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Dating & Mate Selection. Introduction to Family Studies. Dating and Mate Selection. How has mate selection changed over time ? The rise and fall of dating culture How do we meet our mates today?.
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Dating & Mate Selection Introduction to Family Studies
Dating and Mate Selection • How has mate selection changed over time? • The rise and fall of dating culture • How do we meet our mates today?
Changes in the Importance College Students Attach to Characteristics of Marriage Partners, 1939-1996. Note changes in characteristics that were more highly valued in 1939 compared to 1996 • CHARACTERISTICS THAT HAVE INCREASED IN VALUE SINCE 1939 • (1996 RANKING IN PARENTHESES) • FOR MEN FOR WOMEN • Love (1) Love (1) • Education (5) Education (5) Sociability (7) Sociability (8) Good looks (8) Good looks (13) Similar educational background (12) Good financial prospects (13) • CHARACTERISTICS THAT HAVE DECREASED IN VALUE (1996 RANKING IN PARENTHESES) • FOR MEN FOR WOMEN • Desire for home and children (9) Ambition, industriousness (7) Refinement, neatness (11) Good health (9) Good cook, homemaker (14) Refinement, neatness (7) Chastity (16) Chastity (17) • Buss & Shakleford, 2001
What characteristics are most important • The top half of the table shows characteristics that have become MORE important over time: • For BOTH Men and women LOVE is the #1 characteristic for a marriage partner and education is #5 • But look at the importance of good looks for men (#8) vs. women # 13! • The bottom half of the chart shows those characteristics that have decreased in importance: • Chastity, neatness, good cook and homemaker
Where do we meet our mates? • High school • College? • Clubs? • Bars? • Work? • On-line? • Through friends • Though our families
Marriage Market • Sociologists often study marriage in terms of the marriage market • Thinking is similar to the employment market • There are 3 components to this “marriage market” • Supply – who is available • Preferences – preferred characteristics • Resources – individual characteristics that are attractive to others
Marriage Market • The concept of the marriage market: • unmarried individuals search for spouses with an acceptable set of desired characteristics • What are some of these desired characteristics? • Propinquity (Proximity) • Religion • Education • Class • Race • Personal Traits
Marriage Market • Proximity – where ones lives. • Proximity is important as you actually have to come into contact with someone to meet them and start dating – A study in 1958 showed that people most like to marry lived within 2-3 miles of each other. • The importance of proximity is weakening, especially with advances in communication like the internet, but still has some effect (according to more recent studies). • Proximity still makes sense because neighborhoods are usually stratified by class, ethnicity, and race.
Marriage Market • Religion – there is a strong tendency to marry within the same religious group – though this is also changing. • Research has shown that: • Inter-marriages are less stable and more likely to end in divorce • Inter-marriage varies by gender and religion • Jews – males more likely to intermarry • Catholics – females more likely • When the less typical combination occurs, the marriage is more likely to end in divorce.
Marriage Market • Education: women are becoming more educated so the old pattern of men marrying a wife with less education is no longer the norm. • 1/3 of married women now have more education than their husbands • http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/fashion/24marriage.html?scp=13&sq=January%2024%202010&st=Search • But similar education is preferred, particularly because more education often means more earning potential, and this is now preferred by both men & women • Educational attainment may also reflect social class.
Marriage Market • Education: • In the past, those who did NOT have a college degree were more likely to be married by age 30 • Now college educated are more likely to postpone marriage today than their less educated counterparts. • http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1756/share-married-educational-attainment
Marriage Market • Class: most people marry within their social class (measured by their occupation or their parents’ occupation). • Many people seek to marry up – this is called hypergamy • Hypergamyis defined as: marrying up in social status. • Women more likely to marry up, men down.
Marriage Market • Race: most marry within their racial group • In the past -- laws against inter-racial marriage (miscegenation) • Still on the books in some southern states until the Supreme Court overturned them in 1967 • Sociologists expect that inter-racial marriage will become more common
Marriage Market • Personal Traits - People tend to marry people like themselves • In what ways? 1) IQ - may be the result of a similar background 2) Physical similarities – which may also be from marrying within ethnic group 3) Physical attractiveness – similar measure of physical attractiveness. Research has shown that a marriage may be less stable when the partners are unequal in attractiveness
Summary • Dating has declined since the 1980s • The marriage market is a way to look at how we choose a mate • We tend to marry people like us in education, race/ethnicity, and religion • Choosing a mate is complicated
