> pre-historically, when it mattered, sexual selection was done by
> women among their suitors -- so you'd have men who were attracted
> to fertile-looking women competing for the favors of desirable women.
What was the prehistoric life expectancy? 20 years? Most women back then must have died long before they reached menopause, many of them probably during child births. There weren't too many old women (or old men for that matter). In that context, I doubt that age meant much of anything sexually, except that too young boys and girls couldn't procreate. So there must have been a lower limit, but an upper limit wouldn't have made sense for either sex.
> Even if the family, i.e., in patriarchical sociry, dad, chooses for
> junior, he's likely to choose someone fertile-appearing and younger.
Preference for paring young women with older men in the past was patriarchy's choice, not biology's. Also, mere production of offsprings wasn't good enough for patriarchal societies. Very fertile women who bore only daughters were looked down upon in such societies -- it was production of male offsprings that counted. That's all political-economic-cultural. If the point is to pass on genes rather than properties to male heirs, it doesn't matter if partners bore male or female offsprings, as long as they bore many.
Yoshie Furuhashi <http://montages.blogspot.com> <http://monthlyreview.org> <http://mrzine.org> * Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: <http://montages.blogspot.com/2005/07/mahmoud- ahmadinejads-face.html>; <http://montages.blogspot.com/2005/07/chvez- congratulates-ahmadinejad.html>; <http://montages.blogspot.com/ 2005/06/iranian-working-class-rejects.html>