Charles Darwin and his followers mean that, in the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection, women (females) make their choice of the men (males) to mate with mostly depending on their apparent wealth: the beautiful feathers; the strong muscles, asserting a surplus of nourishment (and, more recently, time for working out), well used for defending their mates and, even more decadent, demonstrating strength just for the sake of showing off; the delicate skin colors–or the fancy cars. To put it succinctly, women choose their men by measure of how much of their combined wealth they can afford to waste.
Surely, every man doesn't need a very expensive or a very fast car. It is not necessary for his survival. The point is that an expensive car suggests to the woman that this particular man is so wealthy–in human societies most importantly wealthy in liquid assets (money)–that he can support himself financially and survive in today's world, even when at the same time throwing away huge sums of money on expensive, unnecessary and superfluous objects. (Which, according to himself, is well spent as a means to strengthening his ego or getting laid. Often both, as one is often reinforcing the other.) The logical conclusion is that this kind of man will be (again, apparently) able to effortlessly support one or more children in addition to the woman herself.
Women have never needed this shallow waste of capital, since all men are by nature willing to mate with most any woman that accepts him. Men are evolved to have the innative drive to spread his seed around as widely as humanly–or animal-y–possible. Just look at the dull feathers of the female duck, or the plainness of a lioness in comparison to their mate. Nature, or more specifically the genes (
according to Mr Dawkins), sure seem most willing to underwrite a huge wasting of wealth, but only in case it has a good chance of serving the innate purpose of the procreation of their own line of within the general species.
The curious thing that started happening throughout the 20th century however is that women, with their gradual rise to the now in most measures equal standing with men in our society, began to show patterns of waste of capital previously only displayed by men. I suspect that the "expensive handbags" phenomenon which has recently gotten an increasing amount of media attention for the lavishness of it all, is a direct result of a great leveling of the playing field between men and women in the struggle for status and sex.
No longer can a woman afford to be plain, but must instead be sure to show her excessive wealth by spending ludicrous amounts of money on accessories, such as handbags, shoes, designer sunglasses, clothes and furniture, refined makeup and perfumes, or complicated hairstyles, much as men used to–and continue to–buy expensive cars, watches and luxury yachts to show to all the world where he resides in the great comparison.
On the other hand–and this really hints of the road head–it's increasingly allowed–and more and more eagerly exercised–for the new societal sub-grouping of "metrosexual" men to purchase and use accessories and "enhancements" which were until very recently squarely in the domain of pure femininity.
The democratization of our society has led to a truly competitive free market economy in the subtle trade of human relationships.
