Chapter 8
Singlehood, Pairing,
and Cohabitation
Key Terms
•
Marketplace of relationships
A process, not a place, in which we are the
goods exchanged. Each of us has certain
resources—such as socioeconomic status,
looks, and personality—that determine our
marketability.
•
Double standard of aging
For women, youth and beauty are linked in
most cultures. As women get older, their field
of potential eligible partners declines because
men tend to choose younger women as
mates.
•
Marriage squeeze
Refers to the gender imbalance reflected in
the ratio of available unmarried women to
men.
•
Mating gradient
The tendency for women to marry men of
higher status.
•
Field of eligibles
Consists of those of whom our culture
approves as potential partners.
•
Endogamy
Marriage within a particular group.
•
Exogamy
Marriage outside a particular group.
•
Homogamy
The tendency to choose a mate whose
individual or group characteristics are similar
to ours.
•
Heterogamy
The tendency to choose a mate whose
individual or group characteristics are
different from ours.
•
Hypergamy
Marrying above one’s socioeconomic level.
•
Hypogamy
Marrying below one’s socioeconomic level.
•
Residential propinquity
The tendency we have to select partners, for
relationships and marriages, from a
geographically limited locale.
•
Complementary needs theory
The belief that people select as spouses
those whose needs are different.
•
Role theory
Gratification follows from finding someone
who feels and/or thinks like we do.
•
Parental image theory
Suggests that we seek partners who are
similar to our opposite-sex parent.
•
Stimulus-value-role theory
In the stimulus stage, each person is
attracted to the other before the actual
interaction. In the value stage, each weighs
the other’s basic values for compatibility. In
the role stage, each person analyzes the
other’s behaviors in roles as lover,
companion, and so on.
•
Closed field
Allows you to see and interact more or less
simultaneously.
•
Open field
Characterized by large numbers of people
who do not ordinarily interact, makes meeting
more difficult.
•
Halo effect
Surrounds attractive people, from which we
infer that they have certain traits, such as
warmth, kindness, sexiness, and strength
•
Attributions
Ways to account for the demise of a
relationship. Attributions may be important
factors in efforts to avoid similar problems in
later relationships, shielding us from
experiencing the heartache that accompanies
a breakup.
•
Lesbian separatists
Lesbians who wanted to create a separate
“womyn’s” culture distinct from heterosexuals
and gay men.
•
Common-law marriage
Originating in English common law, as
practiced in the United States, a couple who
“lived as husband and wife and presented
themselves as married,” was considered to
be married.
•
Domestic partners
Cohabiting heterosexual, lesbian, and gay
couples in committed relationships.