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OK, this is all well and good, but why does my wife persist in wearing shoes that make her feet hurt (and sometimes give her blisters)?
Obviously, because she is trying to attract a higher-status man.
No, seriously: Why do people still try to be fashionable after they're married? If I were married, I'd buy a Toyota Camry and shop at the Salvation Army.
(Okay, I already have a Camry and shop at the Salvation Army. But only at the most fashionable ones.)
See my comment below, on why the most fashionable clothing should be painful and impractical.
People do let themselves go somewhat after marriage. But they don't fall apart entirely because:
Staying fashionable is fun for some people.
It is important for same-sex status games for women especially.
You have to continue to look nice or your partner might leave you.
Not staying fashionable signals laziness and implies that past efforts to stay fashionable were deceptive mating practices.
Agreed. I think that wanting to look more physically attractive than other women is similar behavior to men wanting to dominate each other (AMOG, in PUA term). Both behaviors continue after marriage.
Fashion is something used to attract initial attention. I think a lot of people don't care if their mate is fashionable after they're married? (Honestly, most men don't care much if their woman is fashionable, ever; so my perspective is skewed.)
I've had the experience several times that girlfriends pressured me to do things that would make me less attractive. Perhaps this was done unconsciously to reduce my opportunities.
They might still care for signaling reasons: to show off their mate, raising their status in the eyes of both sexes.
I must agree, though I also didn't use fashion to attract initial attention. It seems abhorrent to imagine there are people who would leave someone for looking unfashionable.
Insofar as fashion signals that:
then someone giving up on being fashionable may be an indicator of deeper problems than clothing, e.g., apathy about reduced status or lesser social awareness.
If there are status gains elsewhere (e.g., partner is now in medical residency and wears scrubs when not asleep), I'd suspect unfashionability would not be a dealbreaker.
I wouldn't call relative apathy about status signalling a "deeper problem", on the contrary, I'd call it a virtue. Enough effort is wasted on endless social hierarchy competitions already.
I certainly don't think status indifference is universally problematic, but was trying to point up the difference between "I've figured out that the people in my social circle/the norms I've been using are vapid and petty and I'm ready to move on with my life" and "I'm no longer inclined or able to participate in activities I find meaningful."
The discussion, as I read it, had been about using fashion to attract partners and then giving up on being fashionable. In this case, I posited someone who started dressing fashionably specifically in order to attract partners and quits dressing fashionably when they've done so. Maybe they've had a revelation of the "my norms are vapid" sort, or maybe they've just accomplished their goals.
But thomblake had an implied question about whether anyone would actually leave a partner because the partner looked unfashionable. One possible cause could be that what made them initially attractive were other character traits/personality features that also led them to dress fashionably, in which case the partner might be have good cause for concern (the "no longer able to do activities" situation). P(!traits | !fashion) > P(traits | !fashion). So the other status gains I referred to would increase the estimate of P(traits | !fashion).
One wouldn't leave a partner for no reason other than unfashionability unless one places such a high value on fashion that no other status gains could make up for its lack. But a partner who suddenly quits caring how they look might send up some red flags. (Absent discussions of updating norms, of course.)
It depends: I wouldn't call not strongly caring about status as a terminal value a problem, but irrationally underestimating how important status is as an instrumental value for other goals is a problem (the stereotypical failure mode of nerds, and IME that stereotype does have a grain of truth).
Fashion has very little to do with attracting partners and a lot to do with impressing your peers. Women try to be fashionable for their friends and coworkers, not their boyfriends or husbands. When a girl dresses fashionably in a social setting with her boyfriend, she isn't trying to keep his attention, she's trying to signal "You can't compete with me" to other women* (this will end the instant they have children). Men are much more likely to dress 'schlubby' when they have a partner because they don't depend on their looks to stay in competition with other men. Stay solvent, brush your teeth and remember your anniversaries and you can wear and drive whatever you want.
*This is frequently seen in popular culture in the form of "low-status girl is afraid high-status woman will steal her (percieved) high-status boyfriend, even though he loves her and sees through high-status woman's play." There's probably a TVTropes article on it. This only works because the low-status girl is usually as attractive as the high, just not as well-dressed or made-up; in reality, men with less attractive girlfriends often cheat with more attractive women, given the opportunity.
But the question is why she feels the need to signal this.
It says something about how egalitarian a society you come from that you can ask that question.
Asking that question in Victorian England would be unthinkable. If you were fashionable/mannered/cultured you could get invited to the right parties, know the right people and get the right jobs or get your kids sent to the right schools.
Signaling High status was likely to get you lots of perks.
OK, I walked into that one. hehe.
Being married doesn't mean you don't want other people to find you attractive. Fashion plays in to this to some degree.
As a married man, if I have to pick between not worrying about fashion and women other than my wife not noticing me (whether this is imagined or not) or worrying about fashion and women other than my wife noticing me, I'm going to worry about fashion.
High-heeled shoes reshape the calves and raise the buttocks; they also produce the illusion of long, slender, shapely legs.
Read Veblen's Theory of the Leisure Class and Zahavi's Handicap Principle if you'd like to know the answer.
I don't think it applies. When was the last time you heard a guy say, "Man, her shoes were so hot!"
The books that I mentioned discuss many kinds of signaling, not just sexual semiotics. Sometimes people wear uncomfortable shoes not to look hot, but merely to avoid looking like a proletariat.
At this point I picture the stereotypical goth pickup line "Nice boots ... wanna fuck?"
Don't high heels affect a woman's posture and therefore apparent body type? So if high heels are under discussion, then they can increase the quantity of guys saying "Man, her body is so hot!" which, while stilted and awkward-sounding, is a common sentiment.
About once a year, I see men on Facebook complaining that trainer shoes are unsexy and that if women give a damn about erectile dysfunction which is such a big problem nowadays they should stop wearing them.
All the time. Or they don't know what it is, but they're reacting to the traditional presentation (heels).