Right, I'm sorry..

But my comment did have some serious points. I have also studied evolutionary theory quite a bit so I know my way around it. I don't know which literature you've read, but if you haven't read 'the Selfish Gene' you should. The basic unit of evolution is a replicator molecule or gene. Genes want to multiply themselves (or create as many copies of themselves as possible). Since organisms carry genes, that would mean organisms want to breed as many offspring as possible. In the animal world, organisms that have the highest capability of breeding and feeding off offspring (the ones most capable of hunting, gathering food, protecting etc) are said to have the highest fitness, meaning they are the most fit to breed as many offspring (or gene copies) as possible. So that quantitative element of breeding as much as possible is the engine that drives evolution (in the animal world at least).

However, if you're talking about human societies, things probably change up a bit. At some point humans have gained self-awarness. Sometimes people just assume that social concept of status is synonymous with the mentioned fitness from the animal world and that having high status as a guy correlates with having high fitness as a tiger. Which would mean human behaviour can also be explained in terms of reproductive strategies (or that humans also want to breed as much as possible and they do everything they do to that end). I don't quite think that's the case because civilization at large is irrelevant for those purposes. In your comment you mentioned consumer goods. Why do people even make consumer products since most of them are not eatable or don't increase fertility, sperm count? That means they are irrelevant to evolutionary ends. Or how can a guy that's physically not very strong or fast have high status? In the animal world, physically weak males would inevitably rank low. The fact that human males can rank high, even if they're not too impressive physical specimens implies some kind of discrepancy between what's happening in human societies and in flora or fauna. The guy who's ultra-rich, but physically mediocre can end up fucking alot of women. In the animal world physically mediocre male wouldn't be high sexual priority. And besides, people mostly don't really use wealth for reproductive purposes but rather for lifestyle or to boost their ego with social status. You don't really need alot of wealth just to procreate.

I think that what's really happening is that people (perhaps that's more true for men, but consequently for women also) are by default scared of their own self-awarness (it plays tricks on them) and awarness others have of them so they seek power to assert themselves, not really soley to the end of breeding offspring, but in order to rid their self-awarness of fear. So they seek power and wealth because they think those things bring security and peace of mind. That's why they've been killing themselves throughout most of history over power.

However, that's not to say that physical evolutionary heritage doesn't play a role. It does, perhaps more so for men. They have deeply engrained physical preferences that evolution has bestowed them. That's why they're attracted to women with better looks because it signals fertility. Even though that's largely irrational in industrial societies because capability to make and raise children depends more on having acces to medicine, technology, products etc rather than female physical features (meaning an ugly woman is not really less capable of breeding offspring than the pretty one in the modern context), however that engrained preference is still there. Women, on the other hand, are not as much hardwired to male physical features (it would seem..), so they can pick mates based on other features. And since marrying up is an easy way to attain material standard, status or whatever, and since men can't help themselves, they will typically do it. Which means they have a massive psychological advantage over men. Since you're gay, you've managed to escape the trap most men are in today.

Anyways, just some random thoughts...