initiative that promotes marriage by using statistics on its ads like "married people earn and save more money" and "married people enjoy better health." As Christopher Wanjek sagely points out on LiveScience, these stats derive, universally, from studies and surveys whose results are, unsurprisingly, far more complicated and less neatly reductive than the campaign would suggest, and as such, misleading. I'm not saying people who want to shouldn't get married (and be able to) but the decision shouldn't be dictated by pop sociology, and if that marriage ends, let's not invoke evolutionary imperatives, either. Sure, facts and studies are great. But a fact, noun, doesn't in itself bolster an argument, also noun. These various studies are fascinating, enrich the discussion and, when used as intended, can teach us a lot. But we've eschewed plenty of "evolutionary imperatives" to live as we do, and as a result have pretty much forfeited the privilege of using it as an excuse. Apologies to THE ALPHA MALE.

Skipping Spouse To Spouse Isn't Just A Man's Game [NY Times]
The First Husbands Club [Salon]
Are You Or Do You Know A "Mate Poacher"? [Houston Chronicle]
Marriage Works: An Exaggerated Message [LiveScience]

Her determination about this endeavor, and the obvious joy she took in the knockoff Bottega's acquisition, quite disturbed a pretty friend of mine who was also on the press trip. It was so shallow! But fast forward two years, and said pretty friend shows up to meet me toting...a Bottega Veneta! What happened? Below, an exclusive interview with said friend as to how she learned to stop worrying and love conspicuous consumption.

MOE: You! I have to consult you about something. And that something is...your handbag.
  Your anonymity will be closely guarded.
 
PRETTYFRIEND: um, ok. go

MOE: Is it Bottega?

PRETTYFRIEND: ha! i'm glad you think that. i got it for $20 off the street before i went to barcelona in the fall. hahahahaha!
take that [PUBLICIST] "hong kkong" [PUBLICIST]

MOE: The thing that's so funny about this story is how it's like, "Bottega is all about understated logo free design."
And I'm thinking, if it gets knocked off, it is a fucking logo.

PRETTYFRIEND: "Instead of buying a $1,500 handbag that may be indistinguishable from versions selling for one tenth of the price, they may part with several thousand dollars for a piece that looks durable and worth the splurge."
ha!

MOE: I just don't understand, after a certain age, why you would buy something so that...people would know you spent a lot of money on it.

PRETTYFRIEND: isn't that mostly with the upwardly mobile middle class? like the black guy that has to get rims on his car because he lives in a neighborhood where that is necessary blah blah blah
with women, it's mostly handbags, shoes and sun glasses. god, sunglasses. when did they start selling for $600?

MOE: oh. my. god. serioulsy.
  SUNGLASSES
  THAT IS A POST.
  WTF SUNGLASSES?

PRETTYFRIEND: that is DEFINITELY a post
 
MOE: THE MARGIN ON SUNGLASSES MUST BE LIKE 99.999999%
 
PRETTYFRIEND: because even the cheap-o brands have their names on teh side so you immediately know NOT GUCCI

MOE: ok but here's the thing, the people who get rims are usually not middle class ...they are more like...what became of the middle class.

PRETTYFRIEND: true. maybe a better example are women and ridiculous shoes. i mean to a certain extent a black patent leather pump is just a black patent leather pump, right? unless it's a christian loubitan and then it's an $800 pump which also happens to have a read sole
  red sole

MOE: Right, but why do middle and upper-middle class educated professional women fall prey to the same silly forces we associate with the rims-weilding lumpen?
  rims-rolling, excuse me.
  And all this shit starts with the plutocracy anyway.
I suppose Toqueville could answer that. sigh american exceptionslism long sigh

PRETTYFRIEND: wait, i have to run. but i just want to say that i do own ridiculous shoes — and not just because one of my lesbian friends works at saks and could get me a 65% discount. i own them because i am in a group of friends where everyone owns them
  and they make my calves look fecking fantastic
and yes, when i get too drunk i start smoking
i am that girl
sigh

MOE: i love you

You'll Know How Much You Spent [NY Times]