Vetting Women: What To Look For – A Guide

“We ask four things for a woman–that virtue dwell in her heart, modesty in her forehead, sweetness in her mouth, and labour in her hands.” – Chinese Proverb

Contents:
1.) Introduction
1a.) For Love or for Empire?
1b.) Stop Looking For Your Mother
2). Primary Evaluative Metrics
2a.) Big Five Personality Traits
2b.) Her Familial Culture
2c.) Fertility Concerns
2d.) Her Relationship With Money
2e.) Women & Intelligence
3.) Closing Thoughts:

1.) Introduction:

Time and time again, I’ve been asked by men “what to look for in a woman?” – a simple albeit fundamental question, with an intricate and multi-layered answer that can be broken down into many working parts. The goal of this essay is to do precisely that – to breakdown the question by addressing the myriad relevant concerns and considerations that should factor into a thinking man’s decision making process when evaluating a woman for long-term commitment.

Choosing the mother of your children will be one of the most important decisions you ever make in your life. Letting your dick do all the deciding for you and impregnating a woman you do not believe would be a good mother is wildly irresponsible, and a cause of much poverty, pain and suffering amongst young boys and men within society.

High calibre men possess higher degrees of self-discipline, but lust is the strongest and most common weakness inherent to them. And so finding ways to manage your lust and forge a rigorous self-discipline that will prevent you from impregnating women you do not think will make good mothers is key. Generally speaking, sleeping with a woman you wouldn’t want to commit to is a game of Russian roulette, as she may lie about being on birth control, or deliberately sabotage your birth control in order to trap you into committing to her.

With a lack of compassion and attachment comes a lack of trust, and you will likely see the most desperate and very worst of what women have to offer by engaging in such relations with them. Nonetheless, I am not here to lecture you, merely to inform you of everything relevant to the subject matter at hand – which includes knowing yourself, your tendencies and the role you play in the selection process.

The mother of your children is one of the greatest investments you will ever make for yourself and your unborn children, for not only will she carry them, give them half of their genetic material and grant them life, she will furthermore act as the primary source of nurturing and influence on them in their most formative and impressionable years. She will be a crucial role model, confidante and friend to your daughters, whilst modelling what ideal female behaviour looks like to your sons, both through how she responds to you, and how she treats them. This is not something you want to get wrong, for you will regret it to the very end of your days if you do.

This guide, of course, like any piece of literature, cannot do everything for you. With limited life experience you will lack discernment, and the weaker your discernment, the harder it will be to apply what you’ve read.

This essay is thus broken up into two overarching sections comprised of a number of subsections.

The first, what you are currently reading, serves as a brief introduction on the purpose of this essay, why it exists, and what it hopes to achieve with the addition of some miscellaneous albeit significant points of consideration relevant to vetting. The second, which I believe to be the meat of the article, will detail the qualities and traits one should look for in a woman, spanning a number of very different but equally important dimensions.

1a.) For Love or for Empire?:

These two things are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but there is a clear divide in cultural preference. Westerners generally prefer to marry the person they feel most passionate about, and then build and design their family around this romance, whereas more conservative cultures, such as in central Asia and the middle east tend to view marriage as more of a businesslike and pragmatic arrangement. That is not to say there are no people who marry for love there, or that those who partake in arranged marriages are not capable of falling in love with each other, only that romance is not the primary motivator or consideration for marriage within these cultures, and that family politics often takes precedence over the desires of the individual.

Of course, there are pros and cons to both sides. A culture that limits the amount of exposure you have to prospective mates doesn’t give you much of a chance to get to know a woman on a personal level, and get a feel for her personality. Everybody shows their best side when they go for a job interview, and this is no exception – isolated, brief meetings with potential prospects will reveal very little substantive about the person you’re dealing with, however if natural chemistry is present, it will blossom quickly, prompting further meetings and greater authenticity as a metaphysical connection begins to form between the two.

Those who marry out of practicality may lack passion and excitement within their lives, but have a solid foundation on which to build something lasting. Women will require a man that can provide. A man will require a woman who is fertile, and pleasing to the eye. Both get something out of the arrangement, even if they lack a strong metaphysical connection that drives passion for one another. In this sense, they are business partners of a sort.

