Money: A Sign of Greater Virtues?

“Real women love rich men not for their money, but for their qualities that brought that money.”

This post was inspired by an article entitled Rich Man and Russian Brides: Poor-Guy-Good-Girl Test Failed over at Natalie’s blog. The basic premise behind this article is that there exists a strong correlation between a Man’s material wealth, and his possession of greater qualities like intelligence, competence, “virility”, “vitality” and a “great personality”.

I’ll be specifically addressing the (supposed) correlation between Money and these Greater Qualities in this post; and I’ll be discussing some further issues in Part 2.

(The context of this article is, of course, that of Western Men seeking Russian/FSU Wives, but I think the issues can be generalised fairly easily.)

In her article, Natalie tells us that…

“[Material wealth is] Just one more Secondary Sexual Characteristic for a Homo Sapiens. [...] social success is no substitute to other Virile Virtues, – it is nothing but an essential[??] [...] evidence of them… Like lion’s mane and rooster’s spurs used aptly to overcome other males, it indicates vitality [...]”

Not necessarily. Why? Well… let’s start by talking about Serious Wealth.

Serious Wealth has two main sources: Inheritance and Entrepreneurship.

Now… Entrepreneurship almost never starts before age 35, so the majority of budding entrepreneurs would not have accumulated serious wealth before the age of at least 40. Given that the median age of Men seeking FSU Women is 37, by using material wealth as evidence of greater “vitality”, what one has effectively done is…

[a] Eliminated over 50% of Men [all those under 40] who do have the “vitality” to generate serious wealth (or which is supposedly indicated by serious wealth) but have not accumulated it yet.* ; and

[b] Given a free pass to an even larger proportion of Men [almost all the rich ones under 40 and a good proportion of those older…] who have “family money”.. i.e. wealthy primarily due to Inheritance and not significant efforts on their own part… which I’m sure you’ll agree is not (necessarily) an indicator of any greater qualities.

[*Of course I assume here that they do, nevertheless, have ADEQUATE resources to maintain a family.]

Now, lets take a More Middle Class Example…

Here, the issue of REAL WEALTH vs. PERCEIVED WEALTH comes strongly into play…

This best illustrated using an example (and I’ll use American currency throughout for simplicity…) Take two Western Guys, John and Steve. John earns $ 30 000 a year, and Steve earns double that, $ 60 000 a year…

John buys himself a $ 50 000 car [on some residual plan that takes a huge chunk out of his salary every month, plus will bite him in the ass later on.]

Bling, Bling.

Steve, being more responsible, buys a much more modest $ 35 000 car. Steve’s excess income goes into savings, investments, property, whatever. John meanwhile gets further into debt buying more Bling… designer clothes, etc.

Now John and Steve goes to Russia to woo the some lovely Natasha, Svetlana, Olga, or whoever. (John with his not-yet-paid-for designer clothes, and pictures of his $50k car in tow… ) Now the punch-line…

Steve is actually both WEALTHIER and (more importantly) more MATURE, SENSIBLE and RESPONSIBLE than John, but is unlikely to be perceived as such.

I should add that, in the West including the U.S. this behaviour [John's] is more the norm than the exception… & thus apparent material wealth becomes a very poor indicator of actual wealth [in this earnings bracket], let alone greater qualities.

(And yes, this story is a tad silly, but I think it does effectively illustrate the point.)

This situation may also be exacerbated by the backgrounds of the individuals concerned… suppose these guys are both professionals in their late 20′s or early 30′s; and John comes from a much wealthier family than Steve…

Even if Steve is smarter, more hardworking, earning more – he will have issues like paying off student loans, taking care of parents, etc… while John’s education, first car, first apartment even may have been wholly or partly financed by Daddy.

I’ll be writing more on this in a while, so please do stay tuned

Your comments & suggestions, and (constructive) criticism are most welcome.

(To Be Continued in Part 2)