For Love or Money: the Evolution of Reproductive and Material Motivations

Abstract

What reproductive strategies are favoured by natural selection in a world where wealth can be inherited? Heritable wealth introduces several interesting wrinkles. First, there is the trade-off between the number of one’s children and their wealth. A parent cannot simultaneously maximise both. Second, there is the question of how fitness should be defined. It makes no sense to equate fitness with the number of children, because the parent whose children are many may lose in competition with parents whose children are fewer but wealthier.