Explores how different, evolutionary-based theories address patterns of mating in humans, evaluating R. Trivers’s (1972) Parental Investment and Sexual Selection Theory, as well as D.M. Buss and D.P. Schmitt’s (1993) Sexual Strategies Theory, which attempts to explain variation in mating strategies between and within women and men. The authors review theory and research from a ‘female-centered’perspective by examining recent models of mating proposed by S.B. Hrdy (1997), P.A. Gowaty (1992), and J.K. Waage (1997). They present S.W. Gangestad and J.A. Simpson’s (1997) Strategic Pluralism Theory, that melds ideas from good-provider and good-genes models of sexual selection, and attempts to explain why within-sex variation exists in human mating.