Married Men Travel More

Single men may be lustful, but they have less wanderlust than their
married brethren. Bachelors are also more xenophobic than married men,
and women of any marital status.

The discrepancy may be because a man's value as a mate is
culture-bound, according to Satoshi Kanazawa, Ph.D., a professor of
psychology at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand.

Wealth and social status are men's standard bargaining chips in the
search for mates. But BMWs and second homes aren't portable, nor are they
universally appreciated. Women in the Amazon rain forest won't be
impressed by a Grammy award or a Nobel Prize, nor can men brag to women
about their achievements unless they speak the same language, says
Kanazawa. Conversely, American women are not likely to be impressed by
large penis sheaths.

Evolutionary psychology maintains that women's desirability resides
in youth and beauty, attributes that are fairly universal and don't have
to be checked by customs officials. To test whether these evolutionary
tenets translate into less globe-trotting for single men, Kanazawa
examined a survey that detailed the travel itineraries and xenophobic
attitudes of more than 16,000 Europeans. Kanazawa found that unmarried
men are significantly less likely to travel or want to travel to foreign
countries than are unmarried women. They are significantly more likely to
find people of other nationalities and races "disturbing." Kanazawa
compared these findings with data on unmarried American men, as measured
by the General Social Survey. The GSS provided no data on actual travel,
but again, single men reported more xenophobic attitudes than did single
women.

Kanazawa also found that among Europeans and Americans, men's
greater reluctance to travel disappears when they marry. This makes
sense: Not only do married men no longer need to attract mates, but a
wife may be the lone sexual status symbol that is understood across
cultures. In the journal Social Biology, Kanazawa notes that from guppies
to humans, females prefer males who have recently mated. So, ironically,
"being married is one cross-culturally transportable ornament that
signifies men's superior mate value." Kanazawa's data do not, however,
reveal whether married men traveled alone or with their spouses. Could it
be that traveling solo leads to extramarital mating?