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In an article titled "Evolution of Human Mate Choice," David Geary, Jacob Vigil, and Jennifer Byrd-Craven explore why and how women choose their mates. Male reproductive potential is limited only by sexual access, while gestation and suckling time limit female reproductive potential. Since a male can have a nearly unlimited number of offspring and a female can only care for so many children, they must have different evolutionary priorities. From this, it is predicted that there "is an evolved bias of mammalian females toward high levels of parental investment...and mammalian males toward competition for mates and no parental investment" (p27). As all mammalian females tend to invest more in parenting than males, the female choice in mate becomes more critical than that of the male, as she has more to lose. The decision to mate being made by the female "has been demonstrated across species of bird, insect, fish, reptile, and mammal" (p28). One intriguing result of this that Geary et al. note is that female choice promotes exaggerated male traits.
When mate choice is seen from an evolutionary perspective, it becomes obvious that a woman's best interest lies in a long-term partner with good genes who has reproductive potential and a desire to invest this potential in her and her children. Geary et al. state that male "reproductive potential is determined by the ability to parent and the ability to invest social and material resources in children" (p28). One of the ways that Geary et al. choose to define men's resources is through social status and the control of material resources.
Geary et al. find evidence of this preference in studies of singles ads and popular fiction novels, stating that one study found "the same themes across 25 contemporary romance novels and six classic novels that have traditionally appealed to women more than men" (p28-9). These stories involve a male protagonist who is usually an older, socially dominant, and wealthy man who ultimately marries the woman. Some of the stories cited are from the Old Testament in the Bible, going back 3,000 years.
This preference for culturally succesful men is complicated, however, with social realities. Geary et al. note that such men "are often arrogant, self-serving, and better able to pursue their preferred reproductive interests than are other men" (p29). These interests involve pursuing multiple mating partners rather than investing in a single woman and her children, resulting in a loss of benefit to the partners. Because of this, personal and behavioral traits may be deemed more important than success. Emotional stability and family orientation were found to be even more important than ambition or social dominance (p30).
Physically, women "prefer men who are somewhat taller than average, and have an athletic (but not too muscular) and symmetrical body shape" (Geary, p29). Prominent cheek bones and masculine chins are preferred to more delicate, feminine faces. Geary claims that all of these traits indicate genetic variability, a lack of illness during development, and current health.
Further studies into female desires back up many of these assertions. The article "Sex Differences in Sexual Fantasy" by Bruce Ellis returns to Geary et al.'s references to romance novels and other fiction, finding that women prefer fantasizing and reading about the type of men they are most likely to choose as mates. Ellis notes that romance novels have changed dramatically over the years, with more graphic and frequent sexual activity as well as giving the heroines powerful careers. However, the "basic fictional world" of romance novels "has remained remarkably stable over the centuries," much like the "fictional world" of the vastly different male pornography (p527).
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Ellis, Bruce. "Sex Differences in Sexual Fantasy: An Evolutionary Psychological Approach." Journal of Sex Research. Nov. 1990: 527-30.
Geary, David, Jacob Vigil, and Jennifer Byrd-Craven. "Evolution of Human Mate Choice." Journal of Sex Research. Feb. 2004. 27-9.
Yeah, I think there are aspects of literary fantasy which 
