Women can smell if a man is single or not

According to a new study, women can sniff out a single man.

The research published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology suggests that married men's body odour differs from that of single men.

Researchers from Australia's Macquarie University asked 82 heterosexual women to assess the body odours of 91 males (46 singletons and 45 partnered men). They did this by providing men with a clean, white T-shirt and asking them to wear it for no longer than 24 hours until a "significant amount of sweat was absorbed onto the underarm of the T-shirt".

Once the T-shirts were collected, the women were asked to sniff six different garments and were also given a photograph of the men-in-question.

"Consistent with our hypothesis, single men’s BO was rated as smelling stronger than the BO of partnered men," the study authors wrote. "We also found that single men’s faces were rated more masculine than partnered men’s, but only among partnered women."

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The researchers explained that the stench could help women find suitable partners.

"From an evolutionary perspective, it may be advantageous for women to detect the chemosignals that connote coupledom and ultimately avoid courting partnered males (especially with offspring) due to the relatively reduced resources they can offer," they said.

While this study did not test testosterone levels in participants, past research revealed that single men tend to have higher testosterone levels than those in relationships.

"Stronger body odour might help you stand out more. It might signal dominance," Mehmet Mahmut, one of the study's authors, told Newsweek.

The scientists could not conclude exactly why this difference exists, but they theorised: "Testosterone is associated with mate-seeking behaviours," Mahmut said. "We know from previous research that higher testosterone is linked to stronger body odour... Potentially single men do have higher levels of testosterone."

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