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Review Article | DOI: https://doi.org/10.31579/2690-8808/127
Department of Counseling Psychology, Ibn Haldun University, Istanbul, Turkey
*Corresponding Author: Sefa Bulut, Nurse. Graduated from the Nursing Course of the United Colleges of Research, Science and Health. Jequié-Bahia-Brazil. Department of Counseling Psychology, Ibn Haldun University, Istanbul, Turkey
Citation: Ahmet Yasir Sağlam and Sefa Bulut (2022) Mate Selection by Gender Role Journal of Clinical Case Reports and Studies 3(7); DOI: 10.31579/2690-8808/129
Copyright: © 2022 Sefa Bulut, This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Received: 09 May 2022 | Accepted: 15 June 2022 | Published: 06 August 2022
Keywords: marriage; mate section for men and women; gender, social homogamy; spouses choice
Marriage is a concept in which two people have promised to spend their lives together until the end of their lives unless there is a divorce. In this study, it has been examined which criteria men and women give importance to and pay attention to while making marriage choices. These criteria, which many researchers try to make sense of, have sometimes shown different characteristics from culture to culture, and sometimes have a universal character. The two most striking concepts are beauty and education level. In some cultures, while the height criterion is an important factor, in others, the tendency to choose the one that is close to their own thoughts in socio-cultural terms has been the criterion. Although sometimes changes in mate selection can be explained by geographical factors, the existence of various common aspects may be due to the biological structure of the human being. This study is also a light for individuals who want to get married and has a universal feature in certain parts.
Marriage choices are made according to many criteria and reasons that are important for people today. This is the reason why I chose the gender factor in the choice of marriage, which is one of the most important choices in life today, according to some, under the fact that the elections change from period to period. The gender factor in mate choices differs from culture to culture. The reason for these differences has been studied by socio psychologists and many social scientists. For example, according to a study conducted in Bangladesh, the reason for these differences was tried to be explained with the theory of social homogamy (Islam, 2021). In another study, people's marriage choices were tried to be reconciled with the theory of evolution. The fact that marriage choices are still being explained by very different methods and that very different findings are still being obtained proves how important it is.
Social Homogamy Concept and the Gender Factor In Marriage
The research classified the concept of social homogamy in mate selection according to gender differences. Social homogamy is the name given to marriages between people with similar cultural, religious, and political views in choosing a spouse (Islam, 2021). Characteristics such as similar moral values, political views, and ethnicity reveal the tendency to choose each other in marriage according to the theory of social homogamy and help ensure social equality.
Men and women listed 12 different criteria that they paid attention to when choosing a partner, and this scoring was done in a way that each ranking was 4 points. Two important topics that stand out in the research are when the standard deviation of the number of criteria is taken, a range of five and thirteen criteria was observed. The other point was that men had more criteria than women.
It was a remarkable feature that the education criterion was the most sought-after criterion among one hundred and eight students out of one hundred twenty students. It was a diametrically opposite reality that women who were close to the level of education sought by men in women wanted to have a more educated wife than them. On the other hand, men were aware of their educational status and believed that they could bring women to their education level. According to the study, the age criteria of men and women were diametrically opposite. While men preferred women younger than themselves as wives, women preferred men older than themselves. Also, while men valued physical beauty, women valued intelligence and hard work. (Islam, 2021).
From an overall perspective, considering the differences between cultures, cultural differences can be swallowed up when choosing a partner. In the light of these cultural differences, a study was carried out under the name of gender differences in mate selection in Bangladesh, which is a different culture. In the study, which included the experimental group between the ages of 21-24, the subjects were asked to list the selection criteria. While asking these criteria, one of the points that should be taken into consideration is that the selections are not universal. In other words, there is no single reality when choosing, so we come across different selection criteria in every culture.
In this research, we will witness very different choices of very different cultures. According to some cultures, beauty is the most important factor, while for others, economic comfort has taken place. While even the beauty factor is relative, it is quite natural that these choices and criteria are not universal but relative. While trying to make sense of the strange consciousness of human beings within the framework of these facts, we see in this study that there is no single reality and phenomenon. (Islam, 2021).