On the other hand, marrying someone quite useless because you feel strongly about them can lead to all kinds of otherwise preventable struggle. The best example I can present of this is actually from the female point of view. Young women sometimes fall in love with men who are too immature to properly govern them. This leads to heartbreak and tragedy of immense magnitude on both sides, as ultimately a man’s inability to lead thrusts the woman into a leadership role akin to mothering, leading him to abdicate all authority over his woman and lose all respect from her, ruining what was once a flourishing romance.

Ideally, you marry a woman you love who possesses the traits conducive to assisting you in fulfilling your life’s purpose and its constituent goals. Failing that, you rather plainly marry one who will aid rather than hinder you.

1b.) Stop Looking For Your Mother:

Most men have a propensity to subconsciously seek out their mothers when vetting a woman, as their mother is their primary and best known template for femininity. Whilst this is understandable, it is fundamentally foolish, because no woman other than your mother will treat you in the way that she does. Your mother will permit far more general weakness and incompetence from you than a mate would, because you came from her and as such possess her genetic material. This genetic link is what drives a greater tolerance from, and loyalty to you in her that will be absent in unrelated women. To get a better idea of what women are like in general, use how your mother interacts with your father as a point of reference, rather than how she interacts with you.

Conflating behaviour that results from the mothering instinct with general female nature is a folly that is to be carefully avoided. However, it is worth noting that the highest quality women will extend far greater compassion than lower quality ones, assuming you have first won their respect. And whilst the gentleness of such compassion may be emotionally interpreted as motherliness, she will still be more fundamentally ruthless in her opportunism than your mother would be. Much unlike your mother, she doesn’t want to feel like your mother, she wants you to feel like her father. Restated another way: she doesn’t want to feel like you’re dependent on her, but she wants to be able to depend on you. The burden of serving as a pillar of strength is yours and yours alone, not hers. If she is a good woman, she will do her best to serve that role for your children, not you.

A man is a boy once and only once, whilst a woman still retains elements of her girlishness for life in so much as that her father is her first patriarch, and her husband is her second. In that sense, you approximate the functions of her father without actually being him, and in doing so, many parallels can be drawn between the father-daughter relationship and the husband-wife one.

2). Primary Evaluative Metrics:

If you are lucky, you meet a woman who had a strong, magnificent father that cultivated a mentorlike relationship with his daughter, where she holds her father in high esteem and respects his word, and felt loved enough by him not to resent him for exercising authority over her.

This however in the contemporary western world, is increasingly and rather sadly rare. Most women today come with baggage no matter how young they are, for even if you manage to be her first romantic interest, she will typically have some not so insignificant unresolved issue with her father. Generally speaking, he was either incredibly strict, incredibly permissive or entirely absent. Either way, he failed to adequately fulfil his role in the balancing act known as fatherhood, and as a result you will have to clean up his mess in cultivating a respectable, grounded and quality woman where he failed to do so.  You are playing daddy in the most literal way possible – she is yours to train, assuming she trusts you enough to hand herself over to you.

Not all woman are worth cultivating, many are too far gone. Like any craftsman, you need good material to work with. This is the difference between having a woman with all the right ingredients which just haven’t been cultivated into a delicious dish yet, and charred, carcinogenic food that isn’t even edible let alone worth purchasing. Metaphors aside, not all women have potential. Your job is to recognise one that has, and mould her into your ideal – trust, desire and metaphysical connection permitting.

This requires a large time investment from you as a man, and if you’re particularly ambitious and have other self-development and business concerns, such tutelage will certainly prove a disincentive. You may wish to delay dating altogether until you’re more established simply so you can afford to invest this sort of time into a woman, or just avoid it entirely and look for one of the few women who was raised well to minimise burden and maximise time. The choice of course, is yours.

2a.) Big Five Personality Traits:

Women are on average, a standard deviation higher in neuroticism than men are, which means they are more susceptible to experiencing negative emotions than men. The cause of this is rooted in the biology of hormones and our evolutionary past as a species – simply put, women are wired to be socially vigilant in order to best care for babies and small children. The concerned and worrisome nature inherent to neuroticism and generally prevalent in women is thus a feature, not a bug, despite how bothersome it may prove in areas of life outside infant childcare.

