No, it’s about people choosing their own children-in-law and the parents of their grandchildren—probably at least as efficient a system for picking out certain good genes.
Arranged marriages are also a way to unite families, whether they were particularly disharmonious before or not, and therefore were probably often engineered for resources more than the really obvious genetic factors. Wealth (and indirectly, the ability to obtain wealth) running in one’s family netted the ability to secure a similarly wealthy/wealth-obtainment-advantaged spouse. Irresponsible “bad” people probably had (have) all of their children via non-marital encounters in societies where arranged marriage was (is) common.
No, it’s about people choosing their own children-in-law and the parents of their grandchildren—probably at least as efficient a system for picking out certain good genes.
It’s efficient, but it presumably gives a somewhat different set of advantages.
Most of the sociobiology I see (casual discussions online) seems to assume that reproduction starts with attraction between strangers.
I don’t know what the proportions are, but arranged marriages wouldn’t give nearly as much of an advantage to “bad boys”.
I suspect it gives a much larger advantage to prudence, and it might give a bigger advantage to skill at negotiation.
There’s a third category: choosing people who are from the same smallish social system—reputation might matter.
Arranged marriages are also a way to unite families, whether they were particularly disharmonious before or not, and therefore were probably often engineered for resources more than the really obvious genetic factors. Wealth (and indirectly, the ability to obtain wealth) running in one’s family netted the ability to secure a similarly wealthy/wealth-obtainment-advantaged spouse. Irresponsible “bad” people probably had (have) all of their children via non-marital encounters in societies where arranged marriage was (is) common.