Is “intelligence” a strictly accurate view of sexual selection? Given that females are supposed to make a choice between males based on criteria, maybe it is - but then they also exercise a choice to eat, or not.
As I understand it the idea was that some female behavioural variation inexplicably got selected, so that female elks, say, went wild over antler spread to the exclusion of all else. Far from being intelligent, it led in the classical account to extinction. The story is tosh, of course, but we’re talking about the theory here.
Intelligence would make some sound decision that big antlers make strong males, or that pretty bowers show surplus energy, making mating investment worthwhile. As it is, even the scientists usually can’t find a secure adaptive advantage and put it down to an arbitrary female preference produced, in turn, by stochastic variations.