Violent societies make more desirable women

Previously we noted the lack of sweetheart types among female celebrities during safe times vs. their abundance during dangerous times. When you perceive the world as coming closer and closer to exploding, you put more effort into courtship and mating while you still can. And if you want to snag a quality guy quickly, you can't act like an ice queen. You have to be warm and energetic and in general turn up that feminine charm.

That suggests a way for guys who live in societies with falling crime rates to find sweetheart types -- pick girls from a more violent society. Think of where in the world the average American guy would choose a bride from if not from his own country. Got a few ideas? OK, have a look at this recent ranking of countries by homicide rate. It's not a perfect match, but I'll bet it was pretty close to your guess.

The match is not due to poverty or average attractiveness, since there are plenty of poor countries with good-looking women and similar geographical location and racial make-up, but that aren't as likely to show up in the "most sought after foreign bride" list. (And Russia is not exactly like Burundi in GDP.) For example, the lists are typically dominated by the violent Eastern Slavic and Baltic countries, where the homicide rate is now what it last was around 1600 in England and Germany. By contrast, it's less common to see the Western and Southern Slavic countries or other less developed parts of Central Europe, which are like the U.S. in the homicide rate.

I've never been to Poland or the former Czechoslovakian region, but people who have say how great the women look -- and yet not how spellbindingly feminine and sweet they are. (I hear the opposite about Czech girls.) I always hear about sweetheartedness, though, when they're talking about women from the Eastern Slavic and Baltic countries. In fact, when my father re-married several years ago, it was to a tall blonde from Lithuania, and the real appeal to him was how girly her personality was. Every time I meet her, it really is like being around a more grown-up version of a bubbly teenage girl.

This also shows that it's not some legacy of communism, since those left-out countries were also communist. Most of the Latin American sources of sought-after brides haven't been communist either.

I don't buy the argument that says that women from violent societies are just pretending to be more feminine, etc., out of desperation -- like, whatever will get a potential rescuer's attention, she'll plan it out and execute it. Certainly women weren't behaving that way from the '60s through the '80s here. Because it looks like the world's falling apart, they just naturally get into a more fragile and vulnerable state of mind, and they are more easily overcome by the desire to find someone to hold on to and make some babies with before everything blows up. This can go too far when the girl becomes neurotic and clingy, but overall this direction is the right one to head in if you want to win a guy over, not the direction toward emotional numbness and aloofness. That's why teenage girls -- the ones in the thick of the struggle to win guys over -- give you that puppy dog look and come crashing into your arms, rather than talk your ear off about how milquetoast their Thai sushi latte was today.