Then why are there so damned many of them?
Indeed.
This is entirely anecdoctal but several years ago I happened to be in this Midwestern town and down the street comes this couple. They stop to greet my dog. I observed (as cops do...cops never "see" something) that the woman was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. Her every feature was perfect, absolutely perfect. Fantastic hair, beautiful blue eyes, shining teeth, the works, my friend.
I also observed that her husband (I know because they told me so) was one of the homeliest men I had ever seen. If his mother had seen him coming out she would have jammed that sucker back in there. I mean he was flat ugly, not a good feature about that man. If he had ever held a mirror and a gun at the same time he would have killed himself.
Now, you tell me that evolution calls for the female to seek out the best looking male. The only explanation in this case would be if this doll of a woman were blind, and she wasn't. The evolution theory in this case is wrong, dead wrong.
Evolution calls for evolutionarily successful women to have made the choices that guarantee social and biological success the most- and this is usually linked to intelligence, wealth, power and/or beauty, not necessarily together.
You assumed that the woman in question, who, in your words, was beautiful, wouldn't make a dumb choice. Evolution doesn't guarantee that. What evolution would have decided is whether her progeny with that man is wanted enough by the prevailing conditions at the time of their biological maturity, to be allowed to mate successfully.
To sum it all, evolution is blind to just beauty.
(--from an old Playboy cartoon)
rich and powerful is okay, since rich and powerful means your offspring will be taken care in reguards to food, shelter, clothing, etc...its a biologically based drive......
IMO....men that are handsome actually probably have a good dose of feminine characteristics....that is not necessarily good because maybe they also don't have as much testosterone as the the uglier men.....
but its a trade off......you marry an ugly or very plain man, you might also have one with a lot of masculine features, and who might have a good dose of testosterone as well....
or you marry a pretty man, and God only knows if he'll come thru in the pinch....providing for you, facing down death for you, etc etc...