The majority of the participants were Muslim, and some of them were Hindu. The fact that the participants had equal gender numbers was another value that was taken into consideration. As in most studies, one of the prominent issues in this research was that physical attractiveness was the most viewed criterion.
On the other hand, the fact that physical health is the thing that is most looked at when the criteria are taken into consideration, especially the fact that men have this mindset, made me think how different men are biologically created. The fact that beauty and physical attractiveness is a concept that is taken care of until a certain period even until marriage, and that it is temporary, and that the most important criterion of one of the biggest decisions men make in their lives is beauty and physical attractiveness, which they only care about until they get married and after a certain age they will not care because this may also be a reason for separations and divorces. Logically speaking, a marriage made purely for beauty and physical attractiveness can cause a breakup when the spouses think they truly know each other. When a man realizes that what he is looking for is not beauty and that he has to put up with a woman because of her beauty, he can decide to divorce very easily.
Marriage and Tolerance Criteria
It has been seen that men are more understanding than women in many issues in terms of tolerance in choosing a spouse. While the age criterion is more of an issue for women, men tend to be quite tolerant of women up to five years younger than them. At the same time, since the individual who provides the income of the house is generally male, except in patriarchal societies, men did not have much trouble marrying women who do not have a regular income. Hence, making a living in the house is seen as a male-specific feature in terms of a social role, and men see this situation as a responsibility that they should have because it is a customary culture and does not find it strange.
When reconciled with evolutionary theory, women were more tolerant of marrying a man with a child because they had a limited range of ages at which they could have children or whose biology allowed it. In this context, men were reluctant to marry women with children, according to the study, and interestingly, when divorce occurs, the province is usually given to mothers. (Sepehri, & Bagherian, 2013).
In the study, in which the gender role in mate selection was associated with the theory of evolution, it was determined that individuals tend to marry individuals who increase the probability of reproduction for them the most, according to their gender characteristics. The Theory of Evolution explains the selection of mates by genera based on Darwin's theory of evolution of species. (Yıldırım, 2007) According to evolutionary theory, mate selection is based on human productive (sexual) capacity (Ekşi, Özgen, & Kardaş, 2017) For example, it is emphasized that men make choices based on their youth and beauty characteristics, and women prefer men who have the potential to acquire resources. In the research, 12 features that men and women want most in their spouses were asked and these 12 features differed according to genders.
Race factor was another point that men were tolerant of. While men were more moderate in marrying someone of different skin color and race, women were not as tolerant. For example, a white woman was less likely to marry a black man than a white man was to marry a black woman. Likewise, a black man was more likely to marry a white woman than a black woman was to marry a white man (Sepehri, & Bagherian, 2013).
One study examining the importance of gender and race in mate selection, finds that women tend to look for more dominant or similar characteristics in the opposite sex, while non-black men respond to any non-black opposite sex. Having a university degree is more important for white men and women than black men in terms of searching for a spouse with a diploma of the opposite sex. The perspective on interracial relations is more moderate in women than in men. As for the probability of marriage, it was stated that men are more likely to marry than women. According to the study, white women are more likely to exclude people of the opposite race than white men (Lin, & Lundquist, 2013).
According to social role theory, women tend to be with men who are older and have resources, while men tend to be with women who are younger and better at housework. Evolutionary psychologists attributed the criteria for mate selection to evolutionary trends. According to this hypothesis, as humans evolved, they developed various methods to increase their chances of survival and reproduction.
The Effect of Gender Roles with the Mother of the Bride and Growth on Marriage Choices
On the one hand, in the changing world conjuncture, the choices of the parents are as important as the decisions of the individuals. It may be necessary to consider this factor when making a choice. Because one of the reasons for divorce is that families do not get along well with each other, the bride's mother does not see the groom as a groom-to-be, or the groom's mother does not see the bride as a bride-to-be. For example, there is a place for such a phenomenon culturally in Iran. The fact that parents have a very important role in choosing a spouse led to the emergence of a study.
