Parental Investment Essay

Discuss parental investment

Parental investment is how much time and effort each parent puts into their offspring.

Maternal investment is the time and effort that the mother gives to the child. It is believed that females put more thought into who they are going to mate with because women do not have the ability to mate and then reproduce as much as males do. However, random mating can be costly to women. A joint parental care relationship is desirable because it is the best environment to bring a child up in. This is not always possible though due to factors such as death of one of the biological parents. This can be overcome by remarrying. It is also thought that this may explain why women have extramarital affairs. Women may marry rich so their spouse can financially provide for their child. However, women may have affairs to ‘shop around’ for genes so their offspring will be of better quality and healthier.

The other type of investment is paternal investment; this is the investment from the father. Men can…