Other than promiscuity, neuroticism is the most important trait to select for in a women bar none, as it will have the greatest impact on your relationship over any other factor. The more neurotic a woman is, the “higher maintenance” she is, and the more time and emotional labour she will require.

Women who have experienced enough trauma to induce prolonged psychiatric disturbances typically exhibit unhealthy levels of neuroticism rooted in paranoia and spontaneous anger. Such women are ill-suited to marriage and motherhood by merit of their own dysfunctions, although of course, this does not typically prevent them from pursuing either.

Women can manage neuroticism through meditation or prayer, exercise, yoga, and avoiding hormonal birth control, however some women are temperamentally more neurotic than others. And the more neurotic she is, the more unreasonable, emotionally demanding and attention seeking she will be. A woman who has her neuroticism under control will give her man space to thrive, work, learn and essentially carry out the necessary tasks in life he needs to perform that don’t require her presence, or benefit from her absence. A highly neurotic woman on the other hand becomes suspicious whenever her man is absent for too long, she is prone to distrust and nagging, and ultimately holds him back from greatness by acting as an anchor rather than an assistant.

High conscientiousness is very desirable as it translates into willingness to get things done. Conscientiousness doesn’t necessarily mean she is achievement striving and career oriented, but more that she does what she says she will do, has high self-discipline, keeps a tidy, orderly environment, and likes to think things through. Any highly domestic woman who keeps a spotless house and prepares nutritious and delicious home cooked food will be highly conscientious. A woman low in conscientiousness will be comparatively lazy, impulsive and less of an asset to you as a man.

Agreeableness – counterintuitively, a moderately disagreeable woman is preferable to a highly agreeable one. Do not conflate disagreeableness with an inability to submit or follow. Less and moderately agreeable people are often very loyal and compliant once they respect you. The reason a measure of disagreeableness is important, is because without it you can have no honour. If a woman is prone to following whoever is in charge without asking questions, then she is fickle, and if she is fickle she will be prone to treachery. Those high in agreeableness are so desperate for social approval they usually go along with whatever the trend is. The agreeable are as such, conformist rather than principled. So whilst high agreeableness may seem attractive because a conflict avoidant woman is easier to deal with than a conflict seeking one, you pay for this lower cost of administration with an increased probability of betrayal.

Openness means an interest in the arts, intellectual conversation, imaginativeness, emotionality and liberalism. There is of course overlap with agreeableness here, in how emotionality translates into a need for group acceptance and conformist approval seeking behaviour. Women are, by nature, more liberal than men (chaos loves freedom), more emotional and more prone to flights of fantasy. Therefore women are generally speaking quite high in openness. Naturally, too much liberalism is undesirable and thus a moderate to moderately high amount of openness is desirable here. Too much openness she stands for nothing. Too little, and you’re dealing with a robot.

Extraversion is the final trait. This is entirely a matter of preference and it is neither good nor bad whether she is highly extroverted, or not very extroverted at all, however I can provide some insights. Intelligent people tend to be more introverted than less intelligent people. Introverted women are less likely to be exposed to other men (given they spend most of their free time at home) and as such are less given to promiscuity. Introverted women are less able to form meaningful relationships with people, and therefore will likely assign greater value to the relationship they have with you.

Extroverted women on the other hand are generally more exciting, daring and challenging. If you are looking for adventure or passion, you are more likely to find it in a girl who is very outgoing.

To summarise this section: she is preferably moderate to moderately low in neuroticism, moderately agreeable and open, and high in conscientiousness. Extraversion is entirely a matter of preference.

2b.) Her Familial Culture:

Women are much more conformist creatures than men. Will her family discourage or support divorce? Are her parents divorced? What are their values? Those with traditional family values generally raise superior daughters to those with less traditional values. When you marry a woman, you’re not just marrying her, but likewise into her family. Her family will have a strong influence on how she behaves, especially in rough times, as they will be her first port of call – the place she runs to – should your marriage begin to struggle and fall into disarray. A family fundamentally opposed to divorce except in the most extenuating of circumstances will recommend she works on her marriage rather than facilitate its abandonment. Such a family is worth its weight in gold, for they are using their influence to help support the marriage, rather than undermine it.

