Men prefer brains over beauty when searching for future wife, claims top scientist

A top scientist has revealed women’s most obvious charms - bigger brains.

Evolutionary biologist Professor David Bainbridge claims men value intelligence over breast size when they are searching for a future wife.

The Cambridge academic said brains suggest a woman is likely to be a responsible mother.

It also indicates she was brought by intelligent parents and so was likely to be well fed and looked after in childhood, and so healthier.

Other supposed attractive female features such as long legs don’t matter to men either, according to Professor Bainbridge.

He said men only value symmetrical features because they suggest a potential partner is young, healthy and has stable genes.

As a result, he said, men are not even interested in the size of a woman’s breasts - because they are rarely symmetrical.

And with legs the most important factor is that they are straight because unevenness suggests a developmental illness, such as rickets.

“Breast size doesn’t matter,” he told the Hay Festival. “Actually large breasts are more likely to be asymmetric and men are more attracted to symmetry. And they look older more quickly, and men value youth.

“And men are not looking for long legs. Straight legs are a sign of genetic health so that is something that is more attractive, but surveys have shown most men prefer regular length.

“The main thing that men are looking for is intelligence. Surveys have shown time and time again that this is the first thing that men look for. It shows that she will be able to look after his children and that her parents were probably intelligent as well, suggesting that she was brought up well.

Men also look for symmetry in facial and bodily features which suggests ‘stable’ genes and youthful partners. Studies have shown that men who are four to five years older than their partners are more successful.

However men do like women to be curvaceous with voluptuous thighs and bottoms, and a waist that is much slipper than their hips, which might explain why men find women like Nigella Lawson so attractive.

Carrying a bit more weight on the thighs and the bottom suggests that a woman has stored enough fat during puberty to adequately provide for the huge requirements of a growing baby .

In fact the development of babies’ brains relies on fat supplies stripped directly from their mothers’ thighs and bottoms, especially during breastfeeding, and that the quantity of such fat supplies may directly affect a child’s intelligence and chances of survival.

It is one of the reasons why such fat is the hardest of all to shift by dieting because the body instinctively saves it.

Mammals’ and primates’ bodies typically have about 5 per cent -10 per cent of fat but in human women that rises to 30 per cent on average.

This is similar to the levels seen in bears going into hibernation or whales living in cold Arctic seas. Women have traded muscle for fat so they are about a third as strong.