Evolution Explains Kim Kardashian's Preposterous Marriage To Kris Humphries

Word on the street is reality person Kim Kardashian and basketball player Kris Humphries just got divorced. There's a lot worth making fun of: the 72 days they were together, the cool $10 million their wedding cost, the $15 million E! paid them for a four-hour (four-hour!) TV wedding special, the $2.5 million paid by People for exclusive wedding photos, the sanctity and defense of marriage at large… The list goes on and on, and thankfully scads of internet gadflies have already talked plenty of trash at their expense so I don't have to.

What's more interesting to me is that, even by sham marriage standards, the whole thing is biologically weird. From an evolutionary behavior standpoint, what's the point of getting hitched for two months before walking away, prenup in hand, like nothing happened?

Wooing over a mate with extravagant wealth and gifts is common in Hollywood. It's also prevalent in the rest of the animal kingdom. As far as many mammals and birds are concerned, it's usually a male trying to impress a female because of one general fact: it's a lot more costly for a female to have kids than a male.

First, males produce a lot more sperm than females produce eggs, making eggs more costly and thus females more choosy about using them. Plus, there's the whole part about carrying a kid around in your stomach or sitting on an egg, birthing the kid without dying, and then worrying about feeding that kid. That's not to say that males don't help out at all, but in terms of actually creating and birthing a child, female animals generally have more at risk. Because of that, they tend to be the ones doing the choosing when it comes to a mate, which means the males have to try hard as hell to impress them.

That has led to all kinds of crazy behaviors and traits in males, from frogs croaking to rams butting heads. In some species, males more or less purposely carry parasites just to prove they're strong enough to do so. But the most straightforward way for a dude to show a girl he'd be a great father (and therefore they should have sex and 'get married') is to prove that he's a great resource gatherer and provider for the kids. In other words, cash makes a man attractive, which is partly why you see all these rich old dudes getting frisky with their granddaughter's friends.

Some of the best examples of this in nature are the bowerbirds (Ptilonorhynchidae), the males of which build extremely elaborate nests, called bowers, to try to snag women. The birds first build little houses on the ground with scores of stick and twigs, whose distinctive architecture blows any Malibu McMansion out of the water. They then collect fruit, shells, cans and whatever other shiny, precious objects they may find to decorate the sides and entrance of their house.

You have to love Attenborough's perfect science voice.

These bowers are no joke. The excellent David Attenborough checked them out on an old BBC Wildlife segment, and the footage his crew got is mind-blowing. These little bowerbirds spend all of their waking time building palaces with no blueprints whatsoever. Once that's done, they track down all kinds of tasty morsels and tasteful decorations, predators be damned, in the hopes of impressing a girl.

Only the males with the best designed, most richly-appointed bower gets the audience of females, who he then must further impress with dancing and small talk. In all seriousness, at its essence, it's no different than the guy who uses his Lamborghini and penthouse to make the girls swoon.

There is an obvious issue with this comparison: Human relationships and marriages don't just boil down to rich old men trying to bag young women. Thankfully, this holds true in the animal kingdom, and it's not always males trying to win over females either. But in the case of sham marriages and arm candy, the analogy holds true because—almost always—those situations boil down to some haggard old bag winning over some hot young thing because their wealth, as proof of their resource-gathering ability, makes them a more attractive mate.

So what in the hell does this have to do with Kardashian and Humphries? Well, it just goes to show the whole marriage was weird. Kardashian is likely the wealthier of the pair (her family pulled in about $65 million last year, to his $3.2 million with the Nets), but it's not like she needed that to woo him because she's already plenty desirable and famous on her own. It's pretty much the same thing for him.

In that sense, their marriage doesn't fit the behavioral model for a resource-driven sham marriage. There isn't really much of a precedent at all in nature for two filthy rich, famous people get hitched and splitting so soon. Does that mean it was all driven by love, that one emotion that can break all the rules of nature? Well, you can believe that if you want.

Personally, I'd chalk it up it to the desire for fame, which causes people to do all kinds of crazy stuff that has no evolutionary precedents. You know, like marrying someone a person kinda likes just to get more money and more exposure—even out of the breakup. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to start doing some research on why talking about the peculiarly famous makes me vomit.

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