We agree with the claim that romantic relationships are more important to men than to women, but we do not think this claim should be surprising to those familiar with evolutionary theory. Wahring et al. acknowledge the relevance of such ideas to their argument, specifically parental investment and sexual strategies theories, and we think the clearest support comes from considering humans in their comparative context.

If we replace the word “romantic” with “sexual,” then common intuition would suggest that men are more sexual than women, and the cross-cultural evidence would support this view, as Wahring et al. explain. Indeed, across the majority of species, males are more sexual. As Darwin himself noted, “males of almost all animals [have] stronger passions than the females” and “the female…is less eager than the male” (Darwin, Reference Darwin2008). But humans are different from many mammals in their mating systems, in that we are relatively monogamous, and most sex occurs within the context of a pair-bonded relationship. Thus, human relationships tend to be simultaneously romantic and sexual. It is a mistake to separate these components or think of them as independent.

Nevertheless, human mating systems are not perfectly monogamous. As with most species, there is greater variance in male versus female reproductive success. A striking illustration of this is the fact that humans have twice as many female as male ancestors, as indicated by genetic variation in mtDNA and the Y chromosome (Wilder, Mobasher, & Hammer, Reference Wilder, Mobasher and Hammer2004). This means that a given woman is more likely to leave descendants than a given man. Losing a partner could mean losing a man’s only reproductive opportunity, as well as emotional support and social integration. We can now appreciate the dramatic repercussions if a man fails to form a romantic relationship, or if he loses one he is already in – genetic extinction.

In the modern world, a deeper asymmetry may have developed in how the relationship contributions of each sex are treated. Many things that men have traditionally provided, say safety and financial resources, have been externalised and are provided by the state or the market (think police, legal systems, and female labour participation). By contrast, the traditionally female emotional labour and caregiving have not been similarly commodified. As a result, after a breakup, women may still be able to access many of the tangible benefits a male partner provided, whereas what men lose is largely irreplaceable. This helps explain why the end of a romantic relationship may feel more like a total loss for men: it deprives them not only of intimacy and support but of something they cannot simply “buy back.”

So if sex and romance are not independent, where then does the intuition that romance is feminine and sex is masculine come from? Probably it is from the distinction between “short-term” and “long-term” mating often used in evolutionary psychology under the framework of strategic pluralism mentioned in the target article. This distinction may be historically anomalous and evolutionarily misleading and be rather artificially derived from modern, Western populations where sex and romance have become somewhat decoupled. Across much of the world, and arguably for most of human evolution, they were closely linked: a sexual relationship was a romantic one. Supporting evidence comes from cross-cultural surveys of human mating, which show that high sociosexuality, such as interest in short-term relationships, is higher in economically developed countries (Schmitt, Reference Schmitt2005; Lippa, Reference Lippa2009), which may be the most different from our ancestral past. The evidence that Wahring et al. review is all drawn from long-term relationships. Indeed, short-term relationships don’t involve much romance, almost by definition.

What then of the commercials, magazines, or romantic comedies targeted towards women that emphasise romance that Wahring et al. present? These may have developed in modern societies where the link between romance and sex has loosened. Media solely focused on the sexual side (e.g., pornography) are overwhelmingly consumed by men, while media that focus on the romance are favoured by women. If, however, we survey the wider range of literature across cultures and history, we see that many men are the authors of the great works of literature about love: William Shakespeare, Vātsyāyana, Rabbie Burns, Leonard Cohen, Omar Kayyám, and so on. Yes, there are also many great female writers on love, but it should come as no surprise that men write deeply, profusely, and passionately about romantic love.