Instructor: Wendy Crapo

Used by permission of
THE ACADEMY OF NURSING
2355 E. 3900 S.
S.L.C., UT 84124
801-506-0064

• What first attracts you to the opposite sex?
• What characteristics are most important to you?
• Divide men & women into separate groups and come up with a list, in order of importance of what characteristics are important in the opposite sex.
You attract what you are….. not what you want.

Halo effect: The assumptions that goodlooking people possess more desirable social characteristics.
• Happiest couples feel their partner is attractive & they have the best sex lives. Appearance continues to be important through marriage. Changes in wife’s appearance have more effect than changes in husband’s appearance.

Who is the most powerful man in America?
Who is the most influential woman in America?
• Men are valued for status & money.
• Women are valued for good looks, child rearing & homemaking skills.

• MARRIAGE
GRADIENT:
Why men choose younger women & women choose higher status.
• MARRIAGE
SQUEEZE:
Older women have fewer eligible males. Working women don’t need a man for a paycheck but want a companion.

FIELD OF ELIGIBLES: Culture approves of potential partners.
ENDOGAMY: Marriage within a particular group.
EXOGAMY: Marriage outside a particular group.
• Does not allow incestuous relationships.
• Second cousins allowed to marry, first cousins over 40 years old.
• Native Americans and Orientals marry outside race more often.

FACT OR FALLACY?
What things are important to have in common?

• Race – 97% marriages of same race.
• Religion – Greatest risk of divorce is if one is very religious.
• Socioeconomic Status – Men often marry down, women often marry up.
• Age – Members of same generation at same life tasks. Gap has narrowed and age entering marriage has climbed.
• Propinquity – Residence, geographically limited locale (internet).

Homogamous marriages are more likely to succeed because Heterogamous marriages:
• Different values and lack understanding.
• Lack approval from friends and family, less support.
• Less conventional, therefore less likely to stay married for looks.
Activity – Take Temperament test.

PREDICTORS OF
DIVORCE:
• Both teens = 3 to 4 x more likely to divorce
– Only 5% will last more than 5 years
• Girl is a teen = 2 x more likely to divorce

• Common skills
• Good emotional & physical health
• High self esteem
• High education level
• Older age at first marriage
• High social status
• Longer courtship
– average engagement 9 months
– average acquaintance 2 – 2
1/2 years)

Parent Model
• High marriage quality in family of origin
• High level of happiness in childhood
• Positive relationship between parents
Support from significant others
• Parent approval of spouse
• Liking of in-laws
• Support of friends

• SOCIALIZATION:
To develop appropriate social skills to practice getting along with others in different settings.
• RECREATION:
To have fun and enjoy the companionship of others, and to try new and different activities.
• MATE SELECTION:
To see others in many different settings, to compare the personality and characteristics of many people.

• Stimulus Stage: Attraction is physical, mental or social.
• Value Stage: Weigh each other’s values to see if compatible. Usually determined between 2-
7 dates (best to breakup here).
• Role Stage: Analyze behaviors to determine filling roles as lover, companion, friend, worker, spouse and parent.

HOW MANY GUYS WOULD ASK A
GIRL OUT WITH OUT BEING GIVEN
PERMISSION BEFOREHAND?
Men are afraid of rejection from women.
• 1% of men preferred women who waited to be asked.
• 99% of men wanted women to hint to be asked.
• 50% of men preferred women to ask them out.

• Women most often covertly initiate meeting by sending nonverbal signals of interest.
• Women control dating:
FLIRT = ACT
A – Animation
C – Closeness: accidentally on purpose run into them.
Be where they are.
T – Touch: Catch eye, smile, touch elbow, etc (at least 3 times a week)

HOW DO YOU MEET PEOPLE FOR DATING?
• Open field: A setting in which potential partners may not be likely to meet, characterized by large numbers of people who do not ordinarily interact, such as a beach, mall or campus.
• Closed field: A setting in which potential partners may meet, characterized by a small number of people who are likely to interact, such as a class, dorm or party).
Parties are the most common place
1/3 to 1/2 of all meetings are introductions by friends.
(also internet, classified ads, dating services and churches)

• Power is not usually a problem in dating but gender roles are.
• Who pays?
• Who decides?
• Communication
• Shyness
• Sexual pressure

• Be sure that you want to break up and are not just avoiding problems and issues.
• Acknowledge that your partner will be hurt.
• Once you end the relationship, do not continue seeing your former partner as friends for some time.
• Don’t change your mind.
• The pain & loneliness are natural.
• You are a worthwhile person whether you are with your partner or not.
• Keep a sense of humor.

• PROS?
• CONS?

• Delayed marriage
• Employment options for women
• Increased divorce & decreased likelihood of remarriage
• More women in college
• More liberal social & sexual standards
• Uneven ratios of unmarried women to men

• Increases economic, & emotional independence.
• Difficulty committing and doing what one ought to do rather than what one wants to do.
• Men need women less than women need men thus men flee obligation.
• Men less mentally healthy as single.
• Media portrays singles as glorified and marriage as unsatisfied with affairs.

• Ambivalence: voluntary and temporary
• Wishful: Involuntarily & temporary
• Resolved: Permanent and prefer it
• Regretful: Resigned to their fate. Often well educated, high income over 40 but no available men.