In the study, education and diploma, love factor, familial and religious similarities and differences, handsomeness and dressing style, age, and sociability of the individual, taking responsibility and being faithful, whether or not they were married before, sense of humor and the individual's choice of spouse, were determined as marriage criteria. Very different concepts such as whether he is in love, whether he is a person attached to family values and taking care of his family stood out. The options that the man and the woman's mother paid attention to while choosing the groom and the bride-to-be and the points that men and women paid attention to when choosing a spouse were very striking. The criteria that men and women paid the most attention to when choosing a partner were lower in each other's rankings.
The criterion that a woman pays most attention while choosing a mate is education, this concept was ranked sixth among nine criteria in the man's mate selection criteria ranking. On the other hand, in the ranking of men, a good and beautiful character is in the first step when choosing a spouse for themselves, while this criterion is in a diametrically opposite order for women and is in the last place.
On the one hand, there was not that much contrast between the first choices of the groom's mother and the bride's mother when choosing a groom and a bride, compared to the criteria that men and women pay the most attention to when choosing a spouse. For instance, while the bride's mother pays the most attention to religious belief while choosing the groom, the groom's mother has similarly shown this as the second most important criterion. In addition, the fact that the groom's mother is a good and good-natured woman is one of the most remarkable factors when choosing a bride and the groom-to-be when choosing a spouse.
Emphasizing the importance of gender difference in mate selection, the research participants consisted of 15 women and 15 men and their mothers. Participants, who had the opportunity to choose the people at hand in a virtual environment, made their choices according to different criteria.
The choices they made were recorded electronically and the ideal groom, bride, and spouse criteria between the mother and her children were examined and the differences between these criteria were revealed. When the results came out, the two main criteria were that men attach more importance to beauty, while women take responsibility for men and how much they love themselves. For mothers, choosing a beautiful bride has emerged as a more important criterion than choosing a beautiful groom.
In addition to these studies, one study which investigates the degree of acceptance of gender roles by men and women, correlated the happiness of marriage with gender roles and mate selection by gender. The generally accepted role of women in a happy marriage is shown as success in household chores, and the economic prosperity of men is shown.
Marriage and Size Criteria
One of the most interesting criteria was the height criterion. Height, which is concretely a direct physical scale, in contrast to the fact that men paid more attention to physical attractiveness and beauty criteria in previous studies, women paid more attention to the height criterion than men. Men didn't want women who were too tall or too short for themselves. As we will see in the continuation of my article, the fact that men want a very small difference in terms of height difference is an issue that needs to be examined. Women, on the other hand, wanted men taller than them as their wives (Tao, 2020). We can perceive this as a concrete reason why women seek men to protect and possess them because women want to be with men who are strong in character and physically (Johannesen-Schmidt, & Eagly, 2002).
In Taiwan’s Panel Study of Family Dynamics (PSFD) study, it has been shown with the data what kind of differences the height factor can show in mate selection according to the genders. According to the research, it was argued that the desire of women to marry a man taller than them is more than the desire of men to marry women who are shorter than them. The effect of social norms on height is greater in women than in men. The height effect of a strong traditional gender role in males is 2.37 cm shorter and 2.21 cm taller. (Tao, 2020)
The most striking points in the study, which included many different cultures and experimental groups in which there were age differences, are that men think more concretely and simply when choosing a mate, but this is not only due to structural features, but also biological features and even the evolutionary theory, which provides the necessary conditions for their reproduction and increases this productivity. Moreover, it is due to the fact that they turn to spouses who ensure the continuation of the lineage. (Sprecher, Sullivan, & Hatfield, 1994) Women, on the other hand, thought more comprehensively while making these choices, not only on concrete concepts but also on the future by thinking more progressively. For example, the criterion of happiness in the marriage of the man was the diligence of the woman in the housework, and the income level of the woman in the man. Not only the men but also their mothers, while looking for a wife for their son, took the bride's dexterity in housework as a criterion. One of the remarkable parts of my research was that men were more moderate than women in terms of tolerance at age and education level, and women sought men who are taller than them.
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