The idea of sexual selection began, like so much else in this field, with Charles Darwin. Darwin, although he laid his main stress on survival and the struggle for existence, recognized that existence and survival were only means to an end. That end was reproduction. A pheasant may live to a ripe old age, but if it does not reproduce it will not pass its attributes on. Selection will favour qualities that make an animal successful at reproducing, and survival is only part of the battle to reproduce. In other parts of the battle, success goes to those that are most attractive to the opposite sex. Darwin saw that, if a male pheasant or peacock or bird of paradise buys sexual attractiveness, even at the cost of its own life, it may still pass on its sexually attractive qualities through highly successful procreation before its death. He realized that the fan of a peacock must be a handicap to its possessor as far as survival is concerned, and he suggested that this was more than outweighed by the increased sexual attractiveness that it gave the male. With his fondness for the analogy with domestication, Darwin compared the hen to a human breeder directing the course of evolution of domestic animals along the lines of aesthetic whims.
