We received this episode prompt from a Based Camp listener/friend and thought it would make for enjoyable discussion:

Yes, all women want hypergamy and marriages are happier in this state.

The problem is that (estimate) top 5% women cannot have hypergamy because top 5% men want harems.

So the very best women marry lower, let’s say 90th Percentile Guy. This is a man that most women would die for, but 99th Percentile Woman isn’t all that attracted to.

But let’s say she has accepted her fate and marries this guy. She technically married down.

I always told [redacted] that the top 5% women were the ones to go for since other men are not really competing for them / they are undervalued in the mating market. AND they will give you children that are genetically superior to you.

But listening to you and Malcolm makes me think this strategy is not a good one. Grok agrees with you, saying that because these marriages will likely end in divorce, so though [redacted] might love his kids a lot, divorce would significantly lower his fertility....

On a human race level this is depressing and unacceptable. We WANT to be breeding these women.

So I was thinking that would make a fantastic episode. How could this relationship work? Is he the shield and she’s the sword? Is this what happened to the WASPs? They value education so highly and they kept breeding their boss babes they basically established this kind of alpha female beta male relationship and now that’s all we see in their infertile liberal hierarchy?

What would you tell your sons? Assume your son is a 90th percentile guy. Would you tell him to marry an 85th percentile girl? Or a 95th percentile? And what about your daughters? Assume you have a 99th percentile daughter. Should she skip the husband all together and have babies on her own? Should she join Elon’s harem?

Also, is hypergamy responsible for regression to the mean? If men are always marrying down and the best women are old maid boss babes…

Ultimately, Malcolm reframes the concept of 99th percentile women in typical Malcolm fashion and we had a fun chat about it that helped us clarify how we’ll advise our children about dating. Assuming you’ll want your own children (or future children, young people you care about, etc.) to marry high-caliber partners, how will you be advising their strategy in this regard? We’d love to get a sampling of your plans!

Friend, thank you for the great suggestion (not sure if you’d prefer to remain unnamed)! A huge thanks to ALL of you for the wonderful episode ideas and helpful feedback. We hope you’ve been having a great weekend. :)

The Stats:

Recent U.S. evidence suggests women in the highest income group are about as likely to be currently married as lower earners, and among never-married women ages 25 to 39, higher earners are actually more likely to have married in the past year.

HOWEVER: (per the Institute for Family Studies) couples with a wife earning more than her husband had a higher divorce chance than couples with a husband earning much more, in both older and more recent marriage cohorts.

• That suggests high-earning women may face somewhat higher divorce risk in heterosexual marriages, especially when their earnings exceed their spouse’s.

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