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Hello, everyone.
Today I will be lecturing on Partner Selection and Marriage.
This lecture will be split into three or four different recordings that last about 15-20 minutes each.
Additionally, there are various points during the lecture where you will watch additional
video clips.
You can pause this lecture at those times to watch the link, and then return to the
lecture.
As a reminder, I will often reference chapter 5- Selecting a Partner- from the Knox and
Schact, 2016 book Choices in Relationships: An Introduction to Marriage and the Family
We’ll start with a short quote from Gary, a seven year old who said, “It isn’t always
just how you look.
Look at me.
I’m handsome like anything, and I haven’t got anybody to marry me yet”.
Today I will talk about various theories related to partner selection, finding a relationship
partner, intercultural or interracial dating and marriage, arranged marriage versus love matches,
and marital satisfaction.
The first video clip I would like you to watch is available online from the UNCG library
system.
It is called Love, ***, and Marriage: Why We Stay and Why We Stray.
There are several sections to this video, but I would like you to watch the first three:
Blueprints for future mates, how people choose mates, and courting rituals.
There are links to these clips available in Canvas, or you could search for them through
the library webpage, or search for the full length video on YouTube and watch the first
ten minutes.
Please pause this lecture and watch the video clips now.
Once you have watched all three video clips, return to this video lecture and continue
watching.
I’m only going to briefly cover two theories of partner selection, role theory and sociobiological
theory, but Chapter 5 in Knox and Schact’s 2016 book
covers several other theories as well
Role theory emphasizes the idea of modeling, such that parents serve as models for the
potential mate selection. Knox and Schact talk about how a child will model their same-sex
parents’ choices, meaning the partner they select might be similar to their opposite
sex parent.
So, a woman may seek out a partner that is similar to her father, and a man may seek
a partner similar to his mother.
This is similar to the idea that the first video segment you watched discussed.
The Sociobiological perspective was also mentioned in the film segments you watched, and will
be referenced repeatedly throughout this lecture.
The Sociobiological Perspective taps into the idea of natural selection and what type of mate selection will have the
best chances to increase multigenerational survival, or survival of the species.
This theory suggests that men are more focused on physical attractiveness of women because
that is an indicator of healthy procreation.
Women are more interested in other qualities, such as economic stability, and that will help
offspring grow and live healthy lives.
Now I am going to talk about finding a lifetime relationship partner.
I will talk about freedom versus constraint, which includes endogamy versus exogamy, the
marriage squeeze, and the marriage gradient.
Then, I will also be talking about some personal qualities that influence finding a relationship
partner.
So, first, Freedom versus Constraint in Dating and Mate Selection.
There are considerable social pressures that shape our “choices.”
You may think that you can choose anyone to have as a partner, but there are actually
a lot of different factors and some constraints for who we may choose to date or marry.
Many factors help determine an individuals “pool of eligibles”, or the population
from which you can select people to date and marry.
Culture and society, for example, greatly restrict and influence the choices we make in regards to who we choose
to date and who we choose to marry.
For example, until recently same sex marriage wasn’t legally recognized which reflected
societal disapproval.
Although this has changed, we still see daily reminders of how a large portion of society
does not approve.
These factors can impact who individuals ultimately choose to date or marry.
We are also constrained to select partners who are geographically close or proximal to
us.
If you’re not interested in online dating, or maintaining long-distance relationships,
you are constrained to find partners who live close to you.
Later on in this section we’ll talk more about interracial or intercultural aspects of dating
and marriage, including how uncommon it is to have an interracial partnership.
Although this is changing and there are more interracial partnerships than there have been
in the past, this is another example of how social pressures can shape our choices about
relationship partners.
Our field of eligible partners is determined by endogamy & exogamy, which are two forms
of cultural pressures that function in mate selection.
The 2016 book
by Knox and Schacht outlines how these two things tend to define who our eligible partners
are
Endogamy provides guidelines for marriage within a particular group.
So endogamy is the cultural expectation to select a partner within your own social group.
This means that the “pool” of potential eligible mates is refined by the practice
of choosing a mate within one’s group.
And your group can be things like your social class, your racial or ethnic background, your
religion, or your age group.
So for example, Catholics marrying other practicing Catholics or individuals marrying someone
of a similar age are examples of endogamy.
Prior to 1967 there were many laws in the United States prohibiting interracial marriage; so again,
endogamy could be marrying someone within your racial or ethnic group.
Interracial marriage became fully legal in all U.S. states after the 1967 Supreme Court
decision of Loving v. Virginia deemed that these laws against interracial marriage were unconstitutional,
This made it legal in all states, although many states had chosen to legalize interracial
marriage at much earlier dates, some 40 years prior.
Today, although it is not illegal to marry outside of your race, people usually choose
mates from groups who share similar values, beliefs, and backgrounds.
Exogamy is guidelines about marrying outside one’s kin group.
The most common exogamous norms in the US are those that prohibit us from dating and
marrying someone who is a family member. So, you can’t marry close blood relatives.
Knox and Schact describe how there are often laws that prohibit marrying a family
member.
In fact, many state marriage licenses require that you verify, or prove that you are not
related to your fiancé.
From a biological standpoint, this is largely due to increased genetic risk of vulnerabilities
when mating with a relative.
Also, *** taboo is a universal norm; meaning that most societies around the world do not
approve of and actively prohibit ***.
So, as a recap, endogamy provides guidelines for dating and marrying within a particular
group, and exogamy provides guidelines for dating and marrying outside of your own family.
The Marriage Squeeze is the situation whereby one sex has a more limited pool of eligibles
than the other does; meaning there is a gender imbalance in unmarried males and females.
Since WWII, there has been a greater number of women than men who are eligible for marriage.
In the 1990s, however, the marriage squeeze reversed itself such that never married men
outnumbered never married women.
The marriage squeeze can impact relationships.
When there are more available men than women, monogamy,
or being in exclusive relationship with one person, and marriage are more likely.
So, again, when there are more available men than women, monogamy and marriage are more
likely.
In contrast, when there are more women than men, men have more choices, and monogamy is
less likely.
You can think about this by using an evolutionary perspective, which might help explain these differences.
So, thinking about procreation and spreading your genes, when there are more women than
men, women must compete for men’s attention.
When there are fewer women and more men, women get to be more selective in choosing a partner---
thinking of the investment of raising a child, men are competing for women, which lead to
more monogamous relationships.
Here is another video clip that I would like you to watch: the science of sex appeal, flirting
to find a mate.
Again, this video clip is available on Canvas, or you can search YouTube for it.
This clip provides an evolutionary perspective on sex appeal, flirting, and partner selection.
It also outlines some gender differences, such as men gathering information from looks
and women gathering information about status.
So, again, please pause the lecture and watch the short clip and then return to this online lecture.
The Marriage Gradient is the tendency for husbands to be more advanced than their wives
with regard to age, education, and occupational success.
This is another factor that affects the availability of eligible mates.
In most cultures, informal norms encourage women to marry men of equal or higher status.
This could mean marrying men that are older, have higher incomes, better jobs, or more
education.
Men, on the other hand, tend to marry women of equal or lower status.
Because women marry upward and men marry downward, men at the top have a much larger field of
eligibles mates than do men at the bottom.
The reverse, however, is true for women: Those at the top, meaning women with higher status
jobs, more educated women, or older women, have a very small pool of eligible partners,
because they tend to marry upward.
Whereas those at the bottom have a much wider range
of men from whom to choose.
And this same trend has been shown in dating patterns as well.
So, this is a problematic situation for higher status women and lower status men because
it restricts the pool of available partners.
More recently, in a 2010 Research update, this trend has shifted in that higher status
men and higher status women are viewed as attractive partners, are more likely to marry, and are more likely
to stay married and have more successful marriages than those with lower levels of education.
In terms of education, the past several decades have ushered in widening divide between low
educated and high educated individuals, with lower educated individuals experiencing lower rates of marriage, higher
rates of cohabitation and single parenthood and, for those who do marry, higher rates
of divorce.
Individuals with higher education do marry a little later than the national average,
but their marriages are less likely to end in divorce.
This is the end of segment one from this Partner Selection and Marriage lecture. Please continue to the next section of the lecture to continue.