Attraction. While many maintain that it is one of the world's most elusive concepts, it is actually one of its most easily quantifiable. Indeed, though many people seem determined to view human attraction as a matter of "fate" or "destiny," the truth is that human attraction, at its heart, is almost identical to all other animal attraction. Thus, human attraction is easily reduced to a Darwinian-like struggle for simple species survival. Indeed, if one delves a bit deeper into the confines of the human mind, it becomes apparent that human attraction is no different than the shallow, evolutionarily-based purpose that attraction serves for all species.
In men, some of the top traits valued in a long-term female partner are faithfulness, attractiveness and honesty. For women, the same obvious traits are valued, with one important evolutionary difference: wealth and financial stability are generally also found at the top of the list for most polled women. This qualitative difference between men and women in terms of attraction speaks to an important evolutionary influence on subconscious human emotion. It seems that, despite the advanced nature of our society and the self sustaining ability of most women, their brains are still somewhat wired to favor wealth (and, likely the security it comes with) over many other seemingly more important qualities.