Chapter 7
The process by which nature selects the best-adapted varieties of species to survive and reproduce.
Natural selection
Socially prescribed forms of conduct that guide or groom young men and women toward matrimony.
Courting
Reasons for swiping left:
Not physical attracted (30 percent)
Picky—doesn’t meet approval (28 percent)
Not interesting (17 percent)
Mood (went with my gut instinct) (5 percent)
Safety (unhealthy behavior, creepers, racist) (5 percent)
Only wants sexual hookup (1.4 percent)
Refers to mixed-gender circles of friends (typically in their twenties or thirties) who are the primary social support system for singles.
Urban Tribe
A marriage in which partners agree to shared responsibility for all aspects of marriage, from earning money to raising the children to how they spend their leisure time.
Peer Marriage
This theory centers on the exchange of people’s material or symbolic resources, asserting that individuals act out of self-interest to capitalize on the resources they possess.
Social Exchange Theory
Socializing for any number of reasons, such as for relaxation and escape from everyday responsibilities or to pursue a relationship to determine whether the partner is a potential spouse or a partner for a lifelong relationship.
Dating
The perpetration or the threat of an act of violence against a person involved in a dating or courting relationship.
Dating violence
A marriage that considers socializing children to the culture’s norms to be a responsibility and also includes adhering to the idea that marriage is sexually exclusive and permanent.
Institutional marriage
Romantic or marriage partners of differing races.
Interracial Marriage
This theory suggests that individuals use a filtering mechanism that helps them sort out a potential mate from the vast pool of candidates.
Filter Theory of Mate Selection
An individual who does not experience sexual attraction.
Asexual
Illegal sexual contact that usually involves force upon a person without consent or is inflicted upon a person who is incapable of giving consent.
Sexual Assault
The idea that marriage is no longer a sacred institution because society has evolved to include other ways in which to couple and procreate.
Deinstitutionalization of marriage
A marriage between people of different religious faiths.
Interfaith Marriage
Geographical closeness
Propinquity
A quick face-to-face meeting that enables people to decide whether they share mutual interests and are interested in another, more extended date.
Speed Dating
One reason couples cohabitate
Economic advantages
Time together
Increased intimacy
Less complication in dissolution of relationship if it doesn’t work out
“Testing” compatibility
Trial marriage
A legally distinct kind of marriage in Arizona, Arkansas, and Louisiana, in which the marrying spouses agree to obtain counseling should marriage difficulties arise; these marriages have limited grounds for divorce.
Covenant Marriage
The expectations about their marriage and spouse that couples enter marriage with, which have developed throughout the course of their lives.
Relational expectancies
Partnering with someone similar in ethnic and racial background, religious upbringing, age, education level, political ideology, socioeconomic status, and values and beliefs.
Homogamy:
Reasons for swiping right:
Physical attraction (33 percent)
Selective swiper (picky) (21 percent)
Interesting/similar interests (15 percent)
Shotgun (impulse) approach (12 percent)
Miscellaneous (8 percent)
Depends on mood (4 percent)
Game (entertainment) (1.6 percent)
Sexual hookup (1.3 percent)
True or False
Cohabitation before marriage is related to higher relationship dissatisfaction and higher risk of divorce
The U.S. government sanctions marriage and provides the boundaries of the prevailing marriage laws, but it also grants each state the ability to determine the rights, privileges, benefits, and responsibilities associated with marriage. These state-generated and state-regulated laws specifically define the privileges of marriage.
Name one rights and privileges of Marriage
The right to visit a spouse in the hospital
The right to make medical decisions on behalf of a spouse in the event that he or she is unable to do so
The right to joint custody of children
The right to adopt children
The right to privileged and confidential communication between spouses
The right to rear children in a manner the couple deems appropriate (i.e., religious training, education, discipline)
The right to terminate a marriage according to the laws of the state
Developed by psychologist Mary Levitt, this model illustrates how spouses’ expectations of marital relationships are based on past relationship interactions with the spouse.
Social Expectations model