2c.) Fertility Concerns:

Young women (late teens to mid 20’s) ignore many of the men in their own age cohort, because these men are by and large less established, with greater immaturity and less to offer. Men after all, do mature slower than women. Whilst a woman can be said to be a woman in the most complete sense at around 20, most men aren’t truly seasoned until they’re at least 30. This isn’t to say women do not make mistakes and gain more wisdom as they age, because they do, but in terms of how they conduct themselves and handle their emotions, 20 is around the time they come of age.

Beyond the late teens to mid 20’s stage however, women tend to date men around their own age, or up to about 8 years older than them, because a limited fertility window isn’t a concern for them like it is for men. Most men on the other hand would prefer a woman in her early 20’s. Men are simply more ageist than women, because they have to be. Rooted in biological difference, a woman’s fertile shelf life is much shorter than a man’s. For whilst men are susceptible to declining sperm quality, they continue producing sperm their entire lives. Women on the other hand become extremely difficult to impregnate after the age of 35, and stop producing viable eggs not long after. It’s not that women over the age of 35 can’t get pregnant, assuming they are healthy and have good genetics – but more the case it takes many more attempts, and the child is more likely to have greater health complications and a lower genetic quality as a result. Such instances of late age motherhood are referred to as “geriatric pregnancy” in the medical literature for a reason.

To make it patently clear, if a woman is not in her 20’s, you do not have much if any time at all to start a family. And whilst it is possible to start a family with a woman in her late 20’s, it is far from ideal due to the anxiety she experiences concerning her childlessness. Essentially, dating a woman over the age of 25-26 at a push is working on an expedited schedule in line with her anxieties and rapidly narrowing fertility window. You will be thrust into parenthood and additional responsibility much quicker with older women than you will be with younger women, experiencing less couples time, whilst being deprived the privilege of enjoying her in her prime.

Younger is as such, better. Better looking, less baggage, fewer to no sexual partners, fertile, and in less of a rush to start a family. It’s a no brainer for a man, no matter how society may shame him otherwise for this preference.

2d.) Her Relationship With Money:

Women care more about how much money a man makes than vice versa. Men can become particularly paranoid about gold digging, and this isn’t an entirely unwarranted concern, especially for men with a lot to lose – however, the difference between a high quality woman and a low quality one is a high quality woman merely cares about money as a means of survival, whilst a low quality one is obsessed with it to the point of indulgent, hedonistic consumerism. All those women that list shopping as one of their favourite hobbies? They mostly fall into the latter category.

It is unreasonable to expect a woman not to factor in your ability to financially provide as a man in her evaluation of you, as after all, it is the responsibility of the man to take care of the material needs of his woman and children. This doesn’t make her a gold digger. Think about it another way – would you be happy with the idea of your daughter dating a man who is too poor to provide for even her basic needs? Surely not. So it is prudent then to be mindful enough to distinguish between a woman who cares about money, as all humans do, and a woman who is obsessed with it to the point of rabid materialism.

There are deep psychological underpinnings rooted in our evolutionary past driving women’s evaluation of resource provisioning, simply put, it was neanderthal man who was out on the plains hunting game and bringing back the spoils of his kills to the women and children of his tribe – he was “bringing home the bacon” so to speak. This need to feel useful by providing for the family in men, and the desire to find a sufficiently competent man able to provide for the family in women, is a prevailing, ancient instinct. Without it, we wouldn’t be here.

Otherwise important to consider is a woman’s relationship with money, as it reveals facets of her ego. If she is modest, she will appreciate what you give and do for her, and be frugal in her spending. If she is arrogant, she will always expect more, and insult you for not meeting an unreasonably high standard.

Frugality is an incredibly wifely trait, as it demonstrates high self-discipline, strong impulse control, good mental stability, high conscientiousness and a respect for your labour. The typical woman is prone to wasteful spending (women make up 80% of all consumer spending despite only being 51% of the population), and as such, will not make best use of the resources you bring them. A woman who is frugal respects money, meaning she will respect your money. Likewise, those who do not constantly spend to fill some kind of emotional void as a means of “retail therapy” demonstrate a solid psychological footing.

