Here's another sad case of a dating scam that resulted in a woman being financially and emotionally devastated. It's yet more evidence that these lowlifes have responded to people's greater caution about the threat and are making their deceptions more involved and seductive.

In this latest case, a British woman called Kate Roberts was deceived into thinking she was being wooed by a handsome and charming American soldier. The ruse was very involved. It went on for quite some time and involved the use of many photos of the man, which clearly made it all the more convincing.

The fact that it was so effective reveals the powerful influence that sexual archetypes have in people's hearts and minds. There's that cliche about women loving men in uniform, after all.
As much as we like to think otherwise, these beliefs still have great emotional power. Ruthless people know this very well, which is why they keep using them in their scams.

I just saw a funny ad on the TV. It started out looking like a slick promotion for a new dating site, with the camera closing in - from behind - on what looked exactly like a long-haired blonde woman sitting on a sofa. Eventually the woman was revealed to be a very well groomed Afghan hound.

The ad continued, still parodying dating sites, but revealing itself to be a pet and owner matchmaking service run by the RSPCA. The site is here.

The commercial, as well as the website itself, show not only how effective the whole dating site concept is, since it can be used for this purpose, but also also how deeply entrenched in our popular culture it is now.

For a long time people have been campaigning against the institution of marriage on various grounds - for example that it's inherently oppressive to women. Yet despite all the bad press about it, people just keep tying the knot!

It seems that most people still believe that marriage holds the key to happiness. Cynics would argue that it's a fasle dream. But one thing seems certain: it can confer many powerful health benefits.

There's a widely held belief in our society that a man doesn't have to be young and handsome to win the heart of a beautiful young woman; he can do it if he's older, rich and powerful. A lot of people don't like this idea, since it puts a big hole in their theories about equality between the sexes.

Still, there does seem to be a lot of evidence for the belief - the latest being the engagement of Aussie celebrity Sophie Monk to the much older French millionaire Jimmy Esebag. While she describes him as being her soul mate, and there seems to be clear and genuine affection between them, it's fair to say that his substantial wealth and influence probably had more than a little to do with her attraction to him!

Many of the social changes that have occurred in Western society over the last few decades have been initiated in the belief that men and women are pretty much the same psychologically and that any seeming differences are mainly due to socialization. Women have been encouraged to value work outside the home as much as men do, and there have been many affirmative action policies put in place to ensure equality of outcome in this area.

So now we have a situation in which most women have to work whether they like it or not. Yet there's more and more evidence to show that most of them don't like it. It's all quite ironic when you think about it.

Turning back the clock on four decades of feminism, a study has found nearly two-thirds of women would love to find a husband with a bigger pay packet than theirs so they can care for their children full-time.

EHarmony reveals some more specific demographic information of interest to single people. This time it's about Aussie women looking for love.

Their data says that suburbs such as Alexandria in Sydney's eastern suburbs had the nation's highest concentrations of such women.