Popul Res Policy Rev DOI 10.1007/s11113-013-9294-5
Who Marries Whom? Changing Mate Selection Preferences in Urban India and Emerging Implications on Social Institutions Ravi Prakash • Abhishek Singh
Received: 30 October 2012 / Accepted: 1 July 2013 Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013
Abstract Marriages in India, since the early period, are mostly characterized by family-arranged marriages where parents and family members take a prime responsibility in overall mate-selection process. Modern education has brought greater access to economic resources as well as media exposure among men and women of the present generation. These have also been found as contributing factors to late marriages, diminishing role of parents in mate selection, increased prevalence of self-selected marriages and greater space for personal choices in mate-selection process in most parts of the developed world. Evidence that has explored whether such choices are emerging in the societies traditionally characterized by family-arranged marriages and what are the implications of ongoing changes in mate-selection process on the present marriage market and on other social institutions are limited. Drawing on data from 544 married and unmarried young men and women and their parents from a traditional Indian society, we explore the ongoing changes in mate-selection preferences and its implication on various social institutions. Findings suggest that there is a growing evidence of valuing the economic potential, trustworthiness, equal temperament, physical look, and intelligence of the prospective partner among men and women of the present generation. The emergence of specific preferences also possesses great implication on the other social institutions because of increased divorced, increase in selfselected marriages, and delayed child bearing if the choices of men and women were not considered at the time of marriage.
R. Prakash (&) Poverty, Gender & Youth Division, Population Council, India Habitat Center, Zone-5A, Ground Floor, Lodi Road, New Delhi 110003, Delhi, India e-mail:
[email protected];
[email protected] A. Singh Department of Public Health & Mortality Studies, International Institute for Population Sciences, Govandi Station Road, Deonar, Mumbai 400088, Maharashtra, India
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Keywords Mate-selection preferences Mate-selection process, marriage market Cross-generational changes
Introduction The institution of marriage presents criticality of the Indian social structure. Being one of the oldest civilizations in the world, this institution contains countless inherent cultural values and norms representing the diversity in Indian social structure. According to Hindu ideologies, men and women begin to enjoy a desirable status in the society only after they get married and, woman who dies unmarried is never given a full crematory rite (Kapadia 1958). Thus, in the Indian culture, marriage is considered as must for everyone, and celibacy is not encouraged (Ross 1961). Mate selection or choosing a life partner is perhaps the most important choice an individual ever makes (Lykken and Tellegen 1993). According to Oppenheimer (1988), a satisfactory match can be achieved in two different but complementary ways. First way is the individualized selection where individuals are allowed to choose their partner based on the similar or complementary traits that they (or sometimes their parents) both value, and the second is the adaptive socialization where the existing traits of one or both partners get modified after marriage to improve the quality of relationship. While first way of selecting a partner is more prevalent in developed societies, latter one is the case in many traditional societies with marked gender roles wherein workforce is limited to men. Oppenheimer (1988) further argues that the mate-selection process starts drifting from the second approach toward the first approach when the adult economic roles of men and women start converging as a result of women’s emancipation from their typical household roles. This is the time when individuals, or sometimes their parents, start matching some specific traits to have a satisfactory match. Assortative match-making can be positive or negative. Positive match-making occurs for traits that are complements—for example, education, intelligence, attractiveness, and so forth. On the contrary, negative match-making would be optimal for (traits that are) substitutes such as wage earning power (Becker 1974, 1977, 1981). Other scholars largely attribute the matching of the bride’s and the groom’s social characteristics to the rules of endogamy and exogamy (Buss et al. 2001). Literature spanning from the olden days to the modern world suggests that, owing to strong dominance of a patriarchal social structure in most of the traditional societies, marriage rules were much stricter and more applicable for women compared with men (Merchant 1935; Ross 1961; Goode 1963; Vogel 1965; Mitchell 1971; Matras 1973; Cheung et al. 1985). The low status of women again put them in a disadvantageous position, and their choices during the selection process were often ignored (Das 1975). There is evidence from the western world that showed a shift in mechanism of selecting a partner from the second approach to the first approach; a preliminary review of such evidence unfolds various aspects of human mate selection (Feingold 1992; Kenrick 1994; Eagly and Wood 1999) including the attributes that men and
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women prefer in their potential mate (Howard et al. 1987). Studies also provide evidence on how mate preferences have undergone changes with the changing outlook of the society. For example, selection of a partner with some basic attributes was the prime responsibility of parents, and these criteria were guided by a variety of attributes, such as height, weight, religion, race, education, and income, etc. (Brim 1968; Rubin 1973; Silventoinen et al. 2003; Montoya et al. 2008; He et al. 2013). However, with the passage of time, matching of the characteristics of the groom with that of the bride became more common to understand the compatibility between the bride and groom. There is also evidence to show that to establish a stable long-term partnership, individuals adjust their mate preferences according to their own relative quality (Busten and Elmen 2003). In a way, both sexes preferably look for the traits that they desire in the other sex by offering the desirable traits that they possess (Buss and Schmitt 1993; Miller and Todd 1998; Todd et al. 2007). Again these traits included battery of attributes starting from perceived similarity with the partner in terms of attitudes to similar views and interests (Stack 1996). Historically, India has been observing the second way of satisfactory matchmaking where grooms were typically selected based on the potential future prospects of their family. However, with the dissolution of differentiated gender roles and with larger participation of women in typical labor market, there has been a major shift toward assortative match-making and a new definition of an ideal marriage partner has emerged mostly among the educated and elite groups. Although, such evidence from Indian society are rarely documented, few studies highlight the fact that there seems to be a deviation from traditional and familyoriented values to the sense of individualism, and personal traits like, honesty, sincerity, character, talent, broad-mindedness, and higher financial and occupational status get priority while finalizing the marriage proposal (Rao and Rao 1990). Parents have also increasingly started giving due importance to the desires and expectations of their children, especially their daughters, while matching the traits of partners (Chowdhury 2007). Individual’s preferences and romantic orientations have gained importance over family status and reputation (Kane 1974; Gupta 1976; Bomabwala and Ramanamma 1981; Kurian 1986) and indicate that social class has started dominating over social caste (Prakash 2011). Given the lack of systematic research on changing mate preferences in India and given the fact that mate-selection preferences have implications for age at marriage and marital stability, the present study aims at addressing the following pertinent questions: (i) whether at all, men and women of the present generation have any specific desire about their mates and whether new desires are emerging over time or over generations?; (ii) whether men and women of two generations differ in terms of their desires?; (iii) are the desires of unmarried men and women differ from married men and women of the same generation?; and (iv) are there any preferences that remained constant over the period of time? We hypothesize that individuals of the younger generation are more likely to value the economic potentials and attributes like physical attractiveness of the spouses as against caste and religion that were well valued among the older generation.
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Data and Methods Study Area and Survey The data for the present study come from a primary survey, conducted in urban areas of Varanasi city of Uttar Pradesh during 2007. Literature search clearly suggests that the ongoing changes in the mate-selection process are more visible either in developed society or in those developing societies which are well exposed to modernization. This was the reason behind the selection of Varanasi as a study area because this city is considered as the cultural capital of India and at the same time is well exposed to the effects of modernization. Increasing urbanization, rising literacy rates, and increased participation of women in the labor market provide some clues to the acceptance of modernization in this traditional city. Participants The survey collected detailed individual-level information on different dimensions of mate selection along with education, employment history, decision-making, parent–child relationship and intrafamilial environment, from 544 individuals (264 men aged 21–34 years and 280 women aged 18–29 years). The response rates were 88 and 93 % for men and women, respectively. Sample included both married and unmarried respondents. In the survey, information was also collected from the parents of these respondents (except married women) for the better understanding of persisting mate-selection process at the time of their marriage. Although the target was to interview the parents of all men and the parents of unmarried women, only 72 parents could be interviewed mostly due to the unavailability of parents at home at the time of interview. Other than the quantitative survey, 24 in-depth interviews were also conducted to get more insights from individuals and their parents on different dimensions of mate selection such as a mode of selection, main decisionmaker involved in finalizing the marriage proposals, involvement of individuals in mate-selection process, and a few other dimensions such as dowry. A multistage stratified random sampling was used to select households for interview. At the first stage, out of total 90 wards, top six wards (well-defined small level census units) arranged from the highest to the lowest level of female literacy were selected purposively. The criteria of selecting the wards on the basis of female literacy were adopted to get enough number of educated women in the sample. Since existing evidence suggests that most of the changes in mate-selection process are observed among educated women, the level of female literacy as a wardselection criterion was quite justifiable. The level of female literacy ranged between 74 and 81 % in these selected wards. At the second stage, a total of 12 census enumeration blocks (CEBs) were selected randomly (two from each of the six selected wards). Of the two CEBs from each block, one CEB was assigned for interview of men while the other for women. This strategy was adopted to avoid interview of husband and wife from the same household. A complete house-listing of all the households belonging to the 12 CEBs was carried out. Few questions were included in the house-listing format to know whether the listed households contain
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any eligible respondent in the household. The required number of eligible households was selected, thereafter, using systematic random sampling method from the list of households containing at least one eligible respondent. In total, 1,340 households were listed in 12 CEBs out of which about 45 % households (608 households) contained at least one eligible respondent from either category. In case of households with more than one respondent of the same category, KISH table was used to select one eligible respondent of the same category. The data were, finally, collected from 519 households with a household response rate of 85.4 %. The final sample size for the respondents of five categories was as follows—married men (Nmm = 119), unmarried men (Num = 145), married women (Nmw = 140), unmarried women (Nuw = 140), and parents of eligible respondents (Np = 72). Instruments In total, six schedules (household, married men, unmarried men, married women, unmarried women, and parents schedule) were canvassed for data collection. These schedules captured information on individual and parental levels from various households. The unique feature of these data was that married respondents and their parents were asked to respond on questions related to the marriage and socioeconomic status prevailing at the time of their marriage rather than at the time of the survey. This was done to get an idea about the socioeconomic circumstances under which they agreed for their marriage. We used the mate-selection criteria schedule developed by Hill (1945), with some modifications, to capture the preferred characteristics of men and women in their spouse. Question on mate-selection preferences included: ‘‘whether the respondent had any preferred characteristics about their partner at the time of marriage?’’ Among those who said yes, question was further asked to rank 16 difference characteristics of a mate on a four-point scale (3 = indispensable, 2 = important, 1 = desirable, and 0 = unimportant) according to their own preferences. These characteristics were physical attractiveness, good financial prospect, pleasing nature, same liking, socially popular, similar educational background, similar job/earning, emotionally even and stable, ambitious, mutual attraction and love, domestic skill, good health, intelligent, faithful/dependable character, same caste, and the same religion. Statistical Methods Different statistical methods were used to address the research questions stated before. For example, multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) technique was used to test the hypothesis that individuals of the younger generation are more likely to value the economic potentials and attributes like physical attractiveness of the spouses as against caste and religion that were well valued among the older generation by examining the combined effect of sex and generation on 16 preferred characteristics. For the first research question, we used Z test which diagnosed, over the generations, the statistical significance of the differences in proportion of respondents reported any preferred characteristics in their mate at the time of mate-
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selection process. To analyze the second and third research questions on changes in specific mate preferences across the generations and within the same generation by sex and marital status, the mean values of each preference were compared. Independent t test was used to examine the significant differences in the reporting of the 16 preferred attributes among respondents of different sub-groups. Further, significant main effects were followed by possible post hoc comparisons using Tukey test to examine differences in means of the preferred attributes among respondents of different sex and marital status. The cross-generational continuity in relative valuation of the 16 attributes were assessed by the Spearman correlation coefficients using the ranks of each preferred attributes, separately, for the successive marriage cohorts and for the respondents of both sex. To measure the economic status of the household, we generated an asset-based index (Montogomery et al. 2000; Filmer and Pritchett 2001; Vyas and Kumaranayake 2006; Mohanty 2010) using the principal component analysis (PCA). From the composite index, a percentile distribution of asset-based score was estimated by dividing the score into three equal parts: low, medium, and high. The analysis was conducted using STATA 10 (Statacorp 2007).
Results Sample Profile Table 1 presents socioeconomic and demographic characteristics of surveyed respondents and their parents. The mean age of the younger generation respondents ranged between a minimum of 22 years for unmarried women to a maximum of 29 years for married men. A majority of respondents were Hindu, belonged to socioeconomically progressive castes (other than scheduled castes and other backward class), and were from nuclear families. Most of the unmarried women (78 %) were from nuclear households compared to the other three types of respondents (50 % married men, 64 % unmarried men, and 66 % married women). A relatively higher proportion of married and unmarried men (36 %) belonged to the middle class households in contrast to married and unmarried women who mostly belonged to the low (37 %) and high economic class households (43 %), respectively. Almost all the respondents belonging to the younger generation were well educated irrespective of their sex and marital status. On an average, respondents of the younger generation had 15 years of schooling. Gender differences in work participation were fairly visible, while differences in mean age at initiation of work by marital status were not statistically significant. The mean age at initiation of work varied from 21 years among unmarried men to 23 years among married men and married women. Table 1 also presents characteristics of the parents interviewed in the study. On an average, parents of the eligible respondents were aged 50 years or more and were educated only up to the 12th standard. Only a little less than half (47 %) of the parents were engaged in full-fledged economic activity at the time of the survey.
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Who Marries Whom? Table 1 Selected socioeconomic characteristics of surveyed respondents Socio-economic characteristic
Younger generation (children)
Older generation (parents)
MM (21–34)
UM (21–34)
MW (18–29)
UW (18–29)
29.1
24.1
26.1
21.5
49.9
92.4
92.4
94.3
95.7
93.8
7.5
7.6
5.7
4.3
6.3
Scheduled caste
16.8
14.5
4.3
2.2
9.2
Other backward class
32.8
25.5
20.7
16.5
23.6
Other
50.4
60.0
75.0
81.3
67.2
Mean age at the time of survey (in years) Religion Hindu Non-Hindu Caste
Household structurea Non-nuclear
49.6
35.9
33.6
22.1
34.7
Nuclear
50.4
64.1
66.4
77.9
65.3
Low
34.5
31.7
37.1
28.6
32.9
Middle
36.1
36.5
35.0
28.6
34.0
High
29.4
31.7
27.9
42.8
33.1
Household economic standard indexa
b
Mean years of schooling
14.6 (2.6)
14.6 (2.3)
14.5 (2.7)
14.7 (2.1)
12.4 (3.9)
Percentage working in last 12 months
60.5
54.5
16.4
22.8
46.6
Type of workc Only paid
92.8
76.5
Only unpaid
7.2
22.1
0.0
0.0
na
Both paid and unpaid
0.0
1.5
0.0
0.0
na
Mean age at first paid job
22.8
21.1
22.9
21.6
N
119
145
100
140
100
140
na
na 72
For married respondents (MM, MF, and Parents) the whole information refers to their situation at the time of marriage na not available, MM married men, UM unmarried men, MW married women, UW unmarried women a
For married women, information is gathered about their parental family
b
Figure in parenthesis refers to standard deviation
c
Among those who worked in last 12 months
Magnitude of Desire About Specific Preferences and Changes Across Generations In this section, we analyzed the responses of young men, women, and their parents to address the first research question that whether men and women of both the generations had any specific desires about their prospective mate’s characteristics and whether these desires varied across the generations. For unmarried respondents,
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the question on specific desires related to a future event, while for married individuals and their parents, it corresponded to their desires at the time of their marriage. Results did not reveal any significant differences in having specific preferences about their partner at the time of their selection among men and women of two generations (Fig. 1). However, data do provide significant differences in specific preferences across the respondents of different marital statuses within the same generation (Figs. 2, 3, 4, 5). For instance, compared with 74 % married respondents of the younger generation, about 82 % unmarried respondents belonging to the younger generation reported about any specific attribute which they preferred in their prospective mate at the time of marriage. This difference was statistically significant at 5 % level of significance. A statistically significant difference in having specific desires about the possible partner was evident by marriage (only for married respondents) and birth (only for unmarried respondents) cohorts. The extent to which such desires were prevailing among the respondents of the younger generation was found to be consistently increasing across the birth cohorts (for men), whereas the pattern was not consistent across the marriage cohorts. For example, among young men who got married before the year 2000, 69 % reported about specific desires in their mate. The proportion of such men increased in the next marriage cohorts (73 % in 2000–2002) but again decreased to 72 % in 2003–2005 marriage cohorts. On the other hand, among the unmarried young men, prevalence consistently increased from 73 % in 1976–1980 birth cohorts to 91 % in 1986 or later birth cohorts (p \ 0.05). The existence of specific desires among women did not vary significantly across the marriage or birth cohorts. Difference in Specific Preferences Table 2 presents the means, standard deviations, and the ranks of various preferred attributes separately for the respondents of younger and older generations by sex.
100 90
84 78
% had preference
80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Older generation
Younger generation
Fig. 1 Percentage of respondents reported about desire of specific characteristics in prospective mate across generations [N = 72 (Older generation), 544 (Younger generation)]
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Who Marries Whom? 100 90
79
% had preference
80
78
70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Men
Women
Fig. 2 Percentage of younger generation respondents reporting about desire of specific characteristics in prospective mate by sex (N = 544) 100 90
82 74
% had preference
80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0
Married
Unmarried
Fig. 3 Percentage of younger generation respondents reporting about desire of specific characteristics in prospective mate by marital status (N = 544) 100
84
90
% had preference
80
72
76
80
70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 MM
MW
UM
UW
Fig. 4 Percentage of younger generation respondents reporting about desire of specific characteristics in prospective mate by sex and marital status [N = 544]
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% had preference
R. Prakash, A. Singh 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0
69
72
1999
73
80
20002002
72 75
20032005
79
84 83 75
73
19761980
2006
Men
19811985
91 77
1986
Women
Fig. 5 Percentage of younger generation respondents reporting about desire of specific characteristics by marriage cohorts (for married respondents, first pane) and birth cohorts (for unmarreid respondents, second pane) (N = 544)
Findings unfold significant differences in various preferred attributes about their partner across the two generations. The results of MANOVA suggested that the generation of the respondents from which they belong and their sex had a significant association with change in various characteristic (F (1,16) = 34.13 and F (1,16) = 13.42, respectively, p \ 0.001 for both the variables) over the generations. For example, compared with men from the older generation, younger generation men preferred to have wives with good financial prospects, a pleasing nature, economic stability, and who are ambitious and intelligent. In contrast, older men preferred wives who came from the same caste and religion and who had domestic skills. Similar to men, women belonging to the younger generation differed from women in the older generation in their greater preferences for their husbands with good financial prospect, faithful/dependable character, intelligence, and physical character. However, there were no significant differences between younger and older women in the importance they attached to religion and caste. Differences Within the Younger Generation by Sex and Marital Status Table 3 presents the preferences of the four groups in the younger generation: married men, unmarried men, married women, and unmarried women, and the relative rankings of preferences for each group. The rankings show some heterogeneity across the groups, but there were a few characteristics that were valued highly by all groups. Faithful/dependable character was ranked fourth, first, first, and second among the four groups, respectively. Good financial prospect was ranked second, second, third, and first. There were other characteristics that had relatively low rankings among the groups, including same liking, similar job/ earnings, economic stability, and ambitiousness.
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Who Marries Whom? Table 2 Descriptive statistics for preferences of younger and older generation population, by sex Preferred characteristic of mate
Men
Women
Younger generation
Older generation
Younger generation
Older generation
Mean
SD
Mean
SD
Mean
SD
Mean
SD
Physical attractivenessb
2.57
0.76
2
2.53
0.83
4
2.56
0.70
5
1.78
1.08
9
Good financial prospecta,b
2.54
0.74
3
1.00
0.85
11
2.75
0.59
1
2.50
0.85
3
Pleasing naturea,b
2.18
0.95
9
1.50
1.02
10
2.35
0.73
8
1.97
1.03
6
Same likinga,b
1.77
1.00
11
1.00
1.07
12
2.32
0.82
9
1.85
1.01
8
Socially popularb
1.09
1.11
15
0.71
1.20
14
2.17
0.87
11
1.46
1.10
10
Similar educational backgroundb
1.85
1.05
10
1.57
1.16
9
1.80
1.09
14
0.85
0.78
15
Rank
Rank
Rank
Rank
Similar job/earnings
0.76
0.98
16
0.36
0.74
16
1.08
1.03
16
0.76
0.97
16
Economically even and stablea,b
1.69
0.95
12
0.92
1.04
13
2.00
0.78
12
1.32
0.91
12
Ambitiousa,b
1.38
1.11
14
0.38
0.77
15
1.93
0.83
13
1.28
0.91
13
Mutual attraction and loveb
2.35
0.75
6
2.08
0.95
7
2.26
0.86
10
1.42
0.97
11
Domestic skillsa,b
1.69
0.99
13
2.94
0.25
3
1.50
1.05
15
0.90
0.97
14
Good healthb
2.39
0.70
4
2.44
0.81
6
2.39
0.80
7
1.92
1.00
7
Intelligenta,b
2.29
0.83
7
1.67
1.29
8
2.70
0.59
3
2.16
0.92
5
Faithful/dependable characterb
2.67
0.62
1
2.47
0.64
5
2.77
0.53
2
2.41
0.90
4
Same castea
2.27
1.09
8
3.00
0.00
1
2.49
0.85
6
2.73
0.76
2
Same religiona
2.37
0.98
5
3.00
0.00
1
2.62
0.73
4
2.81
0.63
1
a
Differences in preferred characteristic of mate among men of younger and older generation are significant at 5 % level of significance
b Differences in preferred characteristic of mate among women of younger and older generation are significant at 5 % level of significance
There were similarity and differences in the preferred characteristics across the individuals of different marital status and were specific to each sex. For example, the characteristics among men that showed the greatest differences between married and unmarried groups include same caste and the same religion, which were ranked the highest by married men while the lowest by unmarried men. On the other hand, among women, the unmarried ranked physical attractiveness and a pleasing nature more highly than do the married. Stability and Change in Mate-Selection Criteria Over Marriage Cohorts The above findings clearly give a clue about generational shifts in mate preferences which largely varied across the respondents of different sex and marital status. To discuss the fourth research question, namely, which are the attributes that occupied almost the same rank across the marriage cohorts, irrespective of the observed cultural shifts in the society, we analyzed the actual changes and continuity in the
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R. Prakash, A. Singh Table 3 Descriptive statistics for preferences of younger generation population, by sex and marital status Preferred characteristic of mate
Married men Mean
SD
Physical attractivenessa,b
2.63
0.65
Good financial prospect
2.76
0.57
Pleasing natureb
2.16
Same likingb
1.88
Unmarried men Rank
Rank
Married women
Unmarried women
Mean
SD
Mean
SD
Mean
SD
Rank
Rank
5
2.47
0.79
3
2.48
0.73
7
2.64
0.68
3
2
2.50
0.84
2
2.74
0.61
3
2.75
0.56
1
0.93
9
2.20
0.96
7
2.24
0.81
10
2.45
0.63
6
0.98
10
1.70
1.00
11
2.47
0.69
8
2.18
0.91
11
Socially popular
1.10
1.05
16
1.08
1.15
15
2.11
0.82
11
2.23
0.92
9
Similar educational background
1.84
1.08
11
1.87
1.03
10
1.65
1.09
14
1.91
1.09
14
Similar job/earnings
0.83
1.02
12
0.72
0.97
16
0.98
0.95
16
1.16
1.08
16
Economically even and stable
1.73
0.94
13
1.66
0.97
13
2.04
0.75
12
1.97
0.81
12
Ambitious
1.38
1.10
15
1.38
1.13
14
1.89
0.79
13
1.97
0.86
13
Mutual attraction and love
2.38
0.69
6
2.34
0.80
6
2.35
0.82
9
2.20
0.89
10
Domestic skills
1.70
0.93
15
1.68
1.04
12
1.45
1.13
15
1.54
1.00
15
Good healthb
2.37
0.80
7
2.41
0.63
4
2.52
0.77
6
2.26
0.81
8
Intelligent
2.26
0.83
8
2.32
0.83
5
2.77
0.52
2
2.63
0.66
4
Faithful/dependable character
2.68
0.60
4
2.60
0.64
1
2.81
0.45
1
2.72
0.61
2
Same castea
2.81
0.54
1
1.90
1.21
9
2.62
0.74
5
2.35
0.93
7
Same religiona
2.75
0.58
3
2.12
1.10
8
2.73
0.58
4
2.50
0.86
5
a
Differences in preferred characteristic of mate among married and unmarried men are significant at 5 % level of significance
b Differences in preferred characteristic of mate among married and unmarried women are significant at 5 % level of significance
preferences among married respondents across four marriage cohorts depending on the year of their marriage (Table 4). Since for unmarried men and women these responses were still their expectations and not the actual behavior, we did not include them in the analysis. Shifts in Mate-Selection Criteria Results, presented in Table 4, reveal a general decrease in the valuation of caste among the respondents of both sexes. In contrast, a general decrease in the valuation of good health was observed among men, while for women, it leaped up the ladder. The economic potential of spouse was relatively more preferred by the married men belonging to the recent marriage cohorts. In addition to the shifts that occurred in the responses of male and female respondents, several shifts were unique to each of the two sexes. For married men, there was an overall increase in the valuation of ‘‘faithful/dependable character’’ and ‘‘mutual attraction and love’’ while overall
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6———
Good health
11———
12
13
14
15
16
Same liking
Good financial prospect
Similar educational background
Economically even and stable
Ambitious
Socially popular
Similar job/earnings
15
16
13
10
11
14———
12
8
9
7———
6———
2———
4———
5
1———
3———
2000–2002
16
15
14
12
11
13———
10
8
9
6———
7———
5———
4———
3
1———
2———
2003–2005
16
15
14
13
11
9
10
8
7
5
12
1
6
2
4
3
C2006
Similar job/earnings
Domestic skills
Similar educational background
Socially popular
Ambitious
Economically even and stable
Mutual attraction and love
Pleasing nature
Good health
Physical attractiveness
Same liking
Intelligent
Same religion
Same caste
Good financial prospect
Faithful/dependable character
Preferred characteristic of mate
16
15
14———
13———
12———
11———
10
9
8———
7
6———
5———
4
3———
2
1
B1999
Women
16
14
15———
12———
13———
11———
10
9
7———
8
4———
2———
5
6———
3
1
2000–2002
16
15
14———
9———
12———
13———
7
11
8———
5
10———
4———
3
6———
1
2
2003–2005
16
15
12
8
14
13
11
9
4
6
10
3
5
7
2
1
C2006
Table refers to the married respondents of only younger generation. Rank connected by dashed lines highlight a preference change of at least two ranks from the first to last marriage cohorts
9
10
Intelligent
7———
5———
Faithful/dependable character
8
4———
Physical attractiveness
Pleasing nature
3
Same religion
Mutual attraction and love
1———
2———
Same caste
B1999
Men
Domestic skills
Preferred characteristic of mate
Table 4 Rank ordering of mate preferences across different marriage cohorts by respondent’s sex
Who Marries Whom?
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decrease in the valuation of ‘‘domestic skills’’ across the marriage cohorts. On the other hand, among women, an overall increase was observed in the valuation of ‘‘intelligence,’’ ‘‘good health,’’ ‘‘social popularity,’’ and ‘‘similarity in the educational background’’ while an overall decrease was observed in valuation of ‘‘same liking,’’ ‘‘economic similarity and stability,’’ and ‘‘ambitiousness.’’ Continuities in Mate Selection Criteria Despite several generational shifts, some of the attributes appeared to attain the same level of continuity in their valuation across the four marriage cohorts. The continuity in the preferred attributes was more among men than women. Table 4 shows emergence of new attributes over the years among women and suggest that they are becoming choosier in recent days and prefer to have a partner with a combination of attributes. For example, the attributes like, economic stability, being ambitious, social popularity, and similar job/earning were highly rated by those women who got married in the recent years than those who got married almost 10 years before the survey. Contrary to women, men continue to stick to some basic attributes while selecting their partners. The result of Spearman’s correlation analysis suggests an average correlation of the order 0.95, ranging from 0.93 to 0.98 in the men sample. Similarly, average correlation in women sample was 0.91, ranging from 0.86 to 0.96 across all the four marriage cohorts. These correlation coefficients suggested a substantial continuity in relative valuation of the 16 characteristics, for both men and women belonging to each of the four marriage cohorts. Emerging New Trends in Marriages and Social Implications Many of the aforementioned results suggest that the classic standards of long-term human mate choice in traditional Indian culture is under a wave of transition and are being mostly influenced by western ideologies. The norms of forming the nuptial relationships are changing with greater attention being attached to the mate’s characteristics, and this was not usually the case few decades ago. Not only men, but women also prefer to select their partners based on those traits which are similar to themselves across a number of characteristics (Shaffer and Bazzini 1997). Although it is important to bring gender egalitarian environment in overall mate-selection process, we intend to highlight that the an assortative mating on a trait-by-trait basis, especially among women, may add more complexities to overall mate-selection process and may have implications on various social institutions including the institution of marriage itself. In this section, we attempt to shed light on a few such implications, mostly, in terms of emergence of some new trends in marriage that may arise as a result of changes in overall mate-selection process and its implications on some of the other social institutions. Emergence of Intercaste Marriages The changing mate-selection preferences may have implications in terms of emergence of cross-ethnic marriages. Marriages in India have traditionally been
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closely related to the caste hierarchy and caste endogamy (Klass 1980; Srinivas 1989; Millner 1994; Uberoi 1994; Derne 1995; Srinivas 2002; Kolenda 2003). Though, intercaste marriages exist in Indian society, their proportion is low because such marriages have no social sanction in the traditional Indian society. Our findings suggest that as women have started expressing their preferences related to their future partners, it is more likely that ‘‘caste’’ or ‘‘religion’’ may not continue to hold their importance in the marriage market. The reason is, if getting a spouse with high economic prospects is the most important criterion for a woman to marry and if she fails to get such partner within the same caste, she may go out of her own caste and can marry to a man of another caste. The same might be applicable to men as well. The possibility of such marriages (intercaste) becomes stronger if men or women prefer to see a combination of characteristics in their partner and there is every possibility that they will find it hard to get such combination in their own caste. Chauhan (2007) reported that the form of marriage did not remain static but still continued to retain some of the traditional elements like caste. For example, following advertisements in the leading newspapers indicate how caste acts as a crucial factor. ‘‘Invited: match for a Ramdasia Scheduled Caste boy, 27/50 1000 ; Class I civil engineer; from tall, fair beautiful well-educated girl’’ [The Times of India, January 10, 1999:9] ‘‘Dhobi [the lower caste of a washerman] boy, B.E. [Bachelor in Engineering] 29/160, Government job, Rupees 10K wants vegetarian, religious girl’’ [The Times of India, September 12, 2004:7] Contrary to above, there were few other advertisements which ignored the caste factor and continued to rely on other traits like physical appearance and personality along with added elements of education and employment status. Such advertisements became more visible in recent years and now find a prominent place in leading newspapers/dailies. ‘‘Alliance invited from Chartered Accountants/MBA/Professional boy from a good family for 22/160 Charter Accountant girl, very fair, slim, beautiful, pleasing personality, sharp features’’ [The Times of India, January 17, 1999:14] ‘‘Wanted: Administrative services, professionals, suitable match for graceful, poised, fair, slim, beautiful girl, 50 200 /24 years, finance/MBA boy belongs to a reputed family’’ [The Times of India, January 17, 1999:14] The growing number of such advertisements clearly depicts that marriages outside one’s caste may grow in the future. In earlier era when marriages were mostly fixed via close mediators, one could not expect to overlook the parents who rarely relied on other channels of fixing the marriage like newspaper, media, etc. Thus, such advertisements were relatively rare. Now, such advertisements appear in plenty, and there are web-portals to help in fixing marriages. The mushrooming of such advertisements and portals clearly hints toward the fact that getting a suitable match only with the help of mediators and within the same caste may not remain the only criterion and such social changes are likely to change the outlook of the marriage market in the near future.
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Emergence of Self-Selected Marriages It is often believed that increased level of education, equal employment opportunity, and modernization have brought greater participation of men and women in mateselection process, their say about specific traits of spouse, and inclination toward self-selection (Yabiku 2005; Ghimire et al. 2006). Therefore, individuals carrying ‘‘defined characteristics’’ about their partner may also turn up with self-selected marriages. Studies done in the past provide increasing evidence of self-selected marriages in India (FPAI and SCERT 1993; Sachdev 1997) and mostly among those who had specific preferences for their prospective mates at the time of marriage (Prakash 2011). Findings from a recent large-scale study do confirm that, among those who had someone in their mind to marry, a large proportion of them had selfselected marriages especially among females, young individuals, and who had completed their study (International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS) and Population Council (PC) 2010). Some of the following narrations, collected during in-depth interviews, also show young people’s preferences about their partners and recognition of such preferences by their parents to a large extent. According to the narrative of 47-year-old mother of an unmarried woman ‘‘During my time it was not permitted to marry outside the caste. In one or two cases if girls were allowed to marry outside her caste then also only with the boy of upper caste (or sub-caste).’’ Person with lots of land and property were preferred. Employed persons were not preferred because it was believed that only poor and landless men go for an outside job. But, now-a-days, the situation has changed and the majority of the boys belonging to the younger generation are studying and getting good jobs. They are also looking for partners of the same kind and prefer to select them by their own.’’ These narrations show the glimpse of future marriage market with a lot of willingness to choose a partner according to their own preferences with an expectation that families will support their decision. In some cases, parents also want to support their children, but it becomes difficult for them to accept the proposal given by their children after looking into the ingrained rigid social norms of marriage within the society. Implication on Marital Ties and Marital Relationships Studies have shown a significant association between the types of marriage arrangement (family-arranged vs. self-selected) and the level of marital discussion and women’s agency. Young married women who had self-arranged marriage were more likely to have better spousal discussion and sense of agency than those who had family-arranged marriage (Jejeebhoy et al. 2012). Further, the interaction of respondents with their spouse before marriage also made differences. Marital life was happier among individuals to whom partner was either well known or known to some extent (IIPS and PC 2010). It is not always true that self-selected marriages or marriage with a partner of similar characteristics would turn up in a fruitful relationship. With the increasing
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valuation of similarity in educational level, there is also a possibility of growing marital conflicts and conflicts of ego among the couples. Such conflict may further increase the likelihood of marital dissolution and separation. Data on marital dissolution from Mumbai suggest that the number of divorce cases is on the rise over the last two decades (Singh 2003). The risk of divorce was consistently higher among educated women of the period under study. In addition to this, younger couples were found to have higher divorce rate than the older couples. Study also suggested that 19 % of the divorces were because of temperamental differences among the partners (Singh 2003). It is, therefore, hard to predict whether the self-selected marriages or selection of a partner in accordance with the individual’s preferred choices will increase the marital harmony or there will be weakening of the tie in the marital relationships in the future marriages. Implication on Age at Marriage and Subsequent Demographic Behavior South (1993) argues that marital desire is an important predictor of marriage, and studies have often supported this claim (Witt et al. 1992; Lichter et al. 2004). Using Add Health data, Uecker and colleagues (2008) found that females, older young adults, having lower family income, those with lower educational trajectories, more religious, and cohabitants have higher marital desires, and were also likely to marry early. On the contrary, results from developing country note that the mean age at marriage was significantly higher among young individuals who had a desire about specific traits (Prakash 2011), who had participated in marriage related decisionmaking or whose marriages were based on the personal choices (IIPS and PC 2010). In some cases, where individuals were very particular about the specific characteristics in their partner, they were ready to postpone their marriage unless and until they get a spouse of their own preferences. Sharing her experience, an educated unmarried woman aged 22 years stated thus: ‘‘My elder sister could not continue her study after class eight. Due to some financial constraints and limited choices, as a result of less education, she got married to a casual laborer who remains unemployed most of the time.’’ About her own marriage she mentioned that ‘‘I will first complete my studies. I will agree to marry only if the boy has a permanent salaried job. I don’t mind if my age will increase in search of such a partner. If I do not get such a partner I will prefer to look a boy myself and I think my parents will understand and support my decision.’’ The above discussion also leads to one of the conclusions that both men and women are becoming more selective while finalizing their marriage proposals. Therefore, with emerging preferences and expectations about the potential partner, it will be difficult for men and women to get a suitable match and, if this is the case, marriage will be delayed until later ages, i.e., until they get a partner with the preferred attributes. Also, some people may not find an acceptable mate, which would probably raise the proportion of never marrying people than is currently the case.
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Discussion Using cross-generational primary data from a traditional society of India, this study makes a unique attempt to address the extent and nature of changes in desired characteristics about their prospective partners and tries to explore the possible implications of such changes on different social institutions. Although studies have documented the relationship between the recent gains in educational attainment (Deolalikar 1993) with delayed marriage (e.g., Gertler and Molyneaux 1994; Heaton 1996; Singh and Samara 1996; Malhotra 1997), increasing participation of individuals in the selection of spouse, and inclination toward self-selection and personal choice of spouse (Yabiku 2005; Ghimire et al. 2006); other studies have questioned the universal applicability of such modernization perspective in explaining nuptiality trends and emphasized on the powerful role played by cultural heritage even in the face of dramatic advances in education and standard of living. In the absence of adequate data on changing preferences, studies focusing on changes in mate-selection process and preferred characteristics remain limited. This study makes a systematic attempt to show the ongoing changes in defining an ideal marriage partner and implication of such changes on other social institutions mostly in urban India. Our findings clearly depict the sense of modern outlook guiding the mateselection process as well as defining the ideal marriage partner even in the traditional Indian societies. Both older and the younger generation respondents stated about specific characteristics which they wanted to have in their prospective mates at the time of marriage. More interestingly, not only men, women also preferred to have a mate with some specific traits. Such desires were found to be at higher extent among unmarried men and women in comparison to their married counterparts. Results of the nationally representative ‘‘Youth in India Study’’ do support our findings and reveal that men and women had someone with specific characteristics in their mind before marriage (IIPS and PC 2010) and compared with men, the extent of such reporting was higher among women, especially the unmarried ones in the three north and east Indian states of Rajasthan, Bihar, and Jharkhand which are very similar in context to our study area. The findings of this study accept our hypothesis that individual of the younger generation will value more to the traits like physical attractiveness, economic potentiality, and intelligence over the other social traits like caste or same religion etc. As seen in the result, individuals of the present generation prefer to look into the potentiality of a prospective mate rather than his/her familial background. Studies conducted in developed countries also support the finding that physical attractiveness has climbed up the ladder in recent decades (Buss et al. 2001; Whelan 2009). Greater demand of men for the attributes like physical attractiveness and of women for economic potential of a spouse are well supported by the studies that were conducted in developed world to show that the selectivity of mate preference should be conditional on self-perception. For example, Waynforth and Dunbar (1995) showed that women offering cues of physical attractiveness (and men offering resources) make overall higher demands in lonely hearts advertisements; Bereczkei et al. (1997) and others showed that female offering better physical conditions
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required higher financial and occupational status in potential mates (Todosijevic et al. 2003), and men having more demands about the potential partner’s physical attractiveness (Townsend and Levy 1990; Buss 1998). Despite increasing work participation and self-dependency of unmarried females, their preference for a partner with better financial prospect is bit surprising. However, this may attribute to the fact that in Indian society where men are still considered as primary bread earners in the family, by marrying a financially sound partner women intend to secure their future financially. Banerjee and their colleagues also argued that in developing countries, where many women do not work outside their homes, marriage is arguably the single most important determinant of a woman’s economic future (Banerjee et al. 2009). Another important result that shows an emerging change in recent marriage market is a deviation from caste endogamous marriages. Both men and women of the present generation are approaching to cross the barrier of caste and religion (to some extent) and are willing to adopt the new cultures and customs of different castes and religions. Studies note that although arranged, endogamous marriage still remains the norm in Indian society, both ideally and statistically, the mode of arrangement has changed because of increasing importance of the educational qualifications and employment of individual men and women (Fuller and Narasimhan 2008). Further, marriages have been progressively developed in recent years into a companionate form, mostly among the middle-class families, where couple’s happiness is regarded as vitally important. Hence, although arranged endogamous marriages remains the norm, intersubcaste unions are becoming more common and acceptable (Fuller and Narasimhan 2008). Our analysis also has some limitations. The study is limited only for the urban areas, restricting us from exploring the fact that, to what extent and in which form, the new changes are emerging in rural areas. Thus, the findings of the present study cannot be generalized. Second, a small sample size for the older generation (parents) restricted us from doing further in-depth analysis of the older generation population in terms of changing preferences over the generations. Finally, although we tried to show the changes in mate-selection preferences over time (even within the younger generation population by marriage and birth cohorts) using crosssectional data, we acknowledge that use of retrospective data as a proxy for analyzing mate-selection preferences in the past may, sometimes, yield a weak result.
Conclusions Despite these limitations, our study has made an important attempt in understanding the emerging generational changes in mate preferences and its implication on other social institutions in Indian context. Although the data for this study are drawn from an urban city which is typically traditional in nature, the city is well exposed to the cosmopolitan character. Hence, it is believed that the facts generated from this study are also likely to hold good, to a large extent, for the other urban Indian societies. The findings from this study has clearly highlighted that urban Indian society is
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changing fast, and so are the norms of the selection of the marriage partner, and exercising the preferences for mate selection is also changing even though there is a strong influence of cultural norms. Greater educational attainment increases the economic role of the younger generation within the family, and hence, resulting in greater autonomy in decision-making (Ghimire et al. 2006). Thus, modernization is likely to diminish both—the economic necessity for intergenerational exchange and the attendant transmission of traditional norms, including those related to marriage, household formation, and childbearing—that were previously reinforced by ethnicity-based and region-based distinctions in familial behavior. A theorized by-product of the modernization process is that, though the outlook of the future marriage market and the mechanism of mate selection are expected to change, it is more likely that desperate family formation patterns across diverse societies will converge on an increasingly homogeneous set of characteristics: later marriage, choice-based marriage partners, nuclear family living arrangements, and fewer births.
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