2e.) Women & Intelligence:

I will assume if you read this blog, your IQ is no lower than 115, and is in all likelihood, much higher. It is from this assumption I write the following:

Women who can hold an intellectual conversation are infinitely more pleasurable than their duller counterparts, providing a higher quality of company for their prospective husbands. However, important to note is that highly intelligent women tend to be incredibly stubborn, and no less unreasonable than dumber women. On the contrary, it can even be argued they are more delusional, as their ability to leverage their advanced cognition to deceive themselves and in turn jump through numerous mental hoops to deny a thing is unparalleled.

Being more intelligent does not increase women’s truth preference, nor increase their preference for logic even if it enhances their ability to wield it, for they are still governed by the same chaotic hormonal madness that their less intelligent counterparts are. Disagreements with these women are as such incredibly trying, for they represent competent opponents even when egregiously wrong.

Likewise, a very intelligent woman will be predisposed to believing she knows better than you. Simply put, intelligence is a masculine characteristic, as it is necessary for the advanced planning required to lead. Smart women, by merit of possessing this attribute, will be prone to disobedience, and even should they conform, do so resentfully if they believe they know better – which they often do.

Intelligence sadly does not lend itself to modesty, grace and all the aspects of the feminine we find most beautiful, for it is through the pursuit of credentials, careerism, and being rewarded with status and position for their smarts that such things are typically eroded in women.

Genetically, an intelligent woman will of course provide you with cleverer offspring. Better offspring, and, when you’re not experiencing issues in the leader-follower dynamic due to fundamental disagreements, better company. But the price you pay for this is lower relational satisfaction – having to deal with a higher level of disagreeableness. Simply put, exceptionally intelligent women are more capable of elaborate self-deception, less likely to follow your lead, and more likely to give you headaches. They are higher maintenance. The reward is, better general company, and cleverer offspring better suited to continuing the family name should empire and dynasty be a particular concern of yours.

My general recommendation is to compromise, and look for a woman who is around half a standard deviation in intelligence below you, therefore being smart enough to be enjoyable company, but not so smart she thinks she can lead better than you can. Intelligence is a dominating attribute, therefore it only makes sense for the man to possess more of it than the woman in any sort of ideal matchup. Likewise, the ability to act as a mentor and teacher towards your woman is an asset to relational bonding. Women love men they can look up to, and men who guide and teach them are the very men they look up to. It’s a bit difficult for them to do that if they’re smarter than you, isn’t it?

Just as increased income reduces a woman’s options, so does increased intelligence. The opposite of course is true for men, and should you be interested, there is academic literature that supports these observations.

3.) Closing Thoughts:

At over 4,000 words long, I am not entirely happy with this piece, for whilst it is comprehensive, it is not exhaustive. There are numerous pertinent aspects I have left out, such as modesty and egoism, and the phenomenon of “fake submissive” women. As such, I expect to update this article in the future to include these additional facets, as well as improve the quality of my prose. Consider what you see here to be a viable product, rather than an optimised one, with further improvements to come down the line.

Additionally I think it important to note that, in a strategic sense, your woman will be your weak point. She will be your most sentimental and least rational association, and will know things about you most people don’t, being privy to your particular tastes, habits, haunts, and maybe even some of your secrets. She is a crucial point of leverage, and will as such be a preferred vector of attack for anybody looking to compromise you. It is therefore crucial to find a woman who is as resilient as she is trustworthy, lest she leaves you in a vulnerable situation when things get tough to secure and preserve her own safety.

I would like to give special thanks to LifeMathMoney for enticing me into writing long form again. He offered me money to do so, but potential upside without potential downside was not sufficiently compelling. There had to be a pain point (something to lose) to turn his offer into a competition that would interest me, and so I upped the stakes by offering to pay him more than he was willing to pay me if I didn’t meet the agreed upon deadline.

There is a phrase I think I first heard from Jordan B Peterson along the lines of “you need a heaven to run towards, and a hell to run from” – this agreement in its own sense is a microcosm of that. I mention this, not only because I wish to pay homage to LMM, but because I likewise believe there’s a valuable lesson to be learned here you can take and apply to your own lives. So here we are. I hope you are as pleased to be reading this as I am to be writing it, as after all, the last update was in August 2017 – almost a full four years ago.

At this moment in time, I don’t have anything to shill you other than my audiobook, so if you’ve enjoyed my work in the past or would like to continue supporting it in the future – please consider purchasing my audiobook.

Until next time,
IM