Chapter 8 Committing to Each Other

1. Chapter 8Committing to Each Other • Love and Marriage? • The Marriage Market • Homogamy: Narrowing the Pool of Eligibles • Courtship in a Free-Choice Society • Age at Marriage and Marriage Stability

2. Functions of Arranged Marriages • Affirms parent’s power over their children. • Helps keep family traditions and value systems intact. • Helps consolidate and extend family property. • Helps young people avoid the uncertainty of searching for a mate.

3. Reasons for Homogamy • Live in close proximity. • Culture encourages people to marry others similar to themselves. • People are more comfortable with others from similar backgrounds. • People want to strike a fair exchange.

4. Examples of Heterogamy • Interfaith Marriages • Interclass Marriages • Interracial/interethnic marriages

5. Heterogamy and Marital Stability • Differences in values and interests can result in a lack of mutual understanding. • Marriage may create conflict between the partners and parents, relatives and friends. • High divorce rate may reflect that the partners have less conventional values.

6. SVR- Stimulus Values Roles Filtering Sequence • Stimulus stage - interaction depends on physical attraction. • Values stage - partners compare values and determine whether they are a match. • Role compatibility - prospective spouses negotiate their marital and leisure roles.

7. Purposes of Courtship Patterns • Romantic partners try to get to know each other better. • Partners gain each other's progressive commitment to marriage.

8. Margaret Mead’s Criticisms of Dating • Encourages men and women to define heterosexual relationships as situational rather than ongoing. • Sex becomes depersonalized and genitally oriented rather than oriented to the whole person.

9. Early Indicators of Dating Violence • Handles ordinary disagreements with inappropriate anger or rage. • Struggles to regain self-control when a minor issue triggers anger. • Goes into tirades.

10. Early Indicators of Dating Violence • Quick to criticize or verbally mean. • Unduly jealous, restricting and controlling. • History of violence in previous relationships.

11. Margaret Mead’s Proposal: Two-stage Marriage Two stages each with a license, ceremony and responsibilities: • Individual marriage - serious commitment with limited responsibilities and no children. • Parental marriage -follows if the couple wants to continue a relationship and have children.

12. Cohabitation and Marriage • Marriages preceded by cohabitation are more likely to end in divorce: • People who cohabitate have liberal gender role attitudes and are accepting of divorce. • Cohabitating affects individuals so they are more likely to divorce.

13. Critical Elements of Maturity • Emotionalmaturity - sense of self-worth allows intimacy and interdependence. • Economic maturity - able to support self and a partner if necessary. • Value maturity- recognizes and feels confident about own personal values.

14. Critical Elements of Maturity • Relationship maturity • Able to understand a partner’s point of view. • Can make decisions about changing behaviors a partner doesn’t like. • Able to explain own points of view and ask for change in partner's behavior.