> It may be more complex than that. Years ago, I read _Molecules of the
> Mind_, which argued that women indeed seek to attract a single mate, to
> protect her child (and herself while encumbered with it, internally or
> externally), but also prepared a fallback strategy of causing doubt as
> to the child's paternity, the better to induce a replacement to consider
> the child his should the original mate disappear.
Ridley also makes the point that there is strong evolutionary pressure for a woman to find a good caretaker, and strong pressure to find a man with good genes--but no pressure for them to be the same man.
-- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lcrocker.html> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC