HHS 4M
Individuals and Families in a Diverse Society
Unit Three – Couples
Chapter Seven – Intimate Relationships &
Marriage
Introduction
 Chapter Six – Marriage, Intimate Relationships &
Society
 Chapter Seven – Intimate Relationships & Marriage
 Chapter Eight – Relationships Issues & Trends
Introduction
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Forming Intimate Relationships
Attraction, Mate Selection, & Romance
Theories of Mate Attraction & Mate Selection
Romantic Love
Courtship
Dating & Marital Success
Negotiating Satisfying Roles in Relationships
Problems, Conflict & Power
Top 10 Characteristics That People
Want in a Partner
1. Honesty
2. Kindness
3. Respect
4. Compatibility
5. Humour
6. Dependability
7. Love
8. Values
9. Religious Commonality
10.Communication
Source: Bibby, Reginal. (2004) A Canadian Hopes & Dreams. Vanier Institute of the
Family.
Top 8 Reasons People Marry
1. Feeling that marriage signifies commitment
2. Moral values
3. Belief that children should have married parents
4. It is the natural thing to do
5. Financial security
6. Religious beliefs
7. Pressure from family
8. Pressure from friends
Source: Bibby, Reginal. (2004) A Canadian Hopes & Dreams. Vanier Institute
of the Family.
Forming Intimate Relationships
 Many Canadians still worry about whether they will
be able to form a satisfying relationship that will last
a lifetime without having to give up who they are &
who they want to be
 Some sociologist estimate that only about 10% of
contemporary marriages are truly monogamous
relationships, in which one man marries one women
for a lifelong relationship
Forming Intimate Relationships
 What is the nature of sexual attraction and
mate selection?
 What is the nature of romantic love?
 How do couples negotiate satisfying roles in
their relationships?
 How do couples manage conflict in their
marriage?
Attraction, Mate Selection &
Romance
 What is romance?
A love affair. Ardent emotional attachment or involvement between
people; love:
They kept the romance alive in their marriage for 35 years.
A strong, sometimes short-lived attachment, fascination, or
enthusiasm for something: a childhood romance with the sea.
 Not clear as to whether romantic love is a fairly
recent social development or whether love has a
basis in human biology
 87% of all culture the relationships between men &
women exhibit romantic love
Theories of Attraction & Mate Selection
Natural Selection Theory
Women preferred to mate with men who:
 would be good fathers
 would stay around to be good providers for themselves &
their babies
Men preferred to mate with women who:
 could bear healthy babies
 could feed their children
 had the intelligence & temperament to raise them well
Two processes were at work for men & women to exchange
their valuable reproductive resources:
 Individual preferences for an attractive mate
 Competition with others for mate
Theories of Attraction & Mate Selection
 Natural Selection Continued:
The Evolution of Desire – by David Buss (evolutionary
psychologist)
 “Potential partners is still patterned to enable them to select the
person with whom they can raise the most successful children”
- In all societies women wish to “marry up”
- Women are twice as likely to men to marry for financial resources
- Women are attracted to healthy, intelligent, well-educated, hardworking and ambitious
- Men are attracted to physically appealing, young & healthy
In summary, according to anthropology & evolutionary
psychology, women are attracted to good providers & men are
attracted to women who appear to be fertile
Theories of Attraction & Mate Selection
Social Homogamy - a theory that describes how
individuals are attracted to others from a similar
social background
 Fits into a Structural Functionalists’ perspective
 Individuals are attracted to those who have similar
backgrounds, such as:
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Age
Race
Ethnic background
Religion
Socio-economic status
Political views
Theories of Attraction & Mate Selection
The Ideal Mate Theory – attraction based on an
individual’s unconscious image of an ideal
mate
 Supports “love at first sight” and social
homogamy
 Perceptions of an ideal mate are formed from
pleasant experiences with other individuals
in childhood, usually a person’s family
 Symbolic Interactionism
Theories of Attraction & Mate Selection
Filter Theory (Murstein – 1970)
 Suggests that patrners are first selected based on
obvious stimulus characteristics, such as attractiveness,
and are then passed through filters based on similar
values and compatibility
 Mate selection moves through stages (stimulus-valuesroles)
See text p.200
Romantic Love
Both men & women desire love & commitment
According to Sternberg, romantic love has three “faces”:
1)Passion – a strong feeling of sexual desire for another, develops
the fastest
2) Intimacy – intense friendship develops more slowly, as the
individual shares himself or herself with another
3) Commitment – maintaining the relationship while it grow & offering
rewards
The love triangle includes all three faces – each representing a side,
but some sides grow at different rates & the nature of romantic
love changes with time.
Evolutionary perspective of Romantic Love is:
- Love is advantageous: passion draws individuals together with
a desire to reproduce, but the intimacy & commitment that
follow allow them to maintain their relationship over the long
term, to support each other & to culture & raise children
Courtship
What sorts of activities do couples go
through that could be called a
courtship ritual?
 Individuals are allowed to win each others affection
 Courtship rituals in all societies
 Men display their resources to prove they have the
potential to be good providers
 Women display the qualities that make them
desirable & nurturing
The Cultural Diversity of Courtship
 While the date is fairly casual in most European
cultures, in many traditional societies, courtship is a
highly structured activity, with very specific formal
rules.
 In some societies, the parents or community
propose potential partners, and then allow limited
dating to determine whether the parties are suited.
The Evolution of Courtship
 In more closed societies, courtship is virtually eliminated
altogether by the practice of arranged marriages, where
partners are chosen for young people, typically by their
parents.
 Forbidding experimental and serial courtship and sanctioning
only arranged matches is partly a means of guarding the
chastity of young people and partly a matter of furthering
family interests, which in such cultures may be considered
more important than individual romantic preferences.
 Over recent decades though, the concept of arranged marriage
has changed or simply been mixed with other forms of dating,
including Eastern and Indian ones; potential couples have the
opportunity to meet and date each other before one decides on
whether to continue the relationship or not.
Modern Dating
 In earlier centuries, when marriage was an expectation rather
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than an option, young adults were expected to court with the
intention of finding a marriage partner, rather than for social
reasons.
However, by the Jazz Age of the 1920's, dating for fun was
becoming an expectation, and by the 1930's, it was assumed
that any popular young person would have lots of dates.
This form of dating, though, was usually more chaste than is
seen today, since pre-marital sex was not considered the norm.
After the sexual revolution of the 1960's and 1970's, this "oldfashioned" form of dating waned in popularity.
Couples became more likely to "hook up" or "hang out" with
large groups than to go on an old-fashioned date, and
frequently went from "hanging out" to an exclusive relationship
without engaging in what their parents or grandparents might
have called dating.
Dating & Marital Success
 Free-choice marriages suggest that dating
experiences leads to greater marital success
 The best indicator of marital success is –
being in love when you marry
Negotiating Satisfying Roles in
Relationships
 Getting married can appear to be the happiest &
easiest transition in life because it is ritualized,
highly organized and supported by family & friends
 However, the relationship roles within marriage are
often difficult to set
 Erikson explained that individuals need to resolve
the dilemma of intimacy verses isolation to develop
the enduring strength of love within the relationship
 The challenge is to know how to grow independently
and as a partner within a couple
Role Expectations in Marriage
 Contemporary marriages are based on
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companionship, not parenting
Therefore, marriages are based upon the principle of
equality
This principle of equality is not an event, but a
process
Systems Theory – couples must discuss the
structures, or the hidden rules of their new marital
system
Negotiation is a process of conferring with others in
order to reach an agreement
Negotiation is not just the joining of two individuals,
but also a joining & overlapping of two family
systems to create a third.
Nine “Psychological Tasks”
Needed for a Good Marriage
1.
Separate emotionally from the family you grew up in; not to the
point of estrangement, but enough so that your identity is
separate from that of your parents and siblings.
2.
Build togetherness based on a shared intimacy and identity, while
at the same time set boundaries to protect each partner's
autonomy.
3.
Establish a rich and pleasurable sexual relationship and protect it
from the intrusions of the workplace and family obligations.
4.
For couples with children, embrace the daunting roles of
parenthood and absorb the impact of a baby's entrance into the
marriage. Learn to continue the work of protecting the privacy of
you and your spouse as a couple.
Nine “Psychological Tasks”
Needed for a Good Marriage
5.
6.
Confront and master the inevitable crises of life
Maintain the strength of the marital bond in the face of
adversity. The marriage should be a safe haven in
which partners are able to express their differences,
anger and conflict.
7. Use humor and laughter to keep things in perspective
and to avoid boredom and isolation.
8. Nurture and comfort each other, satisfying each
partnerís needs for dependency and offering
continuing encouragement and support.
9. Keep alive the early romantic, idealized images of
falling in love, while facing the sober realities of the
changes wrought by time.5
Stages in a Marriage
 What do you think are the stages of marriage?
 Three Predictable stages of a relationship:
Stage One – Relationships are romantic, warm & respectful,
focusing on exploration, sexual attraction and the idealization
of the partner. Individuals also build self-esteem as they try to
develop the relationship that they want
Stage Two – Conflict arises as individuals become more
demanding to meet their own needs. This results in instability
in the relationship & requires both partners to change their
behaviour. Individuals feel let down because the relationship is
less rewarding
Stage Three – Couples compromise & negotiate a relationship that
meets their needs as well as possible. The relationship
becomes more realistic, mature, & stable
Defining Success
Several characteristics in common for a successful
marriage:
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Similar values
Similar leisure time activities
Pooling their incomes
Sharing in power & decision making
Having friends in common
Having an active social life together
Review Research Study: Why Marriages Succeed or Fail (pages
210 - 211)
Some interesting findings
Achieving a Satisfying Relationship
 Familiarity breeds intimacy
 Knowing who you are, helps you understand your partner
 Honest communication nurtures trust & shows respect for the
other by allowing each partner to maintain his/her differences
 Be able to agree on solutions to problems
 Be successful at negotiation – requires individual to respect &
honour spouses opinions
 Successful couple turn to each other, not away from each other
when a problems arises
Claude Guldner’s Six “R’s” of
Marriage
1. Roots
2. Rhythms
3. Rule
4. Roles
5. Relationships
6. Rituals
See text p. 214
Problems, Conflict, and Power
What do you thing is the most common problem in marriage?
 Communication was most frequently mentioned
 Jealousy was thought to be the largest issue
Conflict Theory suggest: Nature of intimate relationships & changing
roles of men & women in a diverse-post industrial society such as
Canada's results in 3 related dilemmas for couple relationships
1. Individual verses collective interest
2. Women’s rights verses male entitlement
3. “mine” verse “yours”
Many of these issues revolve around two things:
 Division of labour
 Expressive quality of the relationship
Bibliography
 Holloway, Maureen, Holloway,G., Witte, J. (2003)
Individuals and Families in a Diverse Society. McGrawHill Ryerson., Toronto.
http://sitemaker.umich.edu/psy457_lamyiu/sternberg_s_the
ory_of_love