In past generations, the challenge of finding a mate was different. Men and women wanted a partner who could fulfill their basic needs for security and survival. Women looked for a strong man who would be a good provider; men searched for a nurturing woman to make a home. This is the classical view on mate selection, which is fueled by gender biases, but with changing times come changing needs such as technological and industrial advances, life style changes, newly developing family structure and changes in commercial and corporate realms. These factors put mate selection in America in transition. Mate selection in America is based on mating laws that are expanding in complexity in conjunction with social changes.
The most "primitive" law takes more of an evolutionary standpoint and focuses on obstacles that our ancestors had to face for mating strategies, which are still part of the social norm. Parental investment is the major component in that females must invest more time and effort into their offspring therefore desiring a mate that has resources to support the investment. In modern societies, this view has changed and the most important characteristic of modern markets is that both men and women actively seek mates.
Some of the reasons for such a change in modern society can be attributed to the decline and then rise in marriage ages in the post-World War II period; increases in premarital sex, cohabitation, and premarital pregnancy; the heterogeneous pattern of venues in which married couples first met; the rise in female employment aspirations and actual work experience; the growing trend of residential independence for young people prior to marriage; the decline in religious "matching" in marriage over time; the level of religious vs. civil marriages; the decline in marriage quality and problems over the course of a marriage (Whyte 241).
There are many characteristics that both males and females value in a potential mate.