• Singles are dependent on their parents
• Singles are self-centered
• Singles have more money (married couples are better off – dual incomes)
• Singles are happier
• Singles view single hood as a lifetime alternative

• Singles don’t fit into married society
• Singles have more time
• Singles have more fun
• Singles are lonely

LEGAL PROBLEMS
• Can’t file joint tax return
• Can’t make medical decisions
• Can’t inherit
• Can’t enter hospital or jail restricted to “family”
• Can’t create estate trust
• Can’t claim marital deduction on income tax
• Can’t receive survivor insurance benefits
• Can’t get health benefits, bereavement leave, etc
• Can’t collect unemployment if you move for a partners job
• Can’t get residency status for a noncitizen

• May not work as hard.
• Lack of pooling of money
• More fighting & violence
• Man not expected to support his partner, both work
• Less social support
• Greater likelihood of divorce
• More liberal, independent, less religious, lower income

& HOW TO MAKE IT LAST

1. Marriage increases the likelihood that fathers have good relationships with their children.
2. Cohabitation is not the functional equivalent of marriage.
3. Growing up outside an intact marriage increases the likelihood that children will themselves divorce or become unwed parents.
4. Marriage is a virtually universal human institution.

5.
Divorce and unmarried childbearing increase poverty for both children and mother.
6. Married couples seem to build more wealth on average than singles or cohabiting couples.
7. Married men earn more money than do single men with similar education and job histories.

8. Parental divorce appears to increase children’s risk of school failure.
9. Parental divorce reduces the likelihood that children will graduate from college and achieve high-status jobs.

10. Children who live with their own two married parents enjoy better physical health, on average, than do children in other family forms.

11. Parental marriage is associated with a sharply lower risk of infant mortality.
12. Marriage is associated with reduced rates of substance abuse for both adults and teens.
13. Married people, especially married men, have longer life expectancies than do otherwise similar singles.
14. Marriage is associated with better health and lower rates of injury, illness and disability for both men & women.

15. Children whose parents divorce have higher rates of psychological distress and mental illness.
16. Divorce appears significantly to increase the risk of suicide.
17. Married mothers have lower rates of depression than do single or cohabiting mothers.

18. Boys raised in single-parent families are more likely to engage in delinquent and criminal behavior.
19. Marriage appears to reduce the risk that adults will be either perpetrators or victims of crime.

20. Married women appear to have a lower risk of experiencing domestic violence than to cohabiting or dating women.
21. A child who is not living with his or her own two married parents is at greater risk of child abuse.

Activity – In groups discuss Marriage Opinion 10.3

 People tend to freeze first impressions in their mind.
 We want to make up our mind very quickly about a person.
 If these impressions are incorrect they will feel very uncomfortable & compromising.


“ You aren’t the man/woman I married”.

“You seem different now”.

“It isn’t the same as when we were dating”.

“You cheated me”.

 Misleading initial acts, impressions, and images can become disastrous later on.
 Clarify any misunderstanding as soon as possible .

 Partners must know and respect your identity.
 If it is compromised it becomes eroded and confused.

One must be “REAL”.

 Both partners must express their wants and needs honestly.
 Both partners must respect one another as peers.
 Constructive resolutions build trust.

 The time to share fears and confront the possibilities of conflict is from the start.
 The greater the affection grows, the greater grows the fear of losing love.

Don’t “love now & fight later”.





Summarize
Paraphrasing
Validating
Clarification
1. Bargaining – compromise
(the best deal for both)
2. Agreement as a gift
(without resentment)
3. Coexistence – Agree (to disagree & live with it)
The object of marriage = peaceful coexistence

• Be totally honest and kind at the same time.
• Control negative destructive impulses & control your anger.
• Express your deepest fears, hopes, and emotions and everyday thoughts.

• Marriage is a lifetime of getting to know each other.
• People do not really know each other when they marry.

• We hide……
• We ignore……
• We mislabel……
• We don’t agree on relevant matters…
• We believe our loved one will change after marriage.

• Be flexible – unforeseen events will happen.
• Be prepared for change – people change, situations shift, relationships take on new dimensions.
• Couples can cope & adapt.

• Have a positive attitude.
• Express positive comments most of the time.
• Criticism about inadequacies eliminates emotional space.

True marriage
Is not my devotion to you,
Nor is it yours to me.
True marriage
Is our devotion to us.
By Lois Wyse

Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made.
by Robert Browning

VOCABULARY CHAPTER 7 –
SINGLEHOOD & PAIRING
1.
1.
Closed field: A setting in which potential partners may meet.
1.
2.
Complimentary needs theory: We select partners whose needs are different from and/or complement our own needs.
1.
3.
Endogamy: Marriage within a particular group.
1.
4.
Exogamy: Marriage outside a group you belong to.
1.
5.
Field of eligibles: A group of individuals of the same general background and age who are culturally approved potential marital partners.

6.
Halo effect: The tendency to infer positive characteristics or traits based on a person’s physical attractiveness.
2.
7. Heterogamy: Marriage between those with different social or personal characteristics.
3.
8. Homogamy: Marriage between those with similar social or personal characteristics.
4.9.
Marriage gradient: The tendency for men to marry younger women of lower socioeconomic status and for women to marry older men of higher socioeconomic status.

10. 10.
Marriage Squeeze: The phenomenon in which there are greater numbers of marriageable women than marriageable men, particularly among older women and African-American women.
2.
11. Open field: A setting in which potential partners may not be likely to meet.
3.
12. Residential Propinquity: A pattern in which the chances of two people marrying are greater the closer they live to each other.