Also, (since we're speculating) from an evolutionary perspective it's advantageous for men to have positive view of and attraction to as many women as possible, while at the same time it's advantageous for women to be as sceptical and critical of men as possible.
>while at the same time it's advantageous for women to be as sceptical and critical of men as possible.
I don't know about this. These days, I've seen and met many women who have numerous male friends. Sure, ultra-conservative and religious women don't, but lots of women aren't conservative any more.
I think "friendships" are further removed from base evolutionary instincts than sexual relationships are. Your base evolutionary instinct to select for mates is different than the ones we developed to form societies.
To put it bluntly, the colloquial prevalence of "thinking with your [genitals]" certainly indicates that people's higher social brain function tends to be clouded more often (reverting to base instinct) when sex is involved.
(Obviously, good relationships are based on friendship as well, but by definition the relationships in this study were not successful ones.)
I wouldn't be so sure. This line of thought seems to reflect a bias towards modern-day societies and how they operate ("modern" being the last couple thousand years or more). In ancient hunter-gatherer societies, people most likely lived in small tribes, so this idea that women have to be skeptical or critical of men doesn't really hold up. Men who are a real problem would have been cast out of the tribe or killed, and marriage probably didn't exist back then at all. We've seen in other primitive societies that monogamy is not the norm for humans at all.
> people most likely lived in small tribes, so this idea that women have to be skeptical or critical of men doesn't really hold up.
This premise and your thoughts on polygamy can coexist with my suggestion about women being selective. If you can have only a handful of pregnancies in your lifetime each of them carrying the very real risk of death for both yourself and the baby, as well as the burden of taking care of any children that survive, then you really need to make sure that your shots count and you're choosing the best mates from the tribe. Men don't have the same burden of pregnancy and childcare - additional partners only increase their chances of passing along their genes, so as a result they become far less selective.
Alternative hypothesis: Or the lack of emotional support means they don't have people around them feeding their resentment, so they just move on with their lives.
Here's my not-so-scientific hypothesis partially formed by my last relationship: women frequently get "BFFs" (other women best friends) who they're extremely close to emotionally, sometimes much more than their own boyfriend/husband. And sometimes (frequently?) these BFFs are extremely "toxic" women, who give them terrible relationship advice, try to break up their relationship because they hate the woman's bf/husband or are jealous, etc. So, as you said, after the breakup, the BFF feeds her resentment, continually telling her what a POS her bf was, and how she's better off without him even if it means being forever single